MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive53

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from~December 1, 2011 to~January 26, 2012 notes:

Why are the IDW books in G1?

Going by our own Continuity Family article the concept is pretty much akin to TvTropes Broad Strokes, a rough outline of somewhat similar events. If the IDW comics are explicitly stated to be a REBOOT of G1, how do they count as part of that continuity family if Animated and the Film Series dont, which ostensibly could also be called G1 Reboots. Classic aspects, such as the Ark/Nemesis Crash Landing and dormancy , Unicron's attack as seen in the movie (which was more or less is continuity across G1) and hell, even there Beast Wars don't really sync up with past Family history. Does a reboot of G1 really count as G1? Say what you will about Dreamwave, but at least they TRIED to fir it in to some semblance of G1 Continuity, this seems to be more like a full start over, akin to Aligned or RID ((before the Japanese got to it.) -Lush City

Uggghhhhhh. —Interrobang 16:09, 1 December 2011 (EST)

Yeahhh, you not understanding the concept of Continuity Families particularly well.--76.28.76.206 16:30, 1 December 2011 (EST)

Other continuities within the G1 continuity family also eschew some of those classic aspects. In Action Blast 1, for instance, the Autobots crash on present-day Earth and they don't hang around in stasis for millions of years. I don't think there's really a template of specific events that a G1 continuity has to stick to. That would hamper storytelling too much. --abates 16:59, 1 December 2011 (EST)

Also, they share a lot of the same characters, body designs, and personalities. Granted, some of them are common across the multiverse, but things like Megatron becoming a gun and Optimus Prime as a flatnosed tractor-trailer are distinctly G1-ish. Tom Servo the Great 17:29, 1 December 2011 (EST)

FYI: Previous discussion here. Yes, on the one hand, it is G1 because it uses the G1 cast of characters for the most part, and most of those pretty much have the same personality as their G1 bio card as on their G1 counterparts (with the significant exception of their gimmicks). On the other hand, an artist has said it is not G1, so it isn't entirely crazy to say it isn't G1. The universe itself doesn't seem particularly G1. It is like a different universe populated with G1 guys. The Micromasters aren't Cybertronain (I think), so a whole class of G1 Transformers aren't Transformers which sounds like a different universe. In short, it mostly makes sense for the wiki to organize it under G1 so they don't have to duplicate character pages with characters with mostly the same intro paragraph. But don't take it too seriously, it isn't official or anything. - Starfield 22:54, 1 December 2011 (EST)

No, that’s not what I’m saying. What I mean is that there seems to be no CANON justification for why IDW is considered G1. Especially because it lacks the links of similar G1 works, it’s never been verified as such by the creators (as far as I know) and it’s “G1-ness” is tentative at best.

IDW really doesn’t have as strong a link as or other G1 families. They all either were marketed as direct extensions to the original 80s ‘Toon and Comic adaptations (Gen 2 and Dreamwave ) established “next gen” sequels (Beast Era) Inserts into Gen 1 (Alternators and much of Japan’s stuff) Or add ons to particular points of the G1 timeline (Classics, Dreamwave) hell Timelines might count as a little bit of all of these. IDW really has no direct link.

That leaves us to the creators, and when it’s referred as such by them they use the term "reboot” or the like. Hell Simon Furman, architect of a large section of G1, straight up called it an ‘Ultimate’ version in his CBR interview. And Don Fig doesn’t consider it G1 at all.

Even then we look at why we call it G1 it causes all kinds of fallacies. Relying ion art style to tell families (as said in our very own article) leads to insanity, as characters change appearances across media ostensibly in eths same family all the time (for example WFC and Prime) likewise the “G1" aspects, such as personality, and looks, have been used both in the Transformers Film and Animated families, and yet we don’t consider them G1 despite both being just about the same kind of reboot on it IDW is. They incorporate a version of the Beast Ear into their timeline but assuming a connection with their main IDW addition, it’s just as differing as Aligned or Animated version of the Beast era would be.

I’m not trying to rock the boat I se4riously would just like to know if there’s any official, canon, or Hasbro/Creator data that states IDW as a version of G1, because right now I’m not seeing it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be seen as the "young turk" coming into old pros territory and rocking the boat against guys who have been studying this since before I was born, but I just picked up a bunch of Simon Furman stuff from [The old comics] as well as the big two volume IDW packs and they just don't fit at all. They're as different from G1 as the Films, Animated or RID are. I don't think we should makes assumptions and leaps of logic just for convenience's sake, kind belies the purpose of a wiki, ya know? -Lush City

This is a ridiculous amount of navel-gazing to get past the point that IDW continuity is just G1 in new dressing and not a new franchise of its own. —Interrobang 01:42, 2 December 2011 (EST)

By that terminology ALL of Transformers media is Just "g1 in a new dressing" by the virtue of G1 starting the franchise. -Lush City

That is not what I mean by "franchise". Please don't be obtuse. —Interrobang 02:05, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Considering new Generation 1 toys keep being made in the style of IDW design, that that firmly cements the stuff as being G1 in Hasbro's eyes. And the fact that they are constantly using Generation 1-style character aesthetics, personalizations and the freaking original font on the titles. --Detour 02:35, 2 December 2011 (EST)

The wiki's more confident about calling it G1 than even Hasbro, which calls the toys "Generations." Wiki organization is one thing, but we act more like it is a fact than it actually is. "Generation 1" doesn't really exist anymore. Hasbro is a little ashamed of it. Or at least doesn't want to pigeon-hole their toys and comics as being old-school. The 2005 IDW continuity page as a "Generation 1" logo on top. That doesn't really reflect reality which is more hazy. Maybe "Generations" is the new "Generation 1" or something. - Starfield 10:56, 2 December 2011 (EST)

To use your Simon Furman point against you, saying that IDW is not G1 is kind of like saying that Ultimate Marvel is not part of the Marvel Multiverse. It may be fairly different, but it is undeniably the same basic characters and situations. Also, I never have figured out why anyone really cares what the creative teams think, anything they say can be overruled by Hasbro at any time. Even after it has been published. Only Hasbro's opinion really matters.--Khajidha 11:07, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Discussed ad nauseum years ago. Nothing new has been added to the conversation since. Not changing. --M Sipher 05:13, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Aesthetics have already been disavowed as a valid ground for Continuity Pedigree, most notably with the Aligned Family. if Hasbro itself hasn’t recognized it as G1, hasn’t directly tied it to a previous G1 work, and if the writers and artists themselves don’t consider it G1, how is it legitimate to denote it as G1 based on our interpretation. Especially given such ethereal "evidence" as the looks of toys and fonts of all things.

Hasbro has yet to give any word. And also the Marvel analogy wont work, because while Marvel has but ONE Multiverse composed of several individual universes. The TF Multiverse is a collection of Universal Streams, each roughly following the same vents with several different interpretations over key events. It's like comparing diffirent versions of the Bible as rather than like comparing the Bible against the Koran.

M Sipher, would you do an FYI link? I've seen the discussion over on IDW Continuity’s Main page and the quibbles on the main Continuity Family but never any hard decree from an authority based on reasoning any more firm than convenience. I'm simply trying to hold IDW to the standards of the other G1 works on the wiki, all of which have in-canon links to versions of G1, or else are stated as such by the Companies. -Lush City

99% of all IDW characters are G1 characters, based on their original G1 counterparts. The different origins of some characters (Arcee) are no different than varying origins between the original cartoon and Marvel Comics (Grimlock, Technobots). Compared to the Aurex universes, where only Optimus, Megatron and Starscream consistently fit the G1 character archetypes, whereas most other characters are clearly just name reuses (Red Alert, Cyclonus, Jetfire, etc). Even Malgus and Tyran, both clearly closer to the G1 continuity than Aurex, have clearly distinctive character differences. IDW Bumblebee is clearly a variation on the original G1 Bumblebee, whereas Movie 'Bee and Animated Bumblebee are approximate extrapolations, see also Ironhide, Ratchet, Jazz, and so on.

IDW is a G1 universe that has expanded beyond the original G1 concepts, but not the characters themselves. Trying something new is not the same as abandoning the underlying foundation. --Xaaron 11:47, 2 December 2011 (EST)

I'm sure there are other examples, but Prowl, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe have appeared in their Universe Classics series bodies while Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp have appeared in their Masterpiece bodies. All of those are undoubted G1 toys. Either IDW is G1 or those toys are being repurposed. All things considered it seems most parsimonious to classify IDW as a part of G1. --Khajidha 11:56, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Masterpiece is a franchise. Classics series is G1^{continuity family} but it isn't G1^franchise. Unfortunately, "G1" can mean different things. Just so everyone is on the same page, the wiki treats IDW as being part of the G1 franchise. For example, on the 2005 IDW continuity it has the G1 franchise logo. Is that what this discussion is about, or is the discussion about if IDW is part of the G1 continuity family? - Starfield 12:28, 2 December 2011 (EST)

The original poster said continuity family. I do consider IDW a different franchise within the G1 continuity family. --Khajidha 12:39, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Oh, OK. Anyone else? Show of hands? - Starfield 14:04, 2 December 2011 (EST)

But does the use of Character analogous to G1 interpretations define it as a G1 series? This really comes don to whether we define continuity families as being overlays of roughly similar events (as in Tvtropes Broad Strokes) or whether we are tying versions of characters as the archetype from which it is based. If you're taking side new altmodes and differences like Goldbug and Galvatron is being "based" on G1 to a degree enough to allot status within the family? At that point we might as well make a spectrum of "G1-ness" and start arbitrarily cutting everything. As it stands now our definitions of Families are based off there uniqueness of story and universe content, and IDW differs significantly from any other G1 work. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 158.103.0.1 (talk • contribs).

So does Hearts of Steel. Shall we consider that a separate family as well? - Chris McFeely 13:11, 2 December 2011 (EST)

As the line of books it was from was cancled de jure that cnat really be elaborated on. (Although it's G1 staus was controversial to start with, it being the TF equivilant to a What if or Elseworlds) But HoS was never devolved as an obstensive reboot, rather an Alt-universe portyal that gets put in G1 by the same stroke as the Sg-verse. (if we diidnt have it's Universal Stream number to go by). IDW on the contrary was billed as a reboot, the same way aligned is being done now. Couple that with the radical (and debatedly unparalleled ) story alterations and you have apples and oranges. Though really teh entire "G1 by default" mindset is pretty off-putting. Heck it might even work as a really big Mirco-Contunity. Pardoxial as that sounds. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 158.103.0.1 (talk • contribs).

I was under the impression that the character archetypes were a major part of what makes a continuity family. These problems really only arise with G1 because it is the only family that has had multiple continuations and reboots and additions for decades after its debut. The RID, Unicron Trilogy and Animated continuity families have been pretty well limited to their original period of release (not entirely so but with only a few minor exceptions). --Khajidha 18:42, 2 December 2011 (EST)

I think this is really down to the fact that Continuity & Franchises is just too darn confusing. Not to mention that there can be disparate continuities within a franchise and different franchises can make up a continuity, all of which fit into the over-arching Continuity Family. Obviously there must be enough in common in order to include any new franchise into an existing Family, or to take the leap and create a new Continuity Family. Does new media have to have enough in common with the progenitor of a Continuity Family to be included? Or merely use aspects of the varying franchises of said Continuity Family? With G1 all of the supporting media has strayed from the originating cartoon, but kept enough characterizations, and broad timelines within the Family. RID, Animated, Aligned, etc have all maintained aspects of 'Transformers' but been significantly different from each other to establish there places as individual Continuity Families. Whereas IDW is disparate from these Families, and other than story lines (which have to change be definition) most closely fits G1. In order to argue IDW being a new Continuity Family you would have to prove that it is different enough from other existing Continuity Families & G1, which doesn't fit given the IDW timeline, characters and mythology, it is all based off of G1 franchises.Yuppie 19:04, 2 December 2011 (EST)

I just want to point out that the G1 cartoon ISN'T the "originating" source. That would be the TOYS. And the comic work came before the cartoon. So... yeah. --M Sipher 19:15, 2 December 2011 (EST)

That's right. Transformers is different than other fiction on TVTropes because the toys are the originating source and not storylines. Therefore the characters derived from the toys are the important thing. Even in things you would think so, like movies. If they came up with completely different fiction with the movie toylines cast, it would be the live action movie continuity family. So I think IDW is pretty clearly G1^{continuity family}. What else but G1 would include Roller and the Combat Deck? Nothing. - Starfield 00:04, 3 December 2011 (EST)

So the official definition is based off of the toylines? Okay, fine by me. I guess I'll edit that line somewhere on the main Family page. Would you also mind linking me to the IDW toyline page? Google brings up zippo. -Lush City

Yes, yes, you're very clever and funny, ha ha. I'm so glad you're here to bring fresh new things to the table. --M Sipher 05:09, 3 December 2011 (EST)

Is sarcasm warranted? I'm not here to pick fun, and I've been respectful, so why cant you do the same? -Lush City

IDW doesn't have a toyline. IDW is a derivative work based on the original G1 toyline, just like the Sunbow cartoon and the Marvel Comic. IDW is not in the same continuity as the cartoon or Marvel, but it is in the same Continuity Family -- perhaps that's causing some of the confusion here. When we say IDW is G1, that's like saying that Ultimate Marvel is part of the Marvel Multiverse, and NOT the DC Multiverse. IDW is part of the Generation 1 Continuity Family because the characters and concepts (NOT the STORIES, mind you, but the underlying CONCEPTS) come from the G1 background and toyline, instead of from the Unicron Trilogy, Movie, or Animated background and toylines.

Nod if you understand now, oh Nameless One. --Xaaron 18:18, 3 December 2011 (EST)

Okay then, but then why is something like "Wings" considered G1, when it's primary characters and concepts (The Elite Guard and Sentinel and Magnum/Magnus) draw from Animated? It's made as an insert into a form of G1, but I'm actually starting o question which takes precedence story or characters. From what I've read and from the list of G1 I've seen, they all cover a very similar story with detail changes (Unicron Trilogy covering the Mini-con Hunt, the Energon Wars and Cyber Key Search, The Film's Allspark history.) I'm saying that if those works can base themselves off a G1 characters concepts and ideas (again, drawing from the Tyran and Malgus Streams here) than why is IDW different? It can be argued that the Film and Animated storylines are just as different from G1 as IDW's is, and there charters are all clearly drawn from G1, in the absence of any official la word from Hasbro and knowing we have creators describing it as a reboot (similar terms being used for Animated and RID) why is it that they are considered separate. Is it because they have a toyline separate from the main G1 lines? Is it because of the fact that versions of them cover a wider dearth of material? Our article defines Continuity Families as "a group of distinct but closely-related individual continuities." We also set up a three step process for determining new continuities, noting that they should be “a) a fresh continuity, b) within a separate franchise, and c) significantly different in cast, theme, style, etc." IDW tests positive for a, is inconclusive for b (given its lack of a toyline) and due to the nature of c, is highly debatable. If we look at past examples continuities follow the same general structure and theme, even various permutations son the setting. Taking the origin 1984 Toyline/Cartoon/comic trifecta, we can see Dreamwave and the Beats Era serving as Sequels (leaving the original era to a vague "Camelot" level of detail as shown by the creators) while Kiss Players and Gen 2 expanded versions of the continuity. While there were inconsistences (dinobot origin, differing dates for the reformatting) they all followed roughly the same events, or modifications of those events from a central thesis (Wings, use of the Elite Guard, Heart of Steel’s age change or the Mirrorverse aspect of Shattered Glass. Not only does the IDW timeline differ from the G1 timelines enough to put it in the same breath as other confirmed continuity families. IDW's position can be seen as being akin to the initial RID reboot, while it obviously used G1 characters the (there being no others to use at the time) the storyline and aspects were utterly different (before Takara's retcon) a good way to do so would be to compare Megatron with the RID Megatron and the IDW Galvatron. Both are totally different characters, while the Tfwiki approach seems to be that they are effectively different iterations of the "same character." The Unicron Trilogy gets a shift because of the absence of Mini-cons, Energon Wars, and the different concepts of the Quintessons and Scorponok. The Animatedverse shows an entirely different Cybetronian social Order (which IDW also accomplishes, withe there casting of the war, the Tyrest accords, Megatron's origins, the "Protocols" etc.) If we were to create an ostensibly accurate definition of continuity families on a rubric of "distance" from each other, than it would not be that hard of a stretch to determine that we have an inherent fallacy between hat we let in and out of G1, as Franchises with equal relationship to G1 get casted in differing families. if the rubric lies within a different maxim (having separate toylines, character portrayals) than not only would we need to rewrite our definition of what constitutes a family, but we would also have to undergo a mass reassessment of the family set up as a whole. Currently the strongest (and only) reason for them being in G1 is that they look and act like there other G1 counterparts, which I, and others, find isn't valid enough grounds in the wake of all the other evidence. Otherwise, WFC would be G1. -Lush City

"Wings" is G1 because it takes place between episodes of the original cartoon. Oh my god. --ItsWalky 16:18, 5 December 2011 (EST)

WFC is G1^{continuity family} for all the reasons stated already (it features the G1 cast of characters in a new setting.) But Hasbro shoehorned it into the modern stuff, so the wiki plays along. - Starfield 16:31, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Nobody is going to read that, dude. I don't know why you're putting this much effort into something that is not going to change. Just save yourself and us the trouble and give up the conversation. —Interrobang 16:23, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Hey! There was a mini-consensus brewing that although IDW belongs in G1_{continuity family}, it doesn't belong in the Generation 1 (franchise). Anyone want to talk about that? - Starfield 16:31, 5 December 2011 (EST)

If it makes you sleep better at night, I really don't care. Nothing here is going to change and the idea of having the Wiki treat IDW G1 as its own franchise is imbecilic. —Interrobang 16:57, 5 December 2011 (EST)

On a related note, though this is probably a question born out of my own stupidity/ignorance, but if Wings is G1, then why do we call it the Wings Universe, which implies that it is a seperate continuity family? (For the longest time, I thought it was its own little verse). Tom Servo the Great 17:02, 5 December 2011 (EST)

We don't call it the "Wings Universe", Fub Pub do. In the same way one might call the Marvel comics the "Marvel universe" or the cartoon the "Sunbow universe". That's all. - Chris McFeely 17:06, 5 December 2011 (EST)

This is bit of a digression, but "Wings Universe" is used in the same fashion as "Cybertron", "Shattered Glass", and "TransTech" in the heading for their prose stories. I think that, in the lack of anything official to contradict it, "Wings Universe" is the name of that particular "franchise" (or whatever term you prefer). There's more to WU being a franchise, through parallel construction with the other Club/Timelines sub-franchises, than there is for IDW, at least. —Interrobang 17:33, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Ah, I see. Thanks. Tom Servo the Great 17:09, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Also, further to what Interro said - yes, please, Mr. anonymous type person... just let it go. No-one is going to read that giant wall of text. I don't understand how you can't simply look at the IDW comics, and the way the characters are portrayed in them, and not understand why they are G1. - Chris McFeely 17:08, 5 December 2011 (EST)

Pardon, but why is the use of large amounts of text a bad thing? Wouldn't the use of Basic English essay format (claim, source, analyses, and explanation) to put out your points in an argument be a positive thing in an encyclopedic debate? @ Walky, yes I know Wings is explicitly set in G1, that's why I used it as an example to highlight a double standard. A reason given for why IDW was G1 was because they used G1 character traits as a base. I noted that under that rubric (characters over stories or what creators say) than Wings would count as a Malgus stream because of all the elements from Animated, regardless of its intended placement within the original cartoon as stated by the story. I'm not particularly attached to the idea of IDW being in or out of G1, I'm just noting that there is a paradox within the way we define Continuity families. Either we’d have to move IDW out of G1 (and perhaps others) to better fit in with the "definition" of a family we have now, or we'd have to reassess and probably redefine how we decide and clarify the families, otherwise we'll wind up doing classification by convenience; taking things on case by case basis by whatever "works" for the moment rather than having a single unifying maxim. If we're just going to "eyeball" to find what continuity fits where we are going to have contractions and hypocrisies, as we do now. We should move to standardize the method of continuity selection, because if we continue this method we’ll have a severe inconstancy and consistency is the lifeblood of any encyclopedic source of information. - Lush City 23:58, 6 December 2011 (EST)

I'm no longer sure what you're suggesting our organization should be. Are you suggesting that IDW comics are not G1 franchise (in which case we should move "Drift (G1)" to "Drift (IDW)") or are you suggesting that IDW comics are not in the G1 continuity family at all (in which case we would make an "Optimus Prime (IDW)" page)? --abates 00:28, 7 December 2011 (EST)

What's this "we" shit? Have you actually done any work on the wiki before? And regardless of that, would you actually be willing to carry out the hours and hours of tedious work that would be required to carry out whatever it is you're suggesting? I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess the answer is a big ol' fat freakin' "No". Heck, just MAPPING OUT an IDW split-off would take for-freaking-ever, but you haven't even done that much. Give us a diagram, a mock up page, a sandbox, SOMETHING.

We got a system that works, that makes it easy to find info on Prowl and Hardhead and Nightbeat and all their doings in the cartoons and the comics and whateverelse. There's no BENEFIT to anything you're suggesting. It would just be separating information that makes more sense, is more cohesive, and builds upon itself when it's all in one place.

And dude, this is not Serious Business. It's MADE-UP GIANT SPACE ROBOTS. There are no "hypocrisies" involved. -- Repowers 09:08, 7 December 2011 (EST)

What major elements do you think make Wings an Animated related universe as opposed to a G1? The mere presence of an Elite Guard? That's pretty ridiculous. Look at all the characters used in those stories, they act like and take the positions of their G1 selves because they are those G1 characters. --Khajidha 09:13, 7 December 2011 (EST)

Just as the IDW characters are. I think that if you're making such ridiculous claims as Wings being an Animated universe because of these elements then you are simply not understanding how continuity families work. I mean, what is so hard to understand about this? Wings is in the G1 continuity family because it features the G1 characters (in a setting explicitly derived from the backstory of the G1 cartoon). IDW is in the G1 continuity family because it features the G1 characters (in a new "Ultimate" style setting). Henkei Henkei is in the G1 continuity family because it features the G1 characters (with a movie-inspired backstory). - Chris McFeely 09:26, 7 December 2011 (EST)

Yeah. At this point, it's pretty clear that -surprising no-one- the argument against how we have things now falls COMPLETELY apart. Wings of Honor as Animated? Oy. --M Sipher 17:53, 7 December 2011 (EST)

Regardless of any continuity quibbles I'm almost certain that IDW isn't a G1 franchise. Those are decided by corporate not us (which, continuity families are, more or less). I'm also finding IDW's status as a G1 family debatable mostly because while it's characters and looks are "G1" it's story is quite different from any other G1, or at least as different from G1 as some other stories we've also made different families. It all depends on what exactly our rubric is, if we value Aesthetics , character traits and the like over plotline similarities or what creators say ,than Wings gets confusing, and Aligned is just a Clusterbomb, it might have to be split. (Or made into some bizarre "Dual Family" thing) Just shifting IDW and a few other pages to be more in line with what we already have seems far less drastic and disturbing.

Repo, that tone is uncalled for. I'm from TvTropes, I know what it means to spend hours on a wiki, I'd also note that I would call anything that someone would consider spending hours on as "serious" business; this site has served as the primary bastion of TF knowledge for years, don't diminish that. By the same vein We shouldn't do things just because they're easier, we should do things because they're right, as it is, they way we define Continuity Families leads to inconsistencies, the largest one being IDW, I'll get to work on the mock-up, but I do find it hilarious that someone would tell me "it's not that serious" and "put several hours of work into this n00b" in the same breath. --Lush City 4:38, 8 December 2011 (EST)

"Then Wings gets confusing"

No it does not. It will never, ever be confusing. Wings is G1. It is set in a variant of the G1 cartoon continuity. You will never, ever, ever make a case for what you are saying by trying to hold up the Wings universe as an example of a similar (non-existent) conundrum, because it is unquestionably, unequivocally, unfalteringly, unhaltingly, utterly inarguably G1. - Chris McFeely 04:54, 8 December 2011 (EST)

That's my point. In the same way the Wings story is so totally G1 making it such is insane (despite the Animated influences, The IDW story is so totally not G1 that having it as such is insane (despite the G1 influences) We can either give characters our story priority, not either or.

Simple question: How can you look at a comic full of G1 characters and say "this is not G1"? Please answer that. - Chris McFeely 06:46, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Your logic is idiotic. All you're doing is arguing for the sake of arguing because we will never consider IDW as not G1 in contradiction with common sense. If you don't like it, make your own wiki. —Interrobang 06:50, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Wings had one character (Sentinel) and one concept (Elite Guard) that were arguably derived from Animated and not G1. The four Guard teams focused on (Thunder Clash's, Metalhawk's, Onslaught's, and Powerflash's) are all G1 characters, as are all the villains of the stories, the background characters, the setting, and the implicit and explicit authorial intent. Yes, the unique nature of Transformers continuity allows for "reverse homages", as G1 influenced the creation of Animated and pieces of Animated have now influenced subsequent G1 stories, but that doesn't change the underlying nature of the entire universe. IDW is not an Animated timeline either, just because Lockdown was adopted into the universe in Transformers: Drift.

G1 is the oldest and largest continuity family in Transformers and, as a result, it occasionally borrows characters and ideas from the other continuities that come and go in its wake. But across the 12 club comic issues, the 2 BotCon specials, and the 2 online prose stories, well over 150 characters have appeared. Of those, exactly THREE originated from non-G1 toylines. The remaining 99% are all G1 characters or brand-new to any universe.

Wings and IDW are both obviously G1 to anyone whose paying attention. Trying to craft an argument where it could, potentially, be re-phrased in some way that, if you squint, might make it look like they aren't G1...is ignoring common sense and the vast abundance of evidence put before you. --Xaaron 08:27, 8 December 2011 (EST)

If I may interject? The wiki's notion of continuity families runs parallel to the canon in-multiverse concept of universal streams. There is a 99.999% chance that any reference to IDW continuity from a canon perspective would classify it as a positive-polarity Primax stream. That makes it part of the G1 continuity family. The movies and Animated are in the Tyran and Malgus clusters respectively. That makes them not part of the G1 continuity family. --Andrusi 08:43, 8 December 2011 (EST)

Beast Wars Neo Sausage is gone!

The page was deleted for some reason. It was marked as vandalism, but as I'm sure some of you know it actually existed. -- Terrortron 22:47, 2 December 2011 (EST)

As far as I know it didn't. Are you sure you're not thinking of Beast Wars II Sausage? --abates 23:13, 2 December 2011 (EST)

Do you mean the page or the product? I'm not sure the page existed, but the product itself most certainly did: TV commercial for Beast Wars Neo Sausages --Tigerpaw28 00:55, 3 December 2011 (EST)

We've never had a BWN Sausage page, no. --abates 01:16, 3 December 2011 (EST)

We had it briefly in January but it was just a vandal making a crappy page. Feel free to create it again if you have the info. --Detour 01:26, 3 December 2011 (EST)

Man, that advert makes it look like the most awesome thing ever. If I knew Japanese I would already be making a page for it. --abates 19:33, 3 December 2011 (EST)

Actor/Voice Actor's other roles

It seems as of late that the intro sections for actors and voice actors have become mini-IMDB pages. Clancy Brown isn't really best known for being on Earth's Mightiest Heroes, even if we do have a page for the Avengers to link to. John DiMaggio's is getting to be more résumé than intro. It seems kinda silly to suggest removing content, but it's just been something bugging me.--Carrion 19:03, 6 December 2011 (EST)

No, you're quite right, and I agree. One user seems to be a bit of a voice-whore and is going around adding a lot of frivolous additional info. - Chris McFeely 19:34, 6 December 2011 (EST)

Character articles and redirects with titles/ranks

I'm of the opinion that where a character has a title or rank, there should be a redirect from their full name with their title in front of it to their article. I don't think we have any explicitly spelled out rules on how this would work though, and at the moment there are some redirects to the Sidney Biggles-Jones article marked for deletion. There's been some previous discussion about it here. How should we treat ranks and titles? If her name was specifically parsed as "Dr. Biggles-Jones" in a comic, for instance, do we have a redirect using that name or do we just stick with writing it out as "Doctor"? --abates 16:58, 13 December 2011 (EST)

My gut instinct is to have redirects for every way their name and rank is spelled out in fiction. I don't have a strong opinion on this, however. —Interrobang 17:00, 13 December 2011 (EST)

It's gramarically incorrect to use title-abbreviations in speech bubbles or inside quotes in writing. One doesn't say "Mrr Dlinn," one says "Mister Dlinn."

I don't think we're beholden to the way such titles were parsed in the original source material; it's a distinction without meaning. But I don't mind having two redirects either. -Derik 17:04, 13 December 2011 (EST)

Fall of Cybertron

We desperately need to fix up the Fall of Cybertron related pages. The page that should remain as the definitive should be what is currently called Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (360/PS3), which I recommend should be renamed simply "Fall of Cybertron" or "Transformers: Fall of Cybertron". We do not require the franchise page and the video games page, along with the PS3/X360 page, as the PS3/X360 is the only confirmed version of the game, with PC confirmed to NOT be happening, and Nintendo systems left up in the air. I wholly support streamlining the navigation for the FOC pages, and perhaps placing FOC as "sequel" in the WFC franchise navigation bar. --Kaymac192 05:32, 20 December 2011 (EST)

That sounds sensible to me. We can always move it back to (360/PS3) when the DS and/or Wii and/or whatever version is announced. --abates 16:20, 20 December 2011 (EST)

Problems retrieving password

(Since this seems the best place to ask.) Hi, I've been reliant on a cookie for so long that I've forgotten my password. (Blushes) However when I try to get the site to email me a new one it says one has been sent but nothing has arrived in my email; nor will it allow me to make the request again for 24 hours.

Is anyone able to check the login database to see if something's gone wrong at that end? 109.154.29.163 15:58, 22 December 2011 (EST)

Account renaming

Is it possible to get an account renamed in this wiki? Thanks. --Autu299 16:43, 24 December 2011 (EST)

It's not technically possible, because we don't have the MediaWiki Renameuser extension installed. The best you could do is create a new username, stop using the old one, and put links between the two accounts on your user pages. --abates 17:56, 24 December 2011 (EST)

Ok, thanks for the tip. --Autu299 16:49, 25 December 2011 (EST)

Mozilla Firefox 9/10 and TFWiki

Just an FYI, Mozilla Firefox 9 introduced a rendering error with our site, causing the sidebar to render below the content area. Mozilla Firefox's beta of version 10 carried over this error initially, but the most current beta of 10 corrects this. I was scratching my head at this one, as we don't really use anything exotic in the way of code, but it turns out this was Mozilla's problem. I am kind of not liking the rapid release schedule, if this is what results.--Rosicrucian^Talk 15:19, 3 January 2012 (EST)

...or it could start working properly on my Firefox 9 PC too. I'd cleared cache a few times on both PCs, so either Derik fixed this sneaky-like or I've managed to hallucinate the whole thing. I'm pretty sure it's not the latter, as I still had the sidebar issue before refreshing today.--Rosicrucian^Talk 02:35, 4 January 2012 (EST)

It's still happening on my copy of Firefox 9.0.1, and when I check for updates, it's not reporting any. Tilt? --abates 02:54, 4 January 2012 (EST)

No, wait, I tell a lie. I just cleared my Firefox cache and the problem's gone. --abates 02:57, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Yeah, and on both machines I experienced it, it only started doing it on Firefox 9, not 8. Worked fine in IE, and wouldn't budge through multiple cache clearings. I'd _thought_ that the very recent update to 10's beta is what cured it, but I returned home to my laptop that I never went beta on, and there it was after a refresh. Perhaps Derik could offer insight beyond digital poltergeist activity?--Rosicrucian^Talk 03:07, 4 January 2012 (EST)

I informed Suki Brits of the Firefox rendering error as soon as I became aware of it and she took care of it accordingly. Victory for Brits! --Monzo 12:33, 4 January 2012 (EST)

Aha. See, I usually assume Derik when there's CSS muckery, but this is excellent news. Thanks, Suki! I vaguely suspect we did use a couple Mozilla flagged tags when we initially coded it, that are now fully supported in CSS proper.--Rosicrucian^Talk 14:19, 4 January 2012 (EST)

I think the fix may have worked for Google's preview thumbnails as well, as a couple I've found show the menu where it should be. --abates 19:32, 5 January 2012 (EST)

I'm still having this issue. My Firefox updated itself recently, so I don't know what version it is. And clearing my cache that a) I don't know how to do and b) scares me for some reason. Bobpiecheese 00:37, 10 January 2012 (EST)

You may be able to get it fixed by holding down Ctrl and pressing F5 while on a TFWiki page. Wikipedia has a page on clearing the cache. --abates 00:56, 10 January 2012 (EST)

Huzzah, the sidebar is no longer all brokey! Thanks Abates! Bobpiecheese 01:16, 10 January 2012 (EST)

Project Heat Scramble

I just noticed that the wiki has NO data on the Heat Scramble TCG . So how should we go about this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lush City (talk • contribs).

Robot Masters parsing

Moved from Talk:Robotmasters (franchise)#Parsing.

This is something that's been bugging me. As far as I can tell, in all images of the official logo, the series is parsed "RobotMasters", yet all spellings on this wiki refer to it as "Robot Masters". Is there a reason we opted for two words instead of one? --Sabrblade 12:19, 10 January 2012 (EST)

The packaging parses it as one word, while correctly spacing names like "Beast Megatron", so... I guess. Although it's debatable whether it's "Robotmasters" or "RobotMasters"; the brand's name isn't "TransFormers". —Interrobang 18:56, 12 January 2012 (EST)

I'd like to avoid the CamelCase precisely because we can't usually tell from a logo whether it should "really" be written like that (as per "Transformers"), and also because I generally don't like the look of it. I do think the franchise should be one word, though. -LV 19:44, 12 January 2012 (EST)

The difference here is that there doesn't seem to have been any other spelling for it aside from the CamelCase spelling, whereas the "Transformers/TransFormers/Trans Formers" logo gets re-parsed all the time. "RobotMasters" is the consistently-seen version. --Sabrblade 19:48, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Technically, it's presented as RobotMasters and ROBOTMASTERS. I think we can be flexible. —Interrobang 19:57, 12 January 2012 (EST)

They still make a point to enlarge the R and M. Though, is there any other series logo that uses this kind of CamelCase just as consistently? --Sabrblade 20:33, 12 January 2012 (EST)

Uh, I just pointed out one. The TransFormers logo was the standard design from 2001–2006, across six franchises and much longer than the existence of Robotmasters. I think you're putting too much stock on what is probably a stylistic choice by people who barely use lowercase to begin with. —Interrobang 21:42, 12 January 2012 (EST)

What I mean is, there's multiple versions of the "Transformers" logo, which gets restyled as "TransFormers", "Transformers" and Trans Formers" as the years go by. But the one for RobotMasters is always consistently styled as "RobotMasters". Unless I'm missing something, there hasn't been any other logo for it that wrote it in any other form than "RobotMasters" with the enlarged M. Unlike "Transformers", which is one word, "RobotMasters" is two words with a space missing. The uppercase M shows the distinction that the two are separate words, but the lack of space makes the end result thus resemble a rather sci-fi sounding compound word, which works for this sci-fi themed line of children's toys. Why change what the logo says? --Sabrblade 22:10, 12 January 2012 (EST)

FYI, the second cartoon episode parses the title as TRANSFORMERS ROBOTMASTERS, so there's a bit more credence to it being one word. —Interrobang 07:51, 23 January 2012 (EST)

Cool, yay! Though, I still think there's some importance to the capitalization of the M (beyond mere stylistic choice). Like I said, it resembles a sci-fi sounding compound word, with M identifying the connection placement between the two words within the compound word. "RobotMasters" (instead of "Robotmasters") gets my vote. --Sabrblade 11:35, 23 January 2012 (EST)

SOPA and PIPA

Has anyone read about the SOPA and PIPA bills and how they will affect the wiki?--Megatron Prime 13:51, 14 January 2012 (EST)

Tech Specs

On the Character Bio pages, can you please include a Tech Spec section for those characters/toys which are applicable? This would be much appreciated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.28.74.79 (talk • contribs).

We tried doing this at one point, but ended up removing them all in the end. Each toy listing usually has a link to their tfu.info page with the tech spec bio and numbers on anyway. --abates 16:47, 18 January 2012 (EST)

It got surprisingly boring. In the end they're just stacks of numbers that frequently don't match the character portrayals. --Thylacine 2000 22:09, 18 January 2012 (EST)

And the bio parts are copyrighted text.

Could you imagine Thundercracker's toy page? 40 versions of the same basic write-up? -Derik 00:10, 26 January 2012 (EST)

Categories for different alt modes

Hello, I have a suggestion for this wiki! (Apologies in advance if this isn't the right place to post something like this...)

I think it'd be nice if there were categories for the different types of alt modes such as helicopters, tanks, etc.

Right now, you can sort of find all of the jets/seekers with this category: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Category:Seekers

And you can find some specific alt modes by looking here: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Popular_Earth_vehicle_alternate_modes

But I'm not aware of any way to find out the identity of all Transformers that have a specific type of alt mode. I noticed this because I was trying to find out who all of the helicopters are. I think it'd be a pretty useful addition to the wiki. What does everyone else think? --0x2A 13:14, 23 January 2012 (EST)

I second it. I've been thinking about this for a while. Having categories like "car altmode", "tank ~", "helicopter ~", "boat ~", "non-vehicle/object ~" etc would be convenient. I am willing to do the dirty work. -- Silvery 13:57, 23 January 2012 (EST)

I don't think it would really be that useful. You would really have to lump things together to avoid having umpteen million categories. For example, does your "car altmode" category include station wagons? Or vans? Or pick up trucks? Or semi cabs? Or construction vehicles? Or SUVs? Or strange Cybertronic ground vehicles? 0x2A mentioned "jets", what about prop planes? Or Cybertronic aircraft? Or whatever the original Scourge was supposed to be (it is described as a "hovercraft" but most of the fiction portrayed it as a "spaceship", only a few minor sources show it as a ground vehicle). --Khajidha 14:34, 23 January 2012 (EST)

I was just throwing random examples, but I don't think categorizing Earth alt-modes would be that difficult (why not take the Popular Earth vehicle alternate modes page as an example and use categories such as "cars and trucks" or "military vehicles"?); another idea, better for non-Earth alt-modes, would be to categorize them in more broad categories, say, as land, water, flying and object alts. It would be extremely helpful when one would like to do a search of characters with similar alt-modes. Way more precise than just using "search" and sifting painstakingly through the results. -- Silvery 15:44, 23 January 2012 (EST)

Or alternatively, you could go to TFU.info. Then you can narrow it down by color, too, and you don't even have to start a massive new headache for the wiki editors! --Andrusi 16:33, 23 January 2012 (EST)

I'm an editor, too, and I wouldn't mind doing the job. Even if nobody other than me wants to touch a new big task and I have to do it alone. And why would I want to switch to and fro between two sites, when I just want to, say, compare appearances or personalities of characters with a motorcycle alt-mode? Characters, not toys. TFU is for toy info, TFwiki is for general knowledge. Besides, TFU's search system isn't very good. -- Silvery 17:45, 23 January 2012 (EST)

I support this idea and if you need any help doing it, Silver, I'm willing to help in any way I can. -- 209.180.181.162 11:29, 25 January 2012 (EST)

I'm not sure it would be better than using search. A category for "cars and trucks" would contain thousands of articles. --abates 14:57, 25 January 2012 (EST)

This is a big can 'o worms, but I like the idea, if it is very focused. We have a subcategory named Category:Functions that contains some interesting, less common functions like "medic", but not every single function. "Warrior" is not there since it is too common. So if there was an "Alternate modes" sub-category, it could skip "cars" and "trucks" altogether. But it could have less common, and well defined things such as "motorcycles." The can 'o worms would be narrowing down the categories everyone can agree on. I nominate "Mechanical beast modes" and "realistic beast modes" (there is already a Category:Transmetals). - Starfield 15:34, 25 January 2012 (EST)

Yay, so there is some positive response. Cool. I have semi-finals in two weeks, after that I'm starting to do this. In the meantime I propose discussing categories. I can already see that the "cars" issue will be hot, haha. As for now, I propose "Motorcycles", "Boats/ships", "Hovercrafts", "Airplanes", "Helicopters", "Tanks", and something that would include objects, such as Perceptor's microscope, Blaster's boombox or Ejector's toaster alt-mode (possibly also cassettes?). Other, less thought-out propositions include: "Spacecrafts" and "Trains". -- Silvery 07:50, 26 January 2012 (EST)

If you're going to do this, then I would prefer a distinction between actual things and Transformers with alternate modes based on those things. Flooding Category:Aircraft with jet Transformers would make that category useless. And maybe place them at the end of category lists so that they can be grouped together. —Interrobang 07:57, 26 January 2012 (EST)

I want to start with a simple list in my sandbox. I'm not that quick to make changes of such caliber without a thorough discussion - and I'm not exactly a master of Wiki code yet. And what about an "Aircraft alternate mode" and then "Jet alternate mode" (I don't insist on using these exact names) subcategories in "Airplanes", for example? -- Silvery 08:10, 26 January 2012 (EST)

Probably "Aircraft alternate modes" would be the main category, with subcategories like "Prop plane alternate modes", "Jet alternate modes" and "Helicopter alternate modes". --Khajidha 08:30, 26 January 2012 (EST)

"X alternate modes" seems redundant in comparison to "X modes". "X modes" would be more inclusive of characters without robot modes like Ravage and Orcanoch. —Interrobang 08:54, 26 January 2012 (EST)