Talk:Package art/gallery
I started on re-gallery-fying this but... seriously. --abates 00:57, 23 March 2009 (EDT)
Frankly, I wouldn't bother. With proper category-ing of the art, this should all become redundant anyway. --M Sipher 20:42, 30 March 2009 (EDT)
Uh
[edit]Why are we in the business of displaying every packaging art image, regardless of whether it's actually used in the wiki? —Interrobang 04:18, 12 September 2009 (EDT)
Uploading packing?
[edit]This follows Interrobang's question on displaying the packaging art even if it isn't used in articles. If we aren't "in the business of displaying every packaging art image", then wouldn't that sort of defeat the purpose of the wiki as a reference site in a way? Asking as I have some of the Henkei packaging art by Tsushima which I REALLY like to upload, and potentially what I don't have. (Alternatively, I could upload them to a Facebook photo album...) --Lonegamer78 03:48, 19 April 2013 (EDT)
Page size
[edit]According to a tool I used, loading this entire page and all the images on it is 2.6MB. It should probably be split up by franchise, or more likely we should just link to Category:Packaging art images instead. --abates 21:51, 27 October 2013 (EDT)
- I tried several several page size tools and wasn't able to get a result from any of them, but I assume it is now much larger than 2.6MB. --abates (talk) 18:42, 11 August 2021 (EDT)
- I had noticed it was getting kinda big. It crashed my PC browser about a week ago which wasn't fun. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 20:17, 11 August 2021 (EDT)
- Yeah we should probably split G1 and Generations, as they fill most of the page and have many subheaders.DDog (talk) 21:05, 11 August 2021 (EDT)
- I agree splitting out would be a solution, though I have to ask if we even need this page? If people want to see G1 packaging art, for instance, they can go to Category:Generation 1 packaging art and there's a nicely paged gallery. --abates (talk) 23:49, 12 August 2021 (EDT)
- Perhaps a better idea would be to remove the galleries and just put {{main|}} or {{see|}} templates in that just direct you to those categories. Perhaps even dividing the G1 packaging art category into specifics would also be a good idea, that way the current organization on this page can be kept and it saves the viewer the trouble of having to go through the huge category galleries just to find the one or two images they're looking for. Fanofcoolstuff27 (talk) 00:04, 13 August 2021 (EDT)
- I agree splitting out would be a solution, though I have to ask if we even need this page? If people want to see G1 packaging art, for instance, they can go to Category:Generation 1 packaging art and there's a nicely paged gallery. --abates (talk) 23:49, 12 August 2021 (EDT)
Necessity
[edit]I'm not really seeing why we need this at all. We already have categories to get the same job done without creating a page massive enough to crash devices. McBaggins (talk) 18:47, 16 August 2021 (EDT)
- Agreed. A "gallery" page is effectively just the visual version of a list page, and Transformers_Wiki:Policies#We_Hate_Lists. --M Sipher (talk) 19:26, 16 August 2021 (EDT)
Legends Manga Package Art
[edit]Should I add a section made from the Legends Manga?? -MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 09:49, 5 December 2021 (EST)
Deletion or at least HEAVY trimming
[edit]Okay, no, really. This page is a monster. We have Categories for this that are nicely sorted. And once again, I don't see why images that are not being used on any other pages are being uploaded. We're not an official art archive. This page needs, at minimum, chainsawing down. --M Sipher (talk) 18:24, 14 December 2025 (EST)
- The actual existence of this page just encourages people to add images to it to complete it. At most we need one representative image from each toyline. Maybe more if the toyline has gone long enough for there to be an art shift. --abates (talk) 20:45, 14 December 2025 (EST)
- Not going to lie this was exactly why I thought it was okay to contribute to the gallery. Is there a reason you're against archiving art? Echoing Lonegamer's statement from a decade ago, I find this to be a nice resource considering how much of a hub for other information the wiki is. There's not many other places I've found that conveniently compiles package art in one place, especially for newer toylines.
As for the "representative image" idea, I think that is something that makes more sense for (and is already done, albeit sparsely) on the main package art page. The point of a gallery page is to be... well, a gallery. I do think there are benefits for the gallery format as opposed to just linking to the image categories. Chiefly, as it is currently formatted, the gallery is more readably organized than most category pages, being listed alphabetically by just character name with convenient links the the character's page under the image and occasionally with helpful text at quick glance specifying where the art was used. A lot of the categories are at the mercy of how the different uploaders title the images and what if anything is in the description.
As for dealing with the page itself, evidently I would like to keep it but I do agree it is currently far too large to load at once. Personally, I would suggest fragmenting it out into toyline/franchise sub pages similar to how Commercial has sub pages per movie. —BluJayWarrior (talk) 19:42, 15 December 2025 (EST)- That's completely understandable that you would see this page and want to contribute to it. As an encyclopedia though, our main aim is to present information, not act as an archive. There are other sites that do that, for instance [1]. We started using gallery pages because often a topic needs more images than would logically fit on the article page, however the intention wasn't to assemble a complete collection of packaging art. --abates (talk) 14:34, 16 December 2025 (EST)
- Right. "Scope creep" is always a problem, opening the door to "well why aren't we hosting THIS too?" and etc. Images are here quite specifically to give further context to the text (and also break things up visually, vast swathes of pure text make the eyeballs slide off after a point). I can't figure what context is added by Ratchet In The Middle Of Being Killed boxart is adding, especially when it's just in a clump of several hundred other thumbnails. And we've had to, many times in the past, cut down on the number of images on a page as people decided they were just going to add a ton of images to an article to the point of screwing up the layout, screen shots that really add little to nothing. (Mild tangent but I feel like the screen shot choices in a lot of cartoon sections could be... re-choiced. A page of mostly just close-ups of a character reacting is uh... less than helpful.) Quality over quantity, in a sense. --M Sipher (talk) 16:06, 16 December 2025 (EST)
- So it does seem I have different ideas of what the wiki should be or can be for. May I ask what value a collection of package art lacks that something similar (in my eyes at least) like collecting comic book variant covers provides? It varies by issue of course but some can have tens of images; Skybound issue 1 in particular has a whopping 120 covers.—BluJayWarrior (talk) 11:25, 17 December 2025 (EST)
- The comic covers are physical changes and different editions of the issues. I agree that Skybound has gone to some absolutely ridiculous numbers at points, but we're still talking different physical items, and that's something that should be catalogued (and it's a hell of a lot easier than describing all the variants by text). And even when the numbers get ridiculous, that's actually important context, a pretty easy visualization of how goddamn many issues they sold. It's rather like showing off toy variants.
- Box art is not, in and of itself, super informative. It can be useful when there's no media appearances or when characters only really show up in media as background or obscured. But most of the time, it's just... the toy, but not. It's just a part of the packaging, and we don't do things like catalog images of every set of instructions or the tech-specs/bios or pack-in comics. We don't show every toy in-package with all sides of the packaging and all packaging variants. And I do not believe we should. We aren't here to be the Everything Transformers Image Resource. --M Sipher (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2025 (EST)
- I see. I personally wouldn't mind us doing that as well but if that's not the current mission of the wiki then I will respect it and avoid adding package art just for the sake of it. That being said I still stand by my original statement of finding the formatted gallery more readable than category pages and would rather see it split apart for the sake of loading than having it deleted outright. —BluJayWarrior (talk) 13:00, 18 December 2025 (EST)
- So it does seem I have different ideas of what the wiki should be or can be for. May I ask what value a collection of package art lacks that something similar (in my eyes at least) like collecting comic book variant covers provides? It varies by issue of course but some can have tens of images; Skybound issue 1 in particular has a whopping 120 covers.—BluJayWarrior (talk) 11:25, 17 December 2025 (EST)
- Right. "Scope creep" is always a problem, opening the door to "well why aren't we hosting THIS too?" and etc. Images are here quite specifically to give further context to the text (and also break things up visually, vast swathes of pure text make the eyeballs slide off after a point). I can't figure what context is added by Ratchet In The Middle Of Being Killed boxart is adding, especially when it's just in a clump of several hundred other thumbnails. And we've had to, many times in the past, cut down on the number of images on a page as people decided they were just going to add a ton of images to an article to the point of screwing up the layout, screen shots that really add little to nothing. (Mild tangent but I feel like the screen shot choices in a lot of cartoon sections could be... re-choiced. A page of mostly just close-ups of a character reacting is uh... less than helpful.) Quality over quantity, in a sense. --M Sipher (talk) 16:06, 16 December 2025 (EST)
- That's completely understandable that you would see this page and want to contribute to it. As an encyclopedia though, our main aim is to present information, not act as an archive. There are other sites that do that, for instance [1]. We started using gallery pages because often a topic needs more images than would logically fit on the article page, however the intention wasn't to assemble a complete collection of packaging art. --abates (talk) 14:34, 16 December 2025 (EST)
- Not going to lie this was exactly why I thought it was okay to contribute to the gallery. Is there a reason you're against archiving art? Echoing Lonegamer's statement from a decade ago, I find this to be a nice resource considering how much of a hub for other information the wiki is. There's not many other places I've found that conveniently compiles package art in one place, especially for newer toylines.
Right. Bluntly, I'm giving this until Friday. Looking up the page, there's been almost two decades of numerous people asking "do we actually need this page" and no-one has ever given a reason to keep it. And as Abates said, it just encourages pointless busywork cluttering up the "Recent changes". Without some VERY compelling reasons to keep it, at the VERY least this page is going to get chopped to a small fraction of its current size, but more likely it'll be deleted altogether. And either way, all images not (meaningfully) used on other pages will be deleted. --M Sipher (talk) 16:22, 15 December 2025 (EST)
