MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive27

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Movie project?

I know there's been some real concern about leveraging our content, so that content which is, for the most part, identical to Wikia's is better positioned to etc etc etc... I've (mostly) stayed out of the discussion because I think it's moot- at this point our true overlap with Wikia has to be ~80% and dropping. They've picked up a decent edit volume finally-- but it's almost all IP-users.

So, yeah. I'm of the opinion that our prominence will take care of itself over time as our content edges them out. With that in mind, I'd like to propose a new wiki-project. "Movie Characters." We're pretty good when it comes to movieverse characters... but we could be better, and I think the expanded universe around the films (which is very tight) is gonna be a traffic draw for us. It seems like most of these characters have put in an appearance someplace-- but they also tend to be small appearances. Bringing all the movieverse articles to completion or completion-in-progress as the PR machine ramps up for the movie seems, to me, like a good way to leverage ourselves.

Thoughts? -Derik 02:28, 21 December 2008 (EST)

Yea I would love this as I'm really interested in the new Movieverse. And having a complete and good Movie section full of articles would be awesome. But what do you mean with the PR machine thing I don't quite understand do you mean we should start making articles of ROTF based on what has been revealed?Dead Metal 05:01, 31 December 2008 (EST)

I just mean that as peopel start searching for info relating tot he movie or its characters, they will find out we have info nd Wikia does not.

Ok I'll see if I can help out with the few comics I have, damn comic shot screwing up my orders.Dead Metal 05:20, 31 December 2008 (EST)

Japanese Movie/BW crossover?

Okay, I know I read about this somewhere on the wiki. Where? -Derik 06:11, 22 December 2008 (EST)

Kiss Players timeline. I believe it was... a pack-in mini-comic with the Japanese release of the Fast Action Battlers? Maybe? Perhaps? I think? - Chris McFeely 06:55, 22 December 2008 (EST)

I think it might be related to the Telemocha Series... the story cards from the two SP-editions (the redecos of the 1996 leaders) show the movie guys on them in the background (are those the FAB's?) and it looks like the cards Hydra translated begin with file#2-- something else came before these events. (I suppose someone could just ask Hydra. Someone who is not me.) -Derik 08:00, 22 December 2008 (EST)

In fact Dragoyell's Telemocha bio card is given the file number 1.5, and it has Movie Prime and BW Primal chatting in the corner about how the mission depends on him.

...the Telemocha line seems to have a storyline to it, going through the bio cards, that involves a crossover with the Movieverse. This isn't Sparta. (Do the movieverse bio-cards compliment this, I wonder?) -Derik 08:10, 22 December 2008 (EST)

I think it seems that Movie Prime and Optimus Primal stand together are just part of the, um, show, promotion, or selling toys. I don't think there is any connection related to storyline.

As for the story within the Telemocha, IIRC, it is about the original story --TX55^TALK 10:06, 22 December 2008 (EST)

The SP bio-cards I linked to include a story (albeit a scant one) set in the first season of the BW cartoon, where the Energon on the planet undergoes some sort of change causing it to radiate out of control. Look at the 1-2-3 pannels on those cards. "What Power!" as the Energon goes nuts-- and the movie cast is standing behind the BWers.

I cannot by any stretch of the imagination that they just randomly threw in some movie toys for the photoshoot relating to the BW biocards. This is a story, the biocards are numbered because they tell in in drippy little stages (we're missing the first part) and stuff happened. I see no indication that what's going on here is "the original story." -Derik 10:26, 22 December 2008 (EST)

On toy image sizes

Perhaps this is a bit... I dunno, but I just thought that while I was going about cleaning up toy pages, I'd explain my general thoughts on the image sizes, so others can play along with the reasoning.
Personally, I hate thumbnail images under 200px wide. These should be used sparingly and only as a last resort. Most of the time, for "first toy" images and any major new-mold toys a character gets, I shoot for 300px. 250px works too if 300px is too large for the layout (some toys just don't have much to be said about them, really, and a big image can push too far down or leave too much blankspace). Any redecos of a toy already in the section I stick with 200px. There's less need to draw the eye to those. 200 is also good for the non-transformable Titanium figurines, though those also need a healthy dose of writeup padding in the text.
So uh, yeah. I try to keep the images at multiples of 50. It ends up looking cleaner yet draws the eye to certain "more important" images to use different sizes. --M Sipher 05:04, 27 December 2008 (EST)

Special:Preferences, "Files" tab, you can change your default thumbnail size, up to 300px.

Of course, setting a size on the page overrides everyone else's preferences... - SanityOrMadness 08:27, 31 December 2008 (EST)

For those looking for large, clean Hasbro stock photos...

This could be your chance: Unprotected directory, sorted by product codes. [1] Use my toy checklists at TFArchive to find the product codes for the toys you need images of.--Nevermore 08:08, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Got a link to those selfsame product lists? -Derik 10:00, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Classics/Universe, Animated, 2007 Movie. THink those are all the relevant lines. Though I think I spotted a few Cybertron pics in there too.--Nevermore 11:21, 29 December 2008 (EST)

yawn*

There's a lot of crap mixed in here... I think there was about 20,000 pictures on Hasbro's website... (I kept ~10%, which is 2000.) Each picture set got about two tenths of a second to say "keep or ditch," and there's a LOT of star Wars still mixed in (How do i tell what's a transforming star wars toy?)

At any rate, here it is. Every hasbro stock TF image on their website. Total size... ~350mb.

This was a boring project. (I had to write server-size file-handler software because my FTP client choked on directories containing more than 5000 folders!) I hope it's useful to someone. -Derik^Talk 03:30, 5 February 2009 (EST)

You crazy, hardworking bastard, you! --FFN 03:51, 5 February 2009 (EST)

It's meta-work. I can feel okay about not sitting down to make proper contributions to an article or writing up a character bio in over 10 days... because I've been coding Javascript, updating templates, organizing things, proctoring several thousand linkfixes, proposing splits, experimenting with CSS, writing policy pages, participating in discussions and hammering external servers.

There is not a single piece of content you can point to sand say I added in that time, but the crap I've been doing enables others to work... or so I tell myself.

It's just as well. I've been too distracted to sit down and get int he proper mindset to write wiki. But coding DOM-transformation scripts? That's just mindless grind, one step at a time until it's working. And kinda fun! I got to advance my theory of functional anti-design with this project! -Derik^Talk 04:49, 5 February 2009 (EST)

(In retrospect, FFN may have been poking fun at my own horn-tooting. I've been up for 20 hours, it's hard to tell.) -Derik^Talk 04:50, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Side-note- I think I'm missing 2 o the TECH blasters, must've gotten deleted along with the Nerf stuff. -06:46, 5 February 2009 (EST)

I certainly appreciate these. I thank you, sir. - Magnus Maximus 05:55, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Continuity Families...

Right now our franchise pages double as continuity family landing pages-- the Armada (franchise) page lists all the continuities in the Armada franchise (well, it lists all their installments-- good enough...)

That's not good enough for Shattered Glass. It and Shattered Expectations are both members of the same "Shattered" continuity family-- but there is no toyline/franchise "about" Shattered glass to act as a landing page, it simply lacks one, and a lot of the info about the Family is instead of the page about Shattered Glass continuity.

I'm fine wit the franchise pages serving double duty for everything else (frankly it's better that they do,) but we need a "franchise" page for SG-- which lacks a franchise. What sounds better? Shattered (continuity family) or Shattered (family)? (I'm leaning towards the latter.) -Derik 12:05, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Armada (franchise) redirects to Armada, which then links to Armada (cartoon), Armada (Dreamwave comic) and so on...how is that different to Shattered Glass as a catch-all page linking to Shattered Glass (comic)? I don't see the distinction here --Emvee 12:11, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Er- isn't Shattered Expectations in the same continuity family? Making the home page for that family "Shattered Glass" totally excludes the better universe. -Derik 13:52, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Oh I agree that Expectations is the better product, but I think Shattered Glass is a better name for the continuity family here - after all weren't Dungeons and Dinobots and Do Over both advertised as in the Shattered Glass universe? It just seems unnecessary to invent (or contract) a name when there's one that everyone's familiar with. --77.102.93.200 14:10, 2 January 2009 (EST) Gah, logged out somehow --Emvee 14:11, 2 January 2009 (EST)

I for one don't think of Shattered Glass as being a "continuity family" at all, but rather a wacky part of the G1 family. --KilMichaelMcC 16:42, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Started a discussion on that over at Talk:Continuity family. --KilMichaelMcC 16:47, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Oh, and on Derik's actual question here, I think the Shattered Glass article is just fine as a "franchise" page as it is. --KilMichaelMcC 16:50, 2 January 2009 (EST)

Word-linking

I know it is the tendency of wiki editors to link things to other things. I know that since this isn't Wikipedia, there is perhaps a... giddy freedom for the fact that we won't always automatically revert or block someone for a humorous phrase or blind link in service of a joke. However, I am coming out right now to say that it has grown increasingly unfunny to the point of idiocy to link every instance of "crazy" to Galvatron, or most recently an instance of "moral ambiguity" to TransTech Shockwave of all characters. I mean really, that character's personality wasn't even defined until a few months ago. Why would we even link to it as if it's a well-established cliche? So personally, I'm putting my foot down. Unless something is genuinely a reference to another character, or could reasonably be construed so, I am going to be reverting these when I find them. I hope others will join me in this.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 13:02, 3 January 2009 (EST)

I've always gotten rid of them whenever I notice. It was mildly funny the first couple of times, but not to the extent it is now. (And I maintain that God was never anything approaching funny.) —Interrobang 13:28, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Along these lines, can someone in a free moment please kill off "insane"? --Thylacine 2000 13:43, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Yea, cool. - Starfield 13:53, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Point of clarification: Are "funny captions" exempt? - Starfield 14:10, 3 January 2009 (EST)

The consensus of your fellow users can easily determine if a caption is actually "funny." I am just stating, as one of your fellow users, that most of these that I find I will revert. I reserve special prejudice against entire sentences composed of links.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 14:14, 3 January 2009 (EST)

I was with you until you said that last thing, because sometimes that's an efficient way to convey information. For instance, in the third paragraph here (the summary of the live-action script reading) I used strings of text like "a team of Minions" and "were all Autobots (albeit from different dimensions)" to link to all of the characters involved, rather than interrupting the narrative flow to spell out acres of names. I've never been certain that that's actually kosher, but I've also never seen it get specifically negated, and I know I prefer that it be allowed. So since you brought it up.... - Jackpot 15:41, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Right, I sometimes use sentences full of links that way too- but i think Rosicrucian was talking about non-informative "funny" links. And I agree with him. I don't think sentence-link-lists are a very good way to convey information, and should be avoided except when they really seem like the best choice, so it always irks me to see it done unnecessarily-- especially when the results aren't even very funny.

Really this all comes down to "removing things that are allegedly funny, but aren't." We're just bitching about word links because they're the most frequent offender after the phrase "compensating for something." -Derik 16:07, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Yeah, and I'm totally down with that principle. I just wasn't sure if Rosicrucian was limiting his criticism to joke-related linking. Even then, I don't think I'm particularly bugged by that form of humor... sometimes it can be used to good effect by quickly suggesting a relationship between various characters or ideas that might not be obvious, or by simply pointing out a notable prevalence across a spread of references. I think the phrase "reserve special prejudice against" made me bristle a bit because I don't want to see good/funny observations neutered for the sake of an arbitrary rule. In the same way that joke-memes can dig themselves into people's brains and create widespread comedy-fails (like the god/Primus thing Interrobang mentioned), I'm wary of the unwashed masses taking up notions like "a string of word-links should NEVER EVER BE USED" and effecting needlessly proscriptive editing trends. I think Rosicrucian does have a good sense of things, and his first post in this thread has all the right qualifiers in it, but I'm just making sure the issue stays in perspective. - Jackpot 17:02, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Derik has the right of it. If it can be used to convey information, that's great. If it's "hee hee, I am linking things aren't I clever?" then that is what is getting my ire in this instance.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 22:26, 3 January 2009 (EST)

There are a handful of instances where doing this actually is clever. The rest... actually somehow anti-clever. -Derik 23:22, 3 January 2009 (EST)

Functions?

Hey guys, new guy here.

One thing I've been missing on all the character entries are their functions. I mean, the intro paragraph has info on the characteristics, often summing up the Tech Specs and/or TF:U entry, and (often) also a blurb about various names used througout the world. Only thing missing in that sense is the characters' official functions. One thing is to add it to all pages (I wouldn't mind, since it's my suggestion), but then there's the whole issue of the design. What's y'allses thoughts? --Fighbird 03:45, 5 January 2009 (EST)

The problem is that specifically-stated functions, like tech-spec ratings, change frequently for characters with multiple toys. And for the last few years, most characters never get any. Plus the non-toy characters. --M Sipher 04:15, 5 January 2009 (EST)

True, that... but how about it was listed only where applicaple? Possibly in the same section as the various foreign names as the character (if the toy only has one release) and/or for each version? I dunno... it would definitely enhance my TFWiki enjoyment if it were listed *someplace*... :) --Fighbird 11:07, 5 January 2009 (EST)

My 2¢: I think functions are an unfortunate omission. I see the arguments against them, but I'm not sure how strong the arguments are. Maybe that is because I don't know of the top of my head how many functions changed significantly over time. I know Grimlock went from "Dinobot Commander" to "Lieutenant Commander" but that's about it. I think the inaugural function could be used. Another argument is when fictional portrayals of a character do not match the Tech Spec function. Even then, I think it is interesting to see how they clash, and maybe how the character has outgrown his Tech Spec to become something more (like Thunderwing (G1)) or just different. - Starfield 11:27, 5 January 2009 (EST)

Cheetor: he's Maximal Jungle Patrol, Robotic Jungle Patrol, Jungle Patrol, Warrior, Nocturnal Warrior, Scout. Just to name one of many. -- Repowers 11:44, 5 January 2009 (EST)

The functions could be added specifically to the toy sections--Cheetor (1996, Deluxe) Function: Maximal Jungle Patrol--thus removing any risk of causing confusion in an actual paragraph or at the beginning. I don't think it's worthwhile, though I also didn't think the techspec numbers were worthwhile either. If people really are going to systematically add greeblies to every toy entry ever, then this is just one more little thing to add and the appropriate place to add it. --Thylacine 2000 11:57, 5 January 2009 (EST)

I'd really we rather just made it a policy of finding links to stick in the toy sections... "here is a link for the specific toy" (as opposed to 1 TFU.info link @ the bottom of the page) that way you'd be able to read the full tech-spec (not just the numbers/function) for yourself if that's what you're interested in. -Derik 12:15, 5 January 2009 (EST)

I second this, and not just because it's a good opening to complain about the TS numbers template's ugliness and layout-destroying properties. I think a small template similar in looks to the

{{{1}}}

template (a simple block of color with "External link: ____ at TFU.info" or the website gallery of choice) for external links to specific toys wold be a good idea... plus, if they're put at the bottom of the writeup, help fill space for many toys that would not have much to say about them. --M Sipher 14:25, 5 January 2009 (EST)

All of this, plus you get some really obtuse ones in RiD - Sky-Byte's function is "Shark" and Bruticus's is "Dog." -hx 13:08, 5 January 2009 (EST)

Orphaned Pages

I always find that orphaned pages (case study: Magmatron (BWN)). I think that we should be getting rid of those, to avoid people getting confuzzled.- User: Donut Prime

I don't know what you're trying to say, but I suspect that you are mis-using the word "orphaned." -Derik 13:56, 6 January 2009 (EST)

I think he'd like us to get rid of all these pages who've been waiting to be deleted for ages. It has my vote.Geewunling 14:19, 6 January 2009 (EST)

Comic parenthetical

Is there a reason we've been using (comic issue) as a disambiguation parenthetical, instead of just (issue) or (comic)? Or can I go ahead and move all the (comic issue)s and (Marvel comic issue)s and (US Marvel Comics comic issue)s to (issue)? -- Repowers 09:21, 7 January 2009 (EST)

IIRC, the first issue of the Marvel comic is called "The Transformers." And disambiging it as "The Transformers (comic)" leads to madness and death. -Derik 12:37, 7 January 2009 (EST)

Who drew this? (in b4 shitstorm)

Can someone with an eye for Marvel UK art styles tell me who drew this?

I'd like to know who wrote it too since it lacks credits, but I figure I'll start with the simple stuff. -Derik 01:43, 8 January 2009 (EST)

Generics

I've been writing up the UK comics a bit lately and struck by the enormous amount of generics in them, thought they should recieve a bit of recognition here. I've added a Generics section to A Small War! - rather than clutter the Generic page too much - and would like to roll it out to other stories with notable or interesting generics. It would provide a place for characters like Hideous giant brain guy (who is cool but doesn't do anything) or the green guy who beat up Outback (who does more than some named characters) without creating awkwardly-named extra pages with just a sentence or two on them. I don't want to step on the Obscure Transformers guys' toes too much but a lot of these generics get ignored even by them, and surely deserve a mention somewhere.

Anyway, I'd appreciate input if anyone has any thoughts on this. Cheers --Emvee 13:06, 8 January 2009 (EST) Added Out to Lunch! and Mind Games as examples too --77.102.92.218 18:44, 8 January 2009 (EST)

Incorporating contradictory portrayals into a single intro

I've never really been satisfied with how we do intros, and the chief problem I have (besides chronic lack of citation) is how we moosh information from disparate sources together. Bits and pieces from all manner of bios and storylines can be run together willy-nilly until we hit some sort of contradiction threshold where suddenly all that's allowed is a one-or-two-sentence declaration that varied portrayals exist. But working on the Omnibot pages, it's occurred to me that we have an entire in-fiction language to talk about variant incarnations. "Multiverse," "dimension," "reality," "universe"... these are all terms that keep the fourth wall intact while acknowledging that one character can get any number of contradictory depictions.

So I've rewritten Camshaft's intro, previously a two-sentencer, into what I think is an ideal example. The language stays in-fiction, but I use phrases like "another reality" to link to specific continuity-pages. (If we wanted to, we could generate a "universal stream" name for every continuity and use those, but I'm happy being lazy with vague phrasing.) All sources are cited, either via footnotes (for HTML-linked sources and sources with no specific link at all) or phrase-links to issues/episodes (since storylinks seem to be frowned upon outside of "Fiction" sections). It helps that Camshaft has already been identified as a dimension-hopper and an "evolving" character, facts that serve as nice bookends for the intro. But I think the principles can be applied to any character with varied portrayals.

What do all y'alls think? I see this is a good technique for summarizing thorny characters like Fortress Maximus and Scorponok, and widespread use could produce a more gradual spectrum between the cram-it-all-together and don't-even-try intro styles.

- Jackpot 18:40, 8 January 2009 (EST)

Well one thing I personally don't favor is how you have In "one reality" hypertexted so you have to hover over it to know what reality you are talking about. What about using storylinks? - Starfield 19:27, 8 January 2009 (EST)

Wow. I don't like that at all. The multitude of superscripts is very distracting to the eyes, making what should be a simple opening introduction to the character look like a graduate term paper. And the event-based detail it goes into summarizes too much of the Fiction sections below, making the intro practically redundant -- a "teaser" before you scroll down and read what it's actually referring to. I think it's far, far better to allow the Fiction sections to show how different certain portrayals are, than try to tell the difference in a few clipped sentences.

I'm sorry, but...two thumbs down. --Xaaron 00:18, 9 January 2009 (EST)

Some other people have brought up critiques I can understand, but I'm afraid I disagree with everything you said.

For instance, are you actually arguing against citations in the intro? Because either footnotes or storylinks are going to be intrusive, and I don't see any other option. One of my biggest problems with our intros is that I tend not to trust them. I don't know what's word-for-word accurate, what's an inappropriate merger of unrelated portrayals, and what's just plain wrong but nobody's caught it yet because there's no source to double-check. It seems like the least we could do to lend credibility is to point out where info came from so that other people can easily see for themselves. We've got that down pat pretty much everywhere else, but for some reason the intros tend to be free-for-alls, and I don't think that's right at all.

As for the "summarizing" critique, I think a good 85% of what I wrote is stated nowhere else in the article. Mainly because almost all of the info comes from bios, which don't have a good place to live in the usual sectioning schema. Below, Derik mentioned making an "Origin" section to cover the specifics, and maybe that's appropriate... but right now, just paring the intro down and doing nothing else would produce a loss in information, so it's hardly "redundant."

- Jackpot 21:54, 9 January 2009 (EST)

Specifically within the context of the Omnibots, I kind of like it, because there's an explicit REASON for them to be so weird. For Fort Max or Soundwave or whoever, maybe not so much - I think it could get overly complicated really fast. IMHO the opening paragraph should be the broadest of broad strokes. -hx 06:14, 9 January 2009 (EST)

I have to agree that this is an overly-complicated near-dissertation. That whole thing could very easily be trimmed to at least half its length and still hit the highlights... and there's no need to mention his Headmasters manga non-characterization in the opener at all. --M Sipher 15:33, 9 January 2009 (EST)

By specifying one reality at all, it presents one or more as pre-dominant. You don't think Bumblebee's coloring book personae is important or valid enough to affect his bio. The bios are supposed to be a gestalt overview unless the character is so contradictory that's totally impossible. Something you read to figure out what the guy is about without getting into the specifics of alternate realities and crap.

The top bios are sorta the 'mythological' archetype of this character, a broad portrait that is true for true for all/most stories they appear in. So you get bios like Springer (G1), which talks about his easygoing self-confidence in the cartoon - and his constant self-doubt in the UK comic... and makes them two aspects of the same character trait.

I agree with jackpot that bios should be better footnoted (especially when they get into specifics, like weird abilities, proper names or events in a character's history...) but I strongly disagree with sticking realities int he bio. That's what the fiction section is for.

And Camshaft doesn't need a segmented bio-- he needs an "Origin" section just like Prowl II. His road-to-creation was less torturous, but the story of how he ended up with 4 (unpublished US, rarely-seen Japanese, Dreamwave and Universe) completely contradictory characterizations deserves it's own section that addresses this problem head on... not shoved into another section ill-suited to handling it, to the detriment of both. -Derik 15:57, 9 January 2009 (EST)

To Siph's point, I included the manga bit because it provided good contrast for how wildly different his portrayals are. However, I'll grant that (especially re-reading it a day later) the whole thing is a pretty heavy infodump for what ought to be something skimmable and welcoming. I'll see what I can do to lighten it up.

To Derik's first point, I have no problem with making specific continuities seem more predominant if they, well, ARE. For instance, if I were to rewrite Scorponok's intro with my method, I'd likely make reference to the American cartoon, Marvel comic, and Japanese cartoon, since those are all defining portrayals that carry a lot of weight in the fiction as a whole. I'd feel pretty okay leaving out the Blackthorne 3-D comics and Ladybird books and whatever, or maybe giving them a passing "and some other realities too" acknowledgement with no specific links, because really, they aren't that notable or influential. They get their due in the Fiction section, and that's enough.

To Derik's second point, well, I guess I just disagree. I think the "archetypal" approach can veer too close to "making stuff up that isn't there," and it contributes to the general distrust I feel towards our intros in general.

And on the third point, I actually do think an "Origin" section is a decent idea. I'll see what I can do with that.

For the record, I'd also like to point out Overdrive as a more... tame application of the same ideas. He's easier because he actually DOES have a consistent personality, and he's the most overtly-declared dimension-hopper of the bunch, so the topic of variant realities is eminently appropriate. But still, the principles I'm talking about are in use, and I think pretty well.

- Jackpot 21:54, 9 January 2009 (EST)

I have nothing to add except I think it will be less complicated and will be less work for us to do if we just leave things the way they are. There is other work to be done. --FFN 00:25, 10 January 2009 (EST)

There'll always be other work to be done. That doesn't mean we should never try to improve what's already here. And I'm not suggesting that we need to go on an immediate campaign to change every intro across the board. I'm just throwing this out there as a possibility to consider as we do our usual stream of revisions and creations. - Jackpot 01:07, 10 January 2009 (EST)

I agree that citations are needed- (I hate when they're not there-- and frankly I go to other TV show wikis and I CANNOT BELIEVE they lack storylinks-- how am I supposed to get more info or clarification on something?) but really only when the bio's say something that is reality specific. If a guy's only significant characterization is the Panni comic... and he's appeared as a cipher elsewhere, I feel comfortable presenting his Panni comic characterization as "his characterization" without any special caveats.

If we really wanted to be that hidebound by what's "real" in these bios, we'd just present the tech-specs verbatim-- no matter how inaccurate they are to the character. ("Cries and screams are...") I've always been of the opinion that our bio's are basically 'meta.' Useful and illuminating quick capsules of a character that tell you what someone is about. They are not and should not be a recitation of dry fact. We went like 16 rounds with a user over the Mr. Stanton article-- he thought it was complete when ti said "He was Bud's teacher and Coby borrowed his tools." This is a guy who had several fairly in-depth conversations with Bud-- and though those conversations weren't full of helpful biographical information to fill out a bio (w"hy, when my wife Doris and I and our three children moved to Scranton...") you can still discern something about their relationshipn from them, how he views Bud, what his values are as a person that he tries to impart on the kid, how serious he takes him despite his age, etc. That's an act of interpretation, and as with any sort of judgment call, you run the risk of being wrong' when you do that-- but the choice is fundamentally between a list of verifiable facts that don't actually give you a sense of who the guy WAS-- and a 'squishier' profile that does-- that's actually of some use.

I wrote the bio for Sting ages ago. He's a text-only hi-then-bye character who appeared in 3 paragraphs of one story. I did my best, given the limited view we were presented with, to construct a proper bio of him. He's got personality, abilities and weaknesses-- all arrives at via the description of a gladiatorial fight he was in. "Okay, given his abbilities and the types of moves he makes... it seems like his fighting style seems ot be... and that's actually consistent witht he limited knowledge of the emotional range of this character..."

Now it's entirely possible that he was a Woody-Allen type out of the ring. (In practice, this is fiction not real life, and it's usually safe to assume that the picture we have of a person is a representative one, but lets ignore that.) But the alternative to applying a bit of personal interpretation to a character... is that his entire bio would be "Pit-fighter. Small body. Died." At that point... you might as well not have an article. HE could just appear on a list. And that's not getting into characters who are HARD to explain, or contradictory, where our capsule sumamry is all that stands between the reader and the madness of tryignt o parse a dozen diffeent appearances. "Look, this guy never had a bio, but he's also got SIX appearances as a spear-carrier, and 3 spoken lines-- two of which are slightly sarcastic observations. If you combine THAT with his stated function of 'bodyguard', he goes from being a boring non-person to a mildly amusing "dryly observant retainer" bit-player who is still a character." No single continuity can give you that-- and trying to explain it in terms of single continuities would be... bad and stupid and totally defeat the point.

And,,, and I'm yammering. Whatever. *gestures up* My point is in there somewhere. Sure, you could read through all my noisy contradictory arguments to try and figure out what my point was for yourself... but wouldn't it be nicer if I'd just boiled down a gestalt overview and put it at the beginning? -Derik 03:18, 10 January 2009 (EST)

I can understand where you're coming from, especially with subjects whose characterization is so thin and scattered. I think the examples you cited are on an end of the spectrum where applying my notions really would get in the way. I apologize if I sounded like I wanted to make EVERY intro conform to this particular technique. It really only benefits subjects with a certain kind of meat to them, and I'm just hoping to encourage an additional way of thinking where appropriate. I've reworded the Camshaft intro in a fashion that still embodies what I'm talking about but makes for a breezier read. - Jackpot 15:54, 10 January 2009 (EST)

And... dammit, now I'm doing EXACTLY what you're talking about. Over on Downshift, I incorporated the Takara bio and realized that it meshed with the DW bio too damn well not to interlock. According to the mail-order flyers, Downshift is a Security Agent, and DW agrees, adding the idea that he's so intent on stopping interlopers that he'll seek them out, sometimes leaving whatever he's supposed to be guarding untended. Meanwhile, Takara's bio calls him a Scout and says that he's on the forefront of espionage but is sometimes too overeager to be effective. And I'll be buggered if that doesn't paint a full picture: He goes outside the bounds of his role as a Security Agent because he's ALSO a Scout, and his eagerness to be both makes him lose sight of his duty. To my credit, I still gave the proper cites and links so people can check the sources for themselves... but I kind of feel dirty inside. Is this what it's like to be you? - Jackpot 18:27, 12 January 2009 (EST)

No need for a Scout on post-Shockwave Cybertron. His function in the DW profile probably reflects his duties in peacetime. -Derik 21:04, 12 January 2009 (EST)

As for how it feels to be me... the broad extent of the Transfomrmers Multiverse includes G.I.Joe and all its children, Jem, Inhumanoids, Micronauts, M.A.S.K., A.T.O.M. and probably several other toylines I'm forgetting off the top of my head. After Marvel, DC, Star Trek and Star Wars... I think Transformers might actually be the 5th largest shared fictional universe on the planet Earth.

Grant Morrison has a 'thing' where he talks about how any sufficiently complicated fictional structure is alive. (He means it in an ontological sense, but you might as well call it a memetic lifeform being 'processed' by the brains of the people thinking about it.) He waxes poetic about his plan to shock the inert DCU into life (and then have sex with it,) but he never mentions Marvel-- and I think that's because he thinks the Marvel Universe is already alive, in whatever sense such constructs can be. I've certainly seen many examples of the Marvel Universe seeming to spontaneously reject editor-imposed changes to continuity, or seem to heal over damage-- generally when a half-dozen writers spontaneously writing, hinting at or alluding to the same version of events-- without any central plan to do so.

When Furman wrote a story about Unicron's dark essence, shorn of his consciousness, fleeing through time to the planet Earth, completely unaware that this was the plot of BWII as well? I got suspicious. Since then I've come to take it for granted- seemingly unrelated bodies of fiction written by different people will tend to compliment one another. Call it a living universe, synchronicity, or just the people who live-and-breathe TF for a living being unconsciously on the same page... but it doesn't surprise me anymore. -Derik 21:41, 12 January 2009 (EST)

Downshift is also a Security Agent in the S.T.A.R.S. flyers, which are definitely not a peacetime storyline.

As for the "living fiction" point of view.... that's seriously kind of creepy and makes me look askance at the parasite living in my brain. But it does certainly help me understand your tendency to seek out thematic parallels regardless of (some would say to the detriment of) continuity-integrity. It's a very writerly approach, which of course doesn't always suit a reference source, hence my resistance to such notions in the intros. But I'll admit they can be damn tasty notions.

- Jackpot 15:19, 16 January 2009 (EST)

We need a new franchise nav template

Back in 2007 I complained about the franchise nav fucking up the layout of the Transformers (2007) article once we added the image of the teaser poster. Nearly 2 years later, we still done haven't anything about this, and it's continued to fuck up other franchise pages (if they have an image from the show or something to serve as the main image), the latest victim being the Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen article. Can we please work on a new nav template, or hell, some kind of info box like we've done for comic and episode articles, so the layout of these franchise articles aren't so haphazard? :( --FFN 07:24, 9 January 2009 (EST)

I agree. I think it should be a vertical bar at the top of the page, like the disambigs are, presenting the franchise links horizontally rather than vertically (as the current one does) for minimal vertical footprint.

Do you have any examples of what you think franchise navigation should look like? Places it's done well on other sites? Layout bits that serve a similar function? Completely unrelated... stuff... that you just like the 'look' of? (Because if we're redesignign the franchise navs, that pink hideousness has to go. Steve-o threw them up in that color when we were first designing them witht he expectation that the design would change, and it never did. Ugh.)

I-I... I just had a brain... thing... for a new version of the messagebox template! Better, cleaner, more versatile code-- we could keep the overhang everyone seems to like... Okay, I might not remember this, so the keyword is "relative > absolute.wrapper." Yay! -Derik 16:38, 9 January 2009 (EST)

I like your idea of a horizontally-placed franchise bar at the top, but I also think the pages for the movie itself (being media, should have the episode/issue infobox we've been using for television episodes and comic books for conformity. The info box also allows us to stick the credits of all the high-ranked crew (director, writers, producers ect) without them being shuffled off to the middle of the page like we did on the TF 2007 article. --FFN 00:47, 10 January 2009 (EST)

The two layouts can be contradictory. This is not a problem. -Derik 03:19, 10 January 2009 (EST)

OOps, I meant horizontally placed franchise bar. --FFN 06:58, 10 January 2009 (EST)

...And I meant to write "complimentary," so it's all good. (Horizontal nav + vertical info box = an "L" rotated 180 degrees.) -Derik 20:58, 12 January 2009 (EST)

I've moved the navigation on Transformers (2007) to the top of the article instead of the bottom. The pink is too bold, IMO- but we still need a signifier color. We use tan for Episode boxes and blue for comic mini-series, so if you can pick a shade that's not one of those, it'd be appreciated.

Colors, spacing, rounded borders-- even the bullet shape that appears between items-- are all negotiable. (It was originally a dash, in the old template.) Scout gave me a CSS work file whose contents are loaded by everyone (but only editable for me since it's on my server) so you don't have to do anything special to make the changes visible. (If you wanted any other CSS changes, ask now!)

Just as a reminder- you don't have to think minimalist about these kinds of design. This was my last proposed revision to the messagebox template. That level of customization is completely possible. (Though not always desirable in a template which will be ignored much of the time.) -Derik 00:06, 13 January 2009 (EST)

Couldn't we put it in the bottom? I find pages with templates of that sort right at the very top to be ugly. It's obnoxious to a reader who just wants to read the article, not have related articles shoved in their face right away. Save it for the last thing they read, just like how rational encyclopedias put a "see also" at the bottom. —Interrobang 00:33, 13 January 2009 (EST)

We could, maybe, after everyone has had a chance to weigh in. This is an iterative design process of making changes, gauging responses, and making changes. We're using the Transformers (2007) page to test this because it's nto currently being worked on, and most people's opinions are too vague to know what they think without actually seeing it in use. -Derik 17:47, 13 January 2009 (EST)

Silver? I mean, the Movie logos do have that grey/silver thing going on.

Other than that, looks fine to me... I'm neutral on the top/bottom placement question, although most wikis do put that sort of thing at the bottom. Maybe bump up the font size of the title a bit and add a little padding whitespace? And how are you handling the list items? Floats or display:inlines? Was thinking it might look better to center the items, but I don't know if that would be feasible. --Jeysie 00:38, 13 January 2009 (EST)

This is silvery + top placement. "Transformers (2007)" Responses from the community? -Derik 17:47, 13 January 2009 (EST)

Noice, I dig. Still curious if there's any way to center the lists, though. If they're display:inlined, I think a "text-align:center" on the UL would do it? (If they're floated, then that's a different matter.)

As for the top placement, still neutral. I think the main problem is that it looks funny visually when sitting under a message box. --Jeysie 18:00, 13 January 2009 (EST)

I like it. I disagree completely with Interrobang. I want it up front and center of the article for ease of use for our readers. Burying it on the bottom of our articles is silly, because you'd hardly ever see them, especially on articles as long as Transformers (2007). --FFN 08:13, 14 January 2009 (EST)

I kinda understand Interrobang's reasoning... but while putting these kinds of nav boxes at the bottom often makes sense for Wikipedia... wikipedia also has a single long article on all of Transformers Armada. If you're at an article about TF Armada-- what you want is in that article somewhere. We divide things further than wikipedia. You can land on an Armada page--, and then have to go 'sideways' from cartoon to comic. On Wikipedia there is only down.

(I should apologize to !?, I was terribly snarky and passive agressive when he moved Generation One (cartoon) to The Transformers (cartoon), but I've recently come around on the idea and think it's not only a good idea, but possibly a great idea that's gonna make our entire overall page structure make more sense.) -Derik 09:26, 14 January 2009 (EST)

I know a significant chunk of the users here area really ideologically opposed the visual footprint of the disambig at the top of the article-- whether long and thin or short and squat, it takes up too much space and pushes the main content down-- particularly on the Film pages.

So naturally, I'm responding by quadrupling that footprint. ;)

I think there's some merit to it though, I'd like to hear some initial responses... basically the idea is that most of the franchise sub-pages (comics,for example) are really visually bare. Just an endless expanse of text. I'm proposing that our franchise nav be mated with a big-ass franchise logo... so that when you land on a franchise page yoo $%^&*( know where you are without squinting to read all the text. It's a lot more visually inviting, and Re: FFN and others' chronic complaint that the nav pushed down the movie poster (which it did,) I think the logo reads as content, and the nav then becomes an mere accent to that content-- reducing impression that the "good stuff" has been pushed down.

I'd been looking for a way to fit the franchise logos in anyway-- I think they belong on pages like these, but I could never find a treatment that didn't make them tiny and pathetic.

Anyway... responses? -Derik 12:53, 14 January 2009 (EST)

No one responded. I love you guys.

Well I went ahead and did it anyway. You can see the result here.

I think this addresses some of Kil's concerns re: the franchise nav pushing down the page content by marrying it with the franchise logo, which is, itself, content. (As well as just trying to minimize the overall visual footprint.) The game page has a different nav on top because it's somewhat unique... (4 games that are all sorta "reflections" of 1 game.) I'm nto sure how to handle that... but this seems like a good solution for most franchises.

Can I get some responses this time? -Derik 17:34, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I like it... it takes up about as much space as the old one, but is classier-looking.

Only suggestion: is it possible to do it with divs instead of a table, so that the content can sit underneath the logo and next to the navbox properly? The extra whitespace from the content being pushed underneath looks odd. --Jeysie 17:43, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I'm not sure I follow your question. Tell you what... resize your window while viewing the template, then come back and rephrase the question. -Derik 17:45, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Ignore that, i just figured out what you meant. The nav box had vertical margins set, creating unnecessary whitespace even when the window was very small. I've removed them.

Not exactly... basically, this is what it was looking like, when I thought it looking more like this would be visually tidier. I didn't mind the whitespace. (And I think left-aligning the list might look a little better...) --Jeysie 18:04, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Not without a tradeoff... right now the logo resizes the window, and that's dependent on the eay tables behave rather than div's. You're suggesting basically "floating" the franchise nav like a thumbnail... but that wss the exact behavior that some users objected to-- they didn't want the franchise nav pushing down the movie poster, which they felt should be aligned with the content... the franchise nav is, to their reasoning, more like a disambig-- it's above-and-serperate from the main article content, and should not intrude upon it. (I don't particularly agree, but I see where they're coming from.)

Also, try shift-reloading- you've still got the old CSS styles cached. -Derik 18:17, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Setting a width on the image div would still resize the window. And... the movie nav already pushes down the poster regardless, as you can see in those pics... I simply thought that tucking the text up under the logo instead of all of that whitespace might look better.

And I do have the new version, I just thought that the old version showed the "problem" better (though the new version helps it somewhat, at the cost of it all looking kinda squished together). --Jeysie 18:34, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Setting a width on the image would also make this a fixed-width layout. The nav-module itself is 200+ pixels, if you set the logo at 500px (which seems standard-to-small for how we size franchise logos,), bearing in mind that the toolbox bar on the left of the wiki pages is already 200px... you're now committing to a page that only displays right if the user has their browser sizes to be 1000 or more pixels wide. If it's smaller- the logo would start to squish the nav-module unattractively, or just force it (and the article content) down.

In either case the navigation module would be pushing the thumbnail out of line with the main article content, which was the primary objection users had with just using the old-style navigation boxes.

(I'm not sure about the dynamically-resizing banner images myself... but their purpose was/is allow for a large image without having to worry about them pushing content down.)-Derik 18:49, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Well, you said "right now the logo resizes the window, and that's dependent on the way tables behave rather than divs", so, if it already resizes the browser window, then this is already a fixed-width layout. *is confused*

And... I guess it's a matter of... having the franchise banner be one whole that pushes everything under it would be fine if it actually looked like one whole. Right now it just looks like the logo is a normal top-of-the-page logo and the text wants to tuck up right under it, except it doesn't. (This'll likely be less of an issue for those franchise logos that have as much height as they do width, but for the Movie logo it looks strange to me. *shrug*) --Jeysie 19:06, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Incorrect! The template width varies with the side of the page- which itself varies as you resize your browser! -Derik 19:43, 1 February 2009 (EST)

So... you mean that the logo resizes with the window? 'Cause that would make more sense... But in any case, I didn't know, because... my browser pretty much has one size. (I have a 1024x768 monitor.) --Jeysie 21:50, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Yes. Try scooching your browser partially offsceen and enlarging the window, you'll see the log change size. (Well, or just make it smaller, ditto.) -Derik 00:06, 2 February 2009 (EST)

Clarifying- users previous objections centered on a desire to see the first line of the article proper and the poster thumbnail adhere to the same vertical rule, with none of the disambigs/messageboxes/navigation above that impacting their layout relative ot one another. -Derik 18:52, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Sorry about not responding man. I thought the issue had been dealt with when you did the big bar across the screen. I like this new version even better. --FFN 18:23, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Meh. -Derik 18:49, 1 February 2009 (EST)

So, Derik broke the site.

Or at the least, something regarding his javascript comments is now contained in a pink box to the left. With spelling mistakes.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 10:25, 14 January 2009 (EST)

So it's gone now, and Derik is just fucking with me.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 11:15, 14 January 2009 (EST)

No, now I am just fucking with you. -Derik 11:16, 14 January 2009 (EST)

Blink tags? Really, Derik? That's just gauche.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 11:19, 14 January 2009 (EST)

Let's see how long you can look at it without developing an eye twitch. -Derik 11:22, 14 January 2009 (EST)

There's a button we're supposed to press if you go mad from power, isn't there?--Rosicrucian ^Talk 11:23, 14 January 2009 (EST)

Not even Captain Planet can save you now. -Derik 11:43, 14 January 2009 (EST)

Extension Suggestion

I'd like to restate my suggestion of this extension that lets you choose to preload code when creating pages, as I think it would come in handy for helping to standardize various types of pages.

Anyone who wants to try it out can play around with it on my wiki via the "Select boilerplate" section. You can reload a new set of text just by choosing a new option and hitting "Load" again, without having to delete the existing loaded test first. (Just that I request you make my life easier by not actually saving the page after you're done playing, since the extension by default only works when first creating a page.) --Jeysie 14:32, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Resolving policy questions

For all the mouth-foam and butthurt and santorum that came out of the disambig-parenthetical debate, I think the overall progression shows how best to deal with policy questions: A point of contention is raised, a debate ensues, an alternative proposal emerges, a sandbox is created to test it out, the implications of the alternative become clearer, and it stands or falls on its own merits. In this case, the sandbox bore out some of the criticisms raised against the idea, and the established rule became stronger. Next time someone questions the system, we have something to point them to besides a policy statement. And who knows - maybe there still IS a better idea that nobody's thought of yet, but if someone wants to try, they can see a pretty thorough dissection of why we do things the way we do and how at least one alternative didn't pan out. In fact, I'm wondering if we ought to include links to this and other debates in the relevant policy statements, to try to deter people from repeating old arguments. - Jackpot 15:05, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Probably not a bad idea. (Though if we're going to link to this particular Sandbox indefinitely, I propose it gets moved to be attached to something more permanent like a subpage of the Help:Disambiguation page.) --Jeysie 15:28, 16 January 2009 (EST)

TFU.info links and Tech Spec graphs

There was a discussion not long ago over here about whether we should dump the new Tech-Spec-graph-under-toy-pics idea that we've been trying. It started to spill over into whether we should include quotes and functions and so on, and I want to heartily endorse Siph's idea of dropping all such verbatim-info presentation and just including a link to TFU.info at the end of every toy write-up instead. Our current policy of only linking to one TFU page per character gives that particular toy (with its bio and specs) primacy. Yes, TFU does provide links to other toys of the same character, but those don't always agree with how we divide the characters up. Plus this idea gives the TFU links more sense of purpose than being a perpetual afterthought. Anyone agree/disagree? - Jackpot 15:43, 16 January 2009 (EST)

It's also way more layout friendly. --M Sipher 17:43, 16 January 2009 (EST)

I agree on all counts. -- Repowers 18:03, 16 January 2009 (EST)

I triple-agree, because it means it forces us to track down (or at least attempt to) a link to tech-specs for every toy that has one.

What would this kinds of link look like in practice? God a test page?-Derik 18:56, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Here's a more-or-less random clump I grabbed from Starscream (G1) toys:

Starscream (Classic Pretender, 1989)
Accessories:

You can tell he's evil because he's spiky.

Starscream was released as a Classic Pretender with a human shell of a badly dressed man. The inner robot was a simplified version of the original toy, that transformed into an almost superdeformed F-15 fighter. His arms, legs and rear wing assemblies were all cast in blue plastic, with the latter also serving as dual laser weapons in robot mode.

For more information, see Classic Pretender / Legends Starscream on TFU.info.

Starscream (Legends, 1989)

Accessories:

The inner robot of Pretender Starscream was also sold separately as a K-Mart exclusive "Legends" figure, and was released with Legends Bumblebee, Jazz, and Grimlock in a Japanese giftset the same year.

For more information, see Classic Pretender / Legends Starscream on TFU.info.

Starscream (Action Master, 1990)

Accessories:

He loved the gray helmet so much, he used it again.

Action Master Starscream is a non-transforming action figure based loosely on his cartoon appearance but using a colour scheme derived from the Pretender toy. His main accessory is the Turbo Jet, a small personal attack craft that Starscream can set astride like a motorcycle. The Turbo Jet rolls on three small wheels, and can transform into a gun emplacement. This mold was redecoed as Action Master Thundercracker.

For more information, see Action Master Starscream on TFU.info.

Ghost Starscream (2001)

Japanese ID number: D-22
Accessories: 2 fists (left & right), 2 missile launchers, 2 null rays, 2 cluster bombs, 2 wings (left & right), 2 tail fins (left & right), 2 tail wings (left & right), landing gear

Wait a minute. Since when do ghosts have painted metal chests?

Ghost Starscream was an e-Hobby exclusive release of the 2001 Starscream reissue, cast almost entirely in translucent plastics, except for those parts made of die-cast metal.

For more information, see Ghost Starscream on TFU.info.

I figure the links should name their specific toys so the reader can tell that each one is different (and the naked URLs are hideous, so I hope and assume that that option's right out). I think the italics separate the statement nicely from the actual write-up. But beyond that, I don't see the need for any fancier treatment. Edit: I admit "For more information, see" might be a bit verbose for something we're going to see repeated EVERYWHERE, but I didn't want it to be completely without context. "See also" could work too.

- Jackpot 20:21, 16 January 2009 (EST)

We're getting there. We might want to indent and bullet-point the external links. For example...

Ghost Starscream (2001)
Japanese ID number: D-22
Accessories: 2 fists (left & right), 2 missile launchers, 2 null rays

Ghost Starscream is an e-Hobby exclusive release of the 2001 Starscream reissue, cast almost entirely in translucent plastics, except for those parts made of die-cast metal. He has lots of nifty spring-loaded gimmicks... in imaginationland.

This mold was also used by a metric buttload of Seekers.

Ghost Starscream information at TFU.info.

Ghost Starscream gallery at Seibertron.com

And... good gods, are thew Starscream images on that page that far down and that tiny? Time for a cleanup job, methinks. --M Sipher 21:31, 16 January 2009 (EST)

I'm not sure about the word "gallery," since it doesn't convey "bio and Tech Specs and everything" to me. Plus our pictures are usually better, so why would you even want to see the "gallery" over there? I can't think of a better alternative off the top of my head, though, besides the generic "information". - Jackpot 21:37, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Tweakage, plus adapting in case of multiple external links. Simply for example purposes, I shortened the items list and upsized the image more towards a "common" entry type than the actual Ghostscream entry will be. Thoughts? --M Sipher 22:03, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Ah, the bullet does make more sense if there's the potential for multiple links. I can't think of any changes to make, so thumbs-up. - Jackpot 22:24, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Say what you will about Seibertron, their photo galleries are nice indeed. --M Sipher 22:28, 16 January 2009 (EST)

Nice, I like it. ;D --TX55^TALK 06:47, 17 January 2009 (EST)

So have we definitely, positively decided to dump this techspec business or what? Because right now articles that did have tech specs have had the tech specs removed by people who were against them, but loads of other articles still have the tech specs. --FFN 13:25, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Simply because we haven't gotten around to them yet. --M Sipher 14:26, 26 January 2009 (EST)

What about characters who don't have toys to link to? I know Sound Blaster and Elita-1 have tech specs (off their DST bust packaging) but those wouldn't be on tfu.info.--MrBlud 15:10, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Uh, Soundblaster DOES have a toy. As for Elita, that can be told in a paragraph in the writeup. If anything, that will fill what will surely be blank space created by the existence of the bust photo. --M Sipher 15:19, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Extraneous redirects

As y'all may have noticed, I purged a crapload of obsolete redirects yesterday. Most of them had parentheticals that we no longer use -- (TFU), (UT), double parentheticals, etc. I mainly wanted to ensure that they couldn't continue to spread.

In the process, I found that we have an absurdly large number of redirects... something like 4,800 total. Of these, hundreds are parentheticals -- stuff like "Skyfire (G1)" redirecting to "Jetfire (G1)". Seems to me that most of these are unnecessary. Nobody in their right mind is going to search for something by adding a parenthetical to the end, and in most cases we shouldn't be linking to parenthetical redirects. I presume most of these are simply leftovers from moved pages. But before I go on another deletion bender, I wanted to get a feel for consensus on this. Is there reason to keep some of these? -- Repowers 17:50, 18 January 2009 (EST)

I don't really see any reason. The only redirects we should be keeping around are official alternate names (including mis-parsings, like Banzaitron, Snap Trap, etc.; can't expect everybody to know the "correct way" when some official material states otherwise) and other special cases I can't think of at the moment. I trust your judgement. —Interrobang 18:42, 18 January 2009 (EST)

Yeah, multiple parsings are useful. Likewise for punctuation-enhanced titles and common search terms (I added "gi joe" 'cause I got tired of typing "G.I. Joe" all the time.) It's mainly the parentheticals I'm annoyed by. It's not urgent or anything, but it feels like sloppy housekeeping and I don't see much reason to keep most of them. -- Repowers 19:12, 18 January 2009 (EST)

I say purge. --M Sipher 20:08, 18 January 2009 (EST)

Chinese knock-off

There appears to be a mirror of our site (well, Wikia's site) dating from... mid-July 2008 (about 4 weeks after we left wikia,) that was created with the intention of translating the site into Chinese. It's got its own domain, so it's probably set up by fans not a wiki-farm.

Project's dead, with no edits in the last month-- I don't think it ever got off the ground. They might still be using it for reference I guess... 3 sysops, one with a user page, so I'm guessing "Programus" is/was the guy who headed up the effort.

Not terribly important, but kinda fun to see! -Derik 20:25, 19 January 2009 (EST)

Probably the same guy as User:Programus on zh.Wikipedia. (He's active there, unlike tfg2.com.) It says he's got an intermediate command of English. I mention it in case we ever need to touchpoint with someone in Chinese fandom. -Derik 20:32, 19 January 2009 (EST)

Back-of-the-box art

Just found my old copies of the G1 back-of-the-box art here. Some of them are gorgeous! It'd be sweet to use some snippets for character profile art, but... not sure who could qualify. Most of the good ones, we already have non-standard-source art for. Still, for your consideration:

1984: Starscream
1985: Grimlock, Sludge... Tracks is the wrong color, and Shockwave is at an odd angle. Venom, maybe, but he's the wrong color.
1986: Octane is the wrong colors. Broadside is off-model. You can't see Divebomb's head.
1987: Chromedome, maybe. Apeface, verrrry maybe.
1988: we're already using Landmine and Skullgrin.

I miss anybody? Input? Back of box art scans may be seen here at Botch's ever-awesome site. -- Repowers 20:46, 19 January 2009 (EST)

From the Japanese art, Metroplex and Devastator look very good. The whole 1984 art is awesome in its alien-looking toy-based character models. - Starfield 21:38, 19 January 2009 (EST)

External link nofollow policy

Currently TFWiki is using the default Nofollow policy for MediaWiki installations — external links are set nofollow (unless they're interwiki links like the one I just made to Wikipedia). Personally I'm opposed to using nofollow, and thought I'd sound out the community to see if there is any support for removing it from the external links.

As a side note, getting TFWiki listed in the default Interwiki map would help raise our profile... --abates 18:32, 22 January 2009 (EST)

I wouldn't have a problem dropping the nofollow in the main namespace, as we're picky about relevant links and generally diligent in zapping spam. --Jeysie 21:05, 22 January 2009 (EST)

I think I'd favor disabling nofollow in the main namespace, with the caveat that I'm concerned it might slightly raise our profile as a spammer target.

You think we can get on the interwiki map? What's the procedure? -Derik 18:55, 22 January 2009 (EST)

Supposedly you just drop a comment on the talk page for the Interwiki page I've linked to above, though I do notice that there are outstanding requests there dating from 2007. --abates 19:04, 22 January 2009 (EST)

I had the wrong URL is why, this Interwiki map page appears to be the right place to make the request. --abates 19:17, 22 January 2009 (EST)

FYI, I'm planning to approach Wookieepedia to see if they'd be open to partnering and link exchange. Materially, doing so would benefit them a lot more than it does us... they have relatively few articles that'd be linking here (wince they don't concentrate on the toys as hard,) but in that vein we can actually offer a benefit... for some crossover areas, our documentation of SW toys is better than theirs is.

You can see an example of what a template like this would look like @ Darth Vader. -Derik^Talk 22:36, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Mmm... TFWiki is officially in nomination to be a formal friend/life-partner of Wookieepedia. So if you know a Wookiepedian who can voice support, by all means lean on them. -Derik^Talk 19:55, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Did anything come of this in the end? I had a quick look around Wookiepedia but couldn't see any reference to us. --abates 16:05, 1 March 2009 (EST)

Can we hit 8,000 before they hit 7,000?

Doing one of my periodic scans of That Other Wiki, aka The Wiki That Was, aka Not Us Anymore, I notice they've crawled their way up to 6,998 articles. Currently we're on 7,944. I would love to see us hit 8K articles before they can turn over 7K -- there's definitely a nice symbolism to being a thousand articles ahead. Consider it a motivational campaign! -- Repowers 14:24, 23 January 2009 (EST)

If we were just creating article for the purpose of boosting our counts, sure! But those kinds of articles suck, and tend to have no content, eternally "coming soon." We try to create articles as we add the content, otherwise you can fall into the trap of the old G.I. Joe Wiki.

OTOH, we're lacking a page for the Armada Free Comic Book Day issue, and that's an oversight that's been bugging me for the better part of a year. Blocking that in would be completely appropriate. (Walky has it, and though I don't have digitals on-hand, I have the pamplet in my bookcase at home tonight if more scans are needed.) -Derik 14:47, 23 January 2009 (EST)

But there's still plenty of red links that need taking care of. Cities, for example -- I think we still don't have a Chicago article. There's a ton of G1 story and coloring books we haven't documented. The list goes on and on... -- Repowers 14:55, 23 January 2009 (EST)

I think it might be worthwhile to implement a "fifty states project" type thing. At least outline articles for every state in the U.S. (assuming that state has ever done anything) and the major cities that have appeared in fiction. If a city appears in three different stories, it gets its own article, I'd say. -hx 15:05, 23 January 2009 (EST)

I think own-articleness should depend on how full-up the state article is. If the only thing going on in the article is that city, then it should live there as a sub-section. (With the city name as a redirect.) -Derik 15:10, 23 January 2009 (EST)

I've been reviewing the Marvel series over on my blog, one issue per week. Your note inspired me to go back and add a couple of articles that occurred to me as I was reviewing but that I didn't have the gumption to create. Cheers! --Jimsorenson 16:54, 23 January 2009 (EST)

You know, I did recently dig up the old Rhino VHS tapes... the ones with two episodes a pop on 'em. I think wiki-ing those up would be easy... --M Sipher 17:39, 23 January 2009 (EST)

Working on it. Doing it honestly, too! --Xaaron 21:50, 23 January 2009 (EST)

Ditto, though my choices of new articles are apparently interesting enough to be distracting to other high-value members, sorry. (I kinda have a list in the back of my head "Articles I want to do, but which will be a pain/complicated/need-translation-or-input"...)

We've been creating new articles at ~10 times the rate Wikia is..., so I made a random sampling of their "new pages" log. Oh, much merriment was had! -Derik 22:18, 23 January 2009 (EST)

TFWiki is the Transformers knowledge database of 8,003 files
Awwwwww yeah. Pat yourselves on the back, people! -- Repowers 18:33, 24 January 2009 (EST)

And IIIIIII helped! (Seriously, it was a good excuse to do some little niggly HM and MF articles I've been putting off. Woo, go us!)- Chris McFeely 18:54, 24 January 2009 (EST)

Well done guys. I think it says a lot that in 2 days we created 65 new articles, and in the same period, they evidently created none. --FFN 07:22, 25 January 2009 (EST)

And- er- they seem to be mostly quality articles too. (Well, not mine... but I'm highly distractible.) -Derik 07:28, 25 January 2009 (EST)

How can you tell how many articles there are (and, for that matter, the fact that Ego is apparently the 8000th)? Is that an admin thing, or can anyone see this information? - Jackpot 19:35, 25 January 2009 (EST)

There's a counter on the main page of our wiki.

Also- Wikia finally added a 6999th article! -Derik 19:43, 25 January 2009 (EST)

You can also go to the Statistics page for the number of articles and some other interesting, well, statistics.

As for how to tell which article was the 8000th... that I don't know. I guess you could extrapolate by looking at the time stamp to see when the "We have X number of articles" message was posted, then go to the New Pages list and count articles posted after that time stamp... but there might be an easier way I don't know about. --Jeysie 19:45, 25 January 2009 (EST)

That was a very "of the moment" thing. At the time, everyone was keeping a close eye on how many articles we had. We had 7999, then Ego got made. So we just know it was the 8000th because we were watching. - Chris McFeely 20:17, 25 January 2009 (EST)

'Curious, do these 8000 articles also include every redirect page?Geewunling 02:52, 26 January 2009 (EST)

See the Special:Statistics page that Jeysie linked to. If we counted redirects and suchlike, we'd actually be at over 34,000 pages. - Jackpot 03:02, 26 January 2009 (EST)

They deleted it! They deleted their 6999th article ROFL!—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.108.30.195 (talk • contribs) 10:23, 29 January 2009.

It was likely fanfiction or an unsubstantiated rumor.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 10:58, 29 January 2009 (EST)

They've since deleted another page, and now have 6997 articles. Wikia is actually shrinking.

I was pleased to google "Edminson + deluge" today, and OUR page on Deluge came up first, and Wikia's second. We've added only ONE link to that page since leaving Wikia... but we've also made a few maintenance edits, which Google registers as updates. (If content is receiving regular updates, however minor, it's more likely to be up-to-date.)

What I'm saying is... judged purely on the merit of its content (since this is a low-traffic page,) Google has apparently decided that TFWiki.net has overcome the duplicate-content penalty it hands out for site-cloners... and that our content is (however marginally) better than Wikia's. That's a watershed shift- if you take away the traffic Wikia has in their favor... we have now pulled ahead in Google. And Google is now starting to direct more traffic our way.

The inertial mass of Traffic that Wikia has on the popular pages is still a big factor. (Especially with the movie coming up, people who google blindly will most likely end up at the first link-response-- widening Wikia's traffic lead.) That said, our content relating to anything after June 2008 is overwhelmingly better than Wikia's... to the point that even their traffic cannot convince Google to list them first.

Finally, wikis aren't like normal web sites. A normal web site's "Bounce rate" (how long it takes you yo 'leave' the site) is very high. Wikis are very LOW-- it's common to be drawn into all the inter-article links and waste HOURS reading about shit. I have to believe that Wikia's policy of annoying their readers, making the content less attractive, and the general UNFRIENDLINESS of their "Don't even think of editing anything you amateur" notice at the top of every page (with a gun to your head!) means users "bounce out" earlier there than they do here. Google analytics notices that too.

Basically what I'm saying is... water has started to flow from Wikia's bucket to ours. And that's just going to accelerate. -Derik 21:30, 29 January 2009 (EST)

I just happened on their Recent Changes page. Oh, heavens. The last 100 changes at this time cover everything from 10:15 a.m. on Jan. 27 to 6:50 a.m. on the 30th. That's 100 changes in the course of roughly 68 hours, or about once every 41 minutes. In contrast, the last 100 changes on our wiki at this time run from 10:17 p.m. yesterday to 7:23 a.m. today, a period of just over 9 hours, or once every 5 1/2 minutes. Wow.--Apcog 07:47, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Try enabling 'bot edits. They don't have anyone running a maintenance 'bot over there, so when someone (for example) arbitrarily moves Transformers (2007) to the "less ambiguous" Transformers (film), suddenly 98% of the incoming links are being routed via redirect. And if Transformers (film) were to ever be moved (because someone pointed out, for example, that it was a SHITTY article title,) then all those links are gonna break.

That's an extreme example... but on a SMALLER SCALE over there... people move article without bothering to update the links coming in. If it just BREAKS you can usually sort it out by hand, but it's eventually going to snarl as stuff gets moved over other stuff. -Derik 08:33, 30 January 2009 (EST)

No they don't, page moves on wikia can now update all redirects with the check of a box, and double redirects don't break any more either. --◄mendel► 23:06, 15 February 2009 (EST)

HUGELY GOOD NEWS!

I was idly browsing and decided to see how we were doing compared to wikia. I did a google search and we are still third (first is wikia's transformer site, second is that sites revebge of the fallen article) and I opened wikias site for no real reason (and I use google chrome by the way) and the page was utterly horrendous and impossible to navigate! Minutes later my computer blue screened me! That means that every chrome user who googles "transformers wiki" will HAVE to come here! This will be good for us and make a huge dent in wikias pride (or something). I have told them about this though and I'm now scared to go on their site in case I get another blue screen so can some one else who uses chrome check please?86.161.186.240 11:18, 24 January 2009 (EST)

Ahahahaha - that's hilarious :D --FFN 06:56, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Hoooooooooray! Another victory for us!81.108.237.26 12:40, 26 January 2009 (EST)

No problem viewing the Wikia site in Chrome for me, however Opera 9 consistently crashes trying to load ~~their front page~~any page on that wiki. --abates 21:29, 26 January 2009 (EST)

Rumor site

It seems that the old Teletraan-1 site has become corrupted, as on their ROTF page, they have REDACTED FOR CHRIST'S SAKE for characters. --206.253.51.107 19:05, 24 January 2009 (EST)

OH HAY LOOK AT THE SPOILERS RIGHT THERE IN YOUR THING. GOOD GOING FELLA. -hx 19:12, 24 January 2009 (EST)

sorry. really, really sorry. that's the last time i'll do that. I PROMISE.--206.253.51.107 19:16, 24 January 2009 (EST)

On a sidenote, it just...fascinated me that it'd been so stinkin' corrupted that they'd put big, FAT, JUICY rumors on my former favorite site. --206.253.51.107 19:21, 24 January 2009 (EST)

On a tangent, I love the way that someone's added a massive 5/6 page cast list to the article for the Sunbow cartoon. --abates 00:26, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Speaking of corruption, see my post above /\ (sarcasm starts here) the place looks GREAT in google chrome! (sarcasm ends here)86.161.186.240 03:49, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Name addendum

Hello there editors of Transformers Wiki. I do not edit here, although I am a co-founder of Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki, over at Wikia. I do not know if this was brought up already, or if it even warrants discussion. Has anyone ever suggested the name of Witwiki, based on the surname Witwicky from the 2007 Transformers movie as a title for the Transformers Wiki, even as a subtitle? I know that this wiki covers all forms of Transformers media, not just the movie, however considering the significance of this human character, and that his name is very close to how one would spell "wiki", I just felt that I could not pass up the chance. What do you all think? -- Riffsyphon1024 72.150.116.190 04:21, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Something similar was suggested when a rename was discussed for the server move last year, but I think the consensus was that people would have problems remembering how to spell it. --abates 04:33, 25 January 2009 (EST)

There was a not-terribly-serious discussion about re-naming the site "Witwickypedia" (See, it's even funnier that way!) when we left Wikia.

While most agreed it was amusing, we decided against it. -Derik 04:35, 25 January 2009 (EST)

It was also decided that for sheer accessibility to anyone and everyone, it would be best to go with the simplest and most direct name... a move the Wikia JUST SO HAPPENED TO ALSO DO HMM WHAT ARE THE ODDS. (Has the Wookiee thought of moving? I mean. I know it's a pain, but come on, SW fans HAVE to have more dosh to handle server costs than TF fans.) --M Sipher 04:51, 25 January 2009 (EST)

Just for further information, Riffsyphon1024, characters named Witwicky have been in Transformers since the beginning in 1984, so we considered the name "Witwickypedia" because of the amusement factor and because of the family's long association with Transformers franchise :) --FFN 06:54, 25 January 2009 (EST)

I understand your reasoning. Since I wasn't too big of a TF fan, I had not known that the name was used back in the 80s. That would make it more appealing to use, but if only for the sake of name recognition, it is your decision that eventually lends to the final name of this wiki. As for Wookieepedia, we have developed a relationship with Wikia that assisted us in 2007 when they sponsored our table at Celebration IV and donated some funds towards the convention. For the moment, we are comfortable with Wikia, and still remain one of the sites largest Wikias, next to WoWWiki. -- Riffsyphon1024 70.149.134.83

Nameless characters

I've noticed some off-and-on confusion about how to treat nameless characters... Template:Noname is a bit counter-intuitive (to the point of arguably being misleading) when dealing with someone like Cyclonus (Shattered Glass)-- who clearly does have a name... but gets the template anyway because the name is unconfirmed.

I propose sub-dividing Template:Noname into finer distinctions

name-not-confirmed — ( Cyclonus (Shattered Glass) )
No-name-but-has-term — ( Giant Decepticon Warrior has an official descriptor used internally, but his name is not known. Similarly Bobby Bolivia's mammy title is based on how she was referred to in the fiction... we don't have a name for her, but the terms we are using are at least "real." )
colloquial name/term — ( ? Do we have any characters with commonly-accepted-but-totally-unofficial names? )
no-term — ( Hideous giant brain guy and Decepticon medic, no official name/term/description, we have to make one up. )

Thoughts? We'd need shorter/neater terms for these divisions. (Rescue Force jet still heads up the 'no-term' template I think...) -Derik 14:08, 26 January 2009 (EST)

#3 and #4 seem redundant. No point in separating them - they're both equally unofficial. -- Repowers 15:58, 26 January 2009 (EST)

I was running into the same problem-- and more to the point, I can't think of any widely-accepted fan-names for stuff that haven't been canonized already. -Derik 17:12, 26 January 2009 (EST)

I'd be happy with that...I was running out of ways to say "He's not explicitly named but he's essentially Shattered Glass Laserbeak" in the notes on the SG pages. Something more succinct in the header would make more sense. --Emvee 20:57, 26 January 2009 (EST)

IDW live action movie/Revenge of the Fallen prequel comics section naming.

Lately I've been reorganising the IDW sections of the movie characters to (more or less) use the descriptive titles as the headings. For example, the original IDW prequel is

===IDW Transformers movie prequel comics===

while "The Reign of Starscream" is:

===IDW Transformers movie sequel comics===

and "Alliance" is:

===IDW Revenge of the Fallen movie prequel comics===

====Alliance====

I do it this way because the IDW comics tell stories before and after the 2007 movie, rather than being set entirely within their own continuity period like most comics (which can usually fit under one heading or one big uninterrupted section). However, for some characters, such as Vine, "Alliance" depicts events set before the 2007 movie and before his first appearance in The Reign of Starscream. In cases like this, should we put these events in chronological order under a generic "IDW Transformers movie comics continuity" heading (which will be inconsistent, especially for characters whose comic adventures weave in and out between the movies), or should I do the headings that I have been doing and put events that are depicted within Alliance (or whatever) under the Alliance banner and simply say it happened in the past?

My apologies if I am not clear and this is confusing.

Note: I use a sub-title for the ROTF prequel comics headings because "Defiance", set far in the past before the wars, is also sold as a ROTF prequel comic. --FFN 10:01, 27 January 2009 (EST)

Well... as I said when we first started discussing how to organize all of this, the problem is that the movies and comics are all intended to be a single storyline, so it's not surprising that separating out the comics is ending up being really confusing and untidy. (*resists the urge to say "I told you so"*) If you treat something as separate that's not supposed to be...

If we really have to separate the comics out artificially, I would recommend putting the RoS/Destiny comics all under a single "IDW Transformers movie comics continuity" with the issues in storylinks, or we're just going to end up with a mess. Basically, IMHO we should be treating them the same way we do the -ations, because that's how they're written to be treated. (Ideally we should be treating them the way we do The Arrival, but...)--Jeysie 12:50, 27 January 2009 (EST)

The point is organisation. If we didn't separate the different comic series we'd end up having character pages where it says "IDW Transformers movie comics continuity" several times in the fiction section, should we consider the comics to be in-continuity with the movie (and thus far it's the only non-movie fiction that's more or less in-synch with the events of the movie). Chucking everything under one big heading would present the story in the wrong chronological order. It would be like "this happens in the first prequel comic. Okay, now scroll down and read the movie section, then scroll back up and read The Reign of Starscream issue 1." --FFN 14:32, 27 January 2009 (EST)

If the wiki insists on separating things out by franchise even in the few cases when it strongly clashes with the fiction, this is the sort of thing you have to deal with.

The best compromise I can think of is to keep RoS/Destiny together, and duplicate summaries of any bits of the movie that are needed to "glue" the comic summaries together (probably putting said duplicates in italics).

But basically, you're going to end up either having to weirdly separate out into separate sections parts of the same comic issue/series, or you're going to have to reference movie summaries in between the comic summaries. I personally think the latter is probably going to be easier to not get screwed up, but it's probably a very small difference as both methods are pretty confusing. --Jeysie 15:04, 27 January 2009 (EST)

In terms of wiki work, I hate the movie. It's unique in how it forces you to handle major parts of articles. --FFN 12:23, 28 January 2009 (EST)

Well... yes. Most of the time a new franchise = new storyline. But here... the Movies and comics are really a single storyline, yet the way Hollywood works forces you to treat any movie as a single entity in terms of marketing. So we have a situation where the ROTF logo is being slapped on all the new merchandise as advertising, but the ROTF movie isn't actually separate in terms of fiction.

I would be strongly in favor of doing what will make wiki editing the clearest and easiest (ignoring the ROTF logo aside from the toys and just putting it all together), but... yeah, I don't expect any support there outside of a couple people. I do know I'm sure not trying to figure out editing any of the Movie character articles myself. :/ --Jeysie 17:39, 28 January 2009 (EST)

I would strongly favor putting the IDW MOVIE ADAPTION in that place, with a

{{{1}}}

that the events are ~= to the movie section above. -Derik 14:57, 2 February 2009 (EST)

That would entail somebody actually reading the first movie adaptation and write about it. You do it. *crosses arms* --FFN 01:01, 10 February 2009 (EST)

It also makes a difference in character categories. There is a category for "Revenge of the Fallen characters" but I'm not sure it is appropriate to put someone in the "Revenge of the Fallen characters" category just because they were in the Defiance book. - Starfield 10:44, 10 February 2009 (EST)

A new proposal - two sections of a generically named "IDW Transformers movie comics" where appropriate. Since the IDW comics are more or less the main source of background material, prequel material and "meat" for the movie franchise, I am uncomfortable with shoving them all under one giant IDW section, particularly as we'd be putting it before the actual movies section.

So what I propose is two different "IDW Transformers movie comics" sections, one placed before the 2007 movie to deal with all events that occured in the past, and one place after the 2007 movie (and before ROTF) to deal with The Reign of Starscream and Alliance. --FFN 08:52, 17 February 2009 (EST)

Toy sizes

Can I suggest putting the height-in-robot-mode in each toy's section? We do mention that Animated Bulkhead is short for a Voyager, and Lockdown is tall for a Deluxe, but I think putting in actual measurements would make it that much more informative, you dig? - Magnus Maximus 17:22, 29 January 2009 (EST)

I don't think it's that important to note. In the instances that height is important, we do note it, and I think that suffices. --ItsWalky 17:27, 29 January 2009 (EST)

I think it's just as (un)important as anything else on a wiki that exists primarily to catalogue children's toys and the advertising thereof. Plus, it's interesting. For instance, I had no idea how big the difference was between Animated Lockdown and Soundwave until I got them both. It's not just Animated, either. There's Armada Prime, for example, where the Supercon is "a smaller version of the Super Base toy"... How much smaller? One inch? Three inches? Less than half the size? It pretty much means nothing when it's that vague. I just think that including actual measurements would mean a lot more. - Magnus Maximus 17:59, 29 January 2009 (EST)

But if we measure the height, do we do it from the head or the kibble? Also, would we also include how big they are in centimeters? --Sunjumper 07:57, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Either, so long as it's clear which. And sure, why not? Here's an example of what I had in mind: "Standing at 5½ inches (14 cm), kibble included, Animated Soundwave is comparatively short for a deluxe figure." So long as there's a picture, the reader can see that the kibble sticking up is roughly 1/10th the robot's height and figure out that he's about 5" without it. - Magnus Maximus 15:51, 31 January 2009 (EST)

Er, yeah. I think this idea is a little odd, esoteric, and of limited application. --M Sipher 09:37, 30 January 2009 (EST)

Seriously? I'm really the only person on the planet who might want to know how big a toy is before paying $50 for it? - Magnus Maximus 15:51, 31 January 2009 (EST)

I think it's sufficient to note the height when it is absolutely needed. I'm not going to go measure all of my toys. --FFN 16:15, 31 January 2009 (EST)

But if someone's going to spend all day photographing their toys anyway, it'll only take an extra few seconds to hold a ruler up next to each one. And as I said, merely noting "a difference" in size is meaningless in such vague terms. It turns into an abstract maths problem; Optimus Prime is bigger than Wheelie, but smaller than Unicron. Solve for x. - Magnus Maximus 19:20, 4 February 2009 (EST)

I only include toy sizes when it's really exceptional: WSTFs, Cityformers, etc. But if it's really important to you, has all the measurements of the toys DVD has reviewed over the years, starting at late G2 and continuing to the present day. --Thylacine 2000 19:58, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Cliffbee's site has quite a few, too, but there are a lot of toys he hasn't got. That's the point of a wiki; several people can provide more information than any one person can on their own. - Magnus Maximus 21:03, 4 February 2009 (EST)

"But if someone's going to spend all day photographing their toys anyway, it'll only take an extra few seconds to hold a ruler up next to each one."

But hardly any of us photograph the toys here. Though we would prefer to use own photographs so we don't even step on any copyright issues, we generally use Hasbro/Takara's stock photos. Usually Walky, M Sipher or one of the other staff members photographs their own toys when the Hasbro photo is poorly transformed, or simply isn't available. Most of our toys listed have images anyway, so what you are proposing is thousands of toys to go through. And hey, if we have the info handed to us, that's still thousands of entries to edit for a rather boring reason. --FFN 09:16, 17 February 2009 (EST)

Okay, that suggestion wasn't popular. How about my original suggestion that most people ignored? I kind of get the point of only mentioning it when it's exceptional, but seriously, without any kind of context, it means nothing. Describing something as "big for a Deluxe" is useful only if you know how big the average Deluxe is. - Magnus Maximus 21:03, 4 February 2009 (EST)

This also entails grabbing every toy we have from every line listed since the dawn of size classes and measuring them and calculating the average height per line. That'd hundreds of toys. --FFN 09:16, 17 February 2009 (EST)

Admin Symbols in Recent Changes

... Are those... little hearts I see? --Jeysie 13:42, 30 January 2009 (EST)

I ♥ admin symbols.

If we're going to have admin symbols at all, can they be something a little more subject-appropriate? How about a spark? --Thylacine 2000 19:23, 30 January 2009 (EST)

More appropriate... like a scarlet "A" for Admin? -Derik 03:47, 31 January 2009 (EST)

They could sparkle! -Derik 03:17, 31 January 2009 (EST)

For what it's worth, I'm not seeing the symbols at all. Some edits have red exclamation points in front of them, the meaning of which isn't clear to me, but that's it.--Apcog 03:18, 31 January 2009 (EST)

It depends on how much of CSS3 your browser supports. -Derik 03:22, 31 January 2009 (EST)

...They're not appearing if you have "enhanced recent changes" turned on - I had to turn it off in my preferences to see them. Awesome! --abates 03:58, 31 January 2009 (EST)

New image naming whatever

This is something I've been doing with the toy images I've been uploading... and I think it's something that should be adopted in order to help better-organize our image files. I mean, if our image categories are going to have thousands of entries ("toy images" entails a LOT of stuff), I think some new naming can help organize and make browsing the categories far easier for people.
Basically, it's super-simple. Start with franchise, the type of image, then whatever descriptor is needed. Examples:

BM-toy_Scavenger.jpg
RM-packart_WreckerHook.jpg
Ani-screenshot_GarbageIn-UniversalGreeting.jpg

This way, when looking through, say, the toy images category, everything is sorted by franchise. When looking at images by franchise, everything is sorted by type of image.
I think this will help out a lot. Image organization has been frankly one of this wiki's weakest points, making it hard to see if an image you might be looking for exists. I'll be re-taking a SHITLOAD of toy images over the course of whatever (I hate that we use so many blurry shots from Generations and inaccurate-to-final-product toy stock photos), and will be making sure not only the names are "standardized", but that they get all the proper image categories as well. And I'll also be going back over older stuff and tweaking the names as I update the relevant pages in other ways.
Man, I wish you could just "move" images to new names like you can articles. It'd make things a hell of a lot easier.
Let the good times roll. --M Sipher 07:36, 1 February 2009 (EST)

You can in the latest version of the MediaWiki software, it's a feature you can turn on. We'd have to upgrade to be able to use it. (I'm not sure why we didn't install the newest version to begin with... it has a few useful new features... moving images, automatic double-redirect fixing, built-in search suggest, etc., plus a ton of other tweaks and fixes.) --Jeysie 13:34, 1 February 2009 (EST)

That would be pretty goddamn convenient on many levels. How do we make this so? --M Sipher 13:50, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Oh hell yes. If at all possible we should do this. It would make things less frustrating for new users if we could just move images with bad filenames.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 13:58, 1 February 2009 (EST)

It's this option. I gave it a spin on my wiki, and it seemed to work fine, even to the point of changing the redirect regards embedding the image too. (Meaning the old name will be in the code, but the software displays the image from the new name so it doesn't break.) I run a tiny wiki, though, so I'd watch the results closely using it on ours if we used it.

We'd have to upgrade to some form of 1.13.x to use it, though. --Jeysie 14:35, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Preferable 1.13.3 so we get all the security updates. --abates 18:10, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Upgrading to 1.13 actually came up when I was talking to Scout last week- her thinking was that, in the absence of a compelling reason to upgrade now, we might want to hold off until after the movie hits this summer, so we don't have to the be adapting to system changes at the same time we're doing that. (Neither of us had strong feelings about the matter though.) -Derik 18:24, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Mrr... the movie's not for another five months, though... I think that'd be enough time to get settled in before the movie info rush. On the other hand, if we wait, there's a good chance there'll be 1.14.x or 1.15.x out by then with even more new and potentially yummy stuff. Choices, choices... --Jeysie 18:42, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Yeah, wouldn't we want to upgrade NOW so that we're as up-to-date as we can be BEFORE the movie hits? Five months seems like more than enough time, and with the image-renaming idea being floated... whyever not? - Jackpot 19:52, 1 February 2009 (EST)

So... what's the end result of this discussion? Yes? No? --abates 15:55, 3 February 2009 (EST)

The new naming rule is really nice, because it contains the basic info and convenience for users to see. ^^ --TX55^TALK 07:45, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Oh, and just for a sample of what I'm looking at... check out the toy images category. See how the BM toys are all nice and in one group? (Yeah, they need to be renamed to put "-toy" immediately after the franchise indicator, but still.) THAT'S the kind of thing I'm talking about. Look into an image category, and boom, everything's in nice groups based on similar content. --M Sipher 07:43, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Maybe we can categorize the image into various categories like Category:franchise-(***, the type of images), just like Category: Beast Wars screen captures. I think that could make images from different franchise not to stuffed in the same category. :) --TX55^TALK 07:52, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I proposed that long ago, and it was shouted down. --M Sipher 08:08, 1 February 2009 (EST)

If you're proposing renaming VIRTUALLY EVERY IMAGE ON THE WHOLE WIKI, then surely the saner option is "make new categories", yes? Amongst other things, it would let you do a proper category tree, so you could start in a master (e.g.) Beast Machines category, and go down from there to articles and images, then from there to different types of articles (synopses, bios, etc), and to different types of images (screencaps, toy pics, etc) just as easily. - SanityOrMadness 11:55, 4 February 2009 (EST)

I dunno. When I upload things, I put the character name first, then all the information later. Guess I have different browsing priorities. --ItsWalky 09:19, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I can hold off for a bit so we can work out if character name works better, but really, I think we should have SOME sort of organizational naming standard going. The categories are a mess. (One concern over "character name first" that comes to mind is screen captures and comic scans, where there'll often be multiple characters.) --M Sipher 09:45, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I've been doing this sort of thing since 2007 for most of my image uploads, though I usually use the franchise when it's toy photos (Franchise - name - what kind of toy). --FFN 12:20, 1 February 2009 (EST)

When I upload things, I try to combine a reasonably-clear prefix with an image name. "Ani14_sparkplugdies.jpg", for example.

But then- I think the purpose of filenames is to provide the minimal context necessary to diffirentiate them while editing, and to prevent conflicts. ("soundwave.jpg" is a lousy name all around.)

I'm vaguely concerned that the benefits of adopting a rigid file naming schema are outweighed by the negative impact of prescriptive guidelines on user participation. It's just another hurdle to prevent users from editing for the first time. Template:File bastard "No you stupid fuck, learn our arbitrary and unnecessary naming schema before you dare participate, or you'll be yelled at." You can create all the complicated guidelines for users that you want, but that doesn't mean that they're going to follow them just to fall into the neat little lines you'd prefer, and if you enforce those guidelines punitively, that just means users are more likely to choose to stop editing rather than deal with your shit. (Wikipedia has a semi-policy page on this... reminding people to keep "you must do this" as lightweight as possible.)

Finally, while I appreciate Sipher's goals... I think this is a back-assward way to go about them. We're considering applying a draconian file-naming standard so that files list in a logical manner in their categories? This way, when looking through, say, the toy images category, everything is sorted by franchise. When looking at images by franchise, everything is sorted by type of image.

Dude- you can apply manual category-sorts on images regardless what they're named.

And if the problem is really "Too many images in a category," then we should really look at sub-dividing that category. (Image categorization has been an issue we've avoided dealing with for way, way too long.)

And frankly, if we're adopting any draconian image standard to impose on users, I think that properly citing copyright holders should come before standardized filenames. -Derik 15:28, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Offhand, I'd say Sipher's idea is best implemented in conjunction with upgrading the wiki software to allow for moving already-uploaded files. It avoids the tension with new users that you mention, because we can instead say "Hey, I moved the file you uploaded to better fit our naming scheme, but have a gander at our image policy when you find the time." Much less of a problem, as the images wouldn't have to be re-uploaded, the old ones deleted, etc.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 16:59, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I was arguing for sub-categorizing images LONG AGO. I'd PREFER to have a "Beast Machines toy images" category and etc. But some people seemed to think "no no no there's no need just use a search", which isn't the issue. Instead, we just have a disorganized mess of images, assuming they even are in a goddamn category in the first place. --M Sipher 15:45, 1 February 2009 (EST)

That's sad. We should have good categories instead. :( (Maybe a 'wizard' to use during upload...?) -Derik 15:48, 1 February 2009 (EST)

Oh, by the way. How often do new-new users NOT upload images that are shittily-named one way or the other, neccessitating a (currently) deletion? It seems more often than not, we get images with names like "Bumblebee" or "1mg365836593826529356723896". I'd say the lion's share of image uploads are currently done by people who seem to follow SOME form of semismart image naming. --M Sipher 19:40, 1 February 2009 (EST)

I agree that this is a great idea. I just wanted to point out that, as I've just learned most painfully, that the capitalization and punctuation here is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for it to work. "Bw" does not sort the same way as "BW", nor will "BW-toy-dudeface" sort the same way as "BW-toy Dudeface". So, per Siph's examples:

Capitalize the franchise abbreviation, just like our disambiguations.
then a dash
lowercase "toy"
then a space
then capitalize the first letter.

CORRECT: "BW-toy Yourmom.jpg".
INCORRECT: anything else.

DEVIATE FROM THIS IN THE SLIGHTEST, AND YOU SHALL SUFFER UNIMAGINABLY.

This is one of those times when I really wish our help files were easier to reach (also for categories -- I can never remember exactly what our categories are, especially for images.) Also, if we can get file-moving enabled, that would be double-plus sweet. -- Repowers 17:20, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Yeeeeeaah. It's the "suffer unimaginably" that makes me want us to have the wiki software upgraded to allow for file moves prior to us adding this naming schema to the image policy. Tongue-in-cheek or not. Less stress for everyone involved, if you ask me.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 17:25, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Yeah. And the other thing is... I'd really be more partial to having EVERYTHING be lower-case and dash-separated. "bw-toy-rattrap-basic.jpg". Simpler, more consistent, less to remember, and just as informative. -- Repowers 17:28, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Also also... there's no way to have it so that when you move an image, the linked pages are automatically updated... is there? That'd be awesome. Otherwise every move would require at least one page edit, often more. -- Repowers 17:33, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Unless I'm misinterpreting Jeysie above, 1.13.x extends redirect functionality to embedded files rather than just articles.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 17:49, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Nope, you didn't misinterpret me. In my experiments, the image still showed up even though the wikicode still pointed to the old image title. So while we'd probably want to fix the code eventually just to be tidy, the image display shouldn't be broken by a move. (Although since this is a much bigger wiki than mine is, I'd still double-check after a move just to make sure.) --Jeysie 18:02, 3 February 2009 (EST)

What happens if you move an image twice? -Derik 21:37, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Answer seems to be: It'll still work server-side, however, it'll appear broken until your browser cache updates to reflect the changes. --Jeysie 15:18, 5 February 2009 (EST)

It's impossible to have the first letter be lowercase. Like regular article titles, the software automatically capitalizes the first letter. —Interrobang, who has nothing vital to contribute to this discussion 17:45, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Right, but since it's automatic for every file no matter what, nothing gets broken. We can still just say "make it all lower-case". -- Repowers 18:27, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Question on naming interiors from books (artbooks, magazines, manga, comics). What about those? For example, the naming scheme I use on the Henkei pack-ins is basically "Henkei 'volume number' cover.jpg", while the Henkei manga gets "Henkei chpt 'number' title.jpg".

Well, that's for the chapter titles; interiors would be labeled in the fashion of "Henkei chpt 'number' pg 'number'.jpg", but that could change if/when it comes out in a collected form. It's what I've been labeling my scans (Galaxy Force included). If I had a scan from Phase Ignition, being an artbook, that'd get "phase ignition pg 'number'.jpg".

If it was an IDW interior, "IDW 'name' issue 'number' pg 'number'.jpeg" too convoluted? We got which company that published it, the name of the issue ("Revelations", "Hearts of Steel", etc.), issue number and the page number for easy referencing. DW may be a bit trickier, I think... ._.;;; --Lonegamer78 23:02, 3 February 2009 (EST)

I thought that when you uploaded a new file, the wiki software changed the name to all lowercase. It keeps stopping to tell me "Your filename has been changed." -Derik 23:19, 3 February 2009 (EST)

First letter of my image files always gets capitalized automatically despite being lower-case. --Lonegamer78 23:25, 3 February 2009 (EST)

Creating and organising sub-categories really is a better solution. If you have a category that holds thousands of files, then regardless of how those files are organised within the cat, it'll still be un-navigable. You'll still need to put in sub-cats to be able to get to what you want, and when you've got enough of them the actual names of the files will become moot. -- Magnus Maximus 19:40, 4 February 2009 (EST)

^^Truth.

Moreover, if this WAS to be adopted, besides the insane effort it would take to move EVERY IMAGE ON THE WIKI, *and* you did the sane thing and sub-categorised them as well so as to have a proper category tree as I said above... you'd end up with each subcategory filled with names which started with the same X characters, specifically leaving the alpha-navigation within a category useless. - SanityOrMadness 21:13, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Image Categories

I find this conversation counter-productive. We're discussing adopting a RIGID naming structure the wiki doesn't need (and out EDITORS don't need-- we just need names distinct enough to keep them straight while editing a single article) in order to properly group them. And any name-standard system we impose would have to be draconian and absolutely enforced to do what we want. That's stupid, this is a job that should be done by categories-- it's just that no one wants to have to remember those categories.

Sipher, if we adopted the image-categories thing you wanted us to have, what kind of categories would there be? Gimmie an example, a full drill-down for one area of the image categories hierarchy. I'll prototype a category wizard for uploading. :p -Derik 21:35, 4 February 2009 (EST)

Okay, splitting off.

What I'm thinking is more or less the same categories we have for character pages. Franchises and some of the larger subgroups (Dinobots, Action Masters, Pretenders, Mini-Cons, etc). Just SOMETHING. ANYTHING. --M Sipher 01:07, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Hrm. So you plan to make me think as well as code?

banishes this project to next month.* -Derik^Talk 03:54, 5 February 2009 (EST)

Well, following from the way the issues are categorised, it would go something like:
Image:MarvelUK-331.jpg (to pick an example) Category:Marvel UK covers

subordinate to Category:Marvel Comics images

in turn subordinate to Category:Comic images AND Category:Marvel Comics

Cat:Comic images in turn subordinate to Category:Images

AND

subordinate to Category:Generation 1 images

in turn subordinate to Category:Generation 1 AND Category:Images

- SanityOrMadness 20:27, 5 February 2009 (EST)

So, anything happening here, or is it to be Forgotten About? - SanityOrMadness 19:08, 17 February 2009 (EST)

Orphaned pages to be deleted?

Hello. Longtime fan, sometime editor, firsttime community portal-er

I've been trying to help out and have been attempting to de-orphan many of the orphaned pages. While doing so I found that there are many listings from the "Orphaned Pages" page that are set to be deleted. We may have the chance to bring the orphaned pages down to less than 50 if these erroneous pages are finally deleted. Then we can go back and attempt to de-orphan the remaining ones into useful wiki-links and check off a section of the "Ways to Help Once You Know the Ropes" area.

Awesome!

Bluestreak7 15:50, 6 February 2009 (EST)

If the deletion seems legitimate you can flag them for speedy deletion and provide an explanation why.

Your visit here will be a short one. This image or article meets TFWiki's requirements for Speedy deletion; being unused, misspelled, replaced by another image, or vandalism. When using this template, be sure to include the reason for its use. Article title is a spelling error

Items flagged for deletion are given a "grace period" for people to object or respond to the deletion request... they are nominated for deletion, so to speak.

As a result, the

"Begging sometimes helps, but not often."

Has the Imperial Magistrate reached a verdict?

This article is currently pending deletion.
If you do feel that this article should not be deleted, please say why on its talk page.

are gone through only infrequently, because Admins hate havign to stop at each one, figure out WHY it was nominated for deletion, if it's actually in use, see if there were objections etc etc etc.

Your visit here will be a short one.

This image or article meets TFWiki's requirements for Speedy deletion; being unused, misspelled, replaced by another image, or vandalism.
When using this template, be sure to include the reason for its use.

puts all that information at the admin's fingertips. "Nominated in Nov 2007, no objections, no incoming links, content better covered in other articles." They can just speed through the list. -Derik^Talk 17:23, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Is there a rule of thumb as to when tobedeleteds should become speedydeletion articles after a grace period with no objections?

Bluestreak7 15:24, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Granted, to be fair, then again, still, however.

A style note: if you find yourself using one of these phrases, it should raise your eyebrow. If you find yourself with two in any one paragraph, you're probably dogpiling and definitely being sloppy. Go back and re-write without mercy, or I will do it for you. -- Repowers 02:41, 8 February 2009 (EST)

And again -- I'm adopting a shoot-to-kill mentality on this stuff. When someone writes a note that's intended to stand on its own, we should not be tacking on "But still" addenda to it. This is poor and sloppy writing, and it makes us look like retarded chimpanzees and fills me with rage and hatred and etc. & etc, so on and so forth. Rewrite the original note, don't just dogpile onto it. And if you can't rewrite it adequately, maybe your "cute" little addendum isn't worth writing in the first place. -- Repowers 11:26, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Downtime

Since early December 2008, I've been passively gathering "upness" data on the site. I set up my server to request a page on TFWiki.net every 5 minutes (or so,) and then record whether or not the page was properly served.

I present the results at right, sorted by hour (server time, which is EST.)

TFWiki.net's maximum downtime seems to occur between midnight and 1 AM EST, likely as a result of scheduled maintenance.

Caveats: The method I'm using to measure this is norably imperfect. The traffic-scale on the blue bars has been exaggerated to bring out detail.

Other notes: And now you know why Bulkhead (Animated) is one of the most popular pages on the wiki. it's my test page, and 2/3 of the hits recorded for it are actually my script. (Whups! I'm pretty sure there's a way to keep the wiki from counting that...) -Derik^Talk 19:09, 9 February 2009 (EST)

That matches up fairly well with my own observations, where the wiki always seems to be down roughly between 1:30 and 2:30AM-ish EST, creeping towards 3AM sometimes. --Jeysie 19:21, 9 February 2009 (EST)

From what I've noticed it seems to correspond with trouble with Shortpacked's site as well. Are we on the same server as them, or could this be hostwide?--Rosicrucian ^Talk 22:28, 9 February 2009 (EST)

They're both on Blank Label servers, ISTR. The main Blank Label site seems to have problems around the same time. --abates 02:24, 11 February 2009 (EST)

Seems to be regular downtime starting around about 2:10am (or about 8:10pm NZ time, which I complained about before). --abates 19:25, 9 February 2009 (EST)

I also noticed this. It seemed concentrated on the first half of the hour. (It was also a lot less frustrating knowing that it was likely to ease in relative short order.) But, damnit... this shouldn't need to happen every day. -Derik^Talk 02:40, 11 February 2009 (EST)

Sorting the sane data by weekday and day of the month... the downtime doesn't seem to favor any particular day. (There are regular dips in the month visualization... but most of those dates have only 2 days worth of data. I think they're statistical anomalies.)

So I plan to pay attention to how the wiki "feels" between Server-midnight and server-1AM, which is when we've got the most recorded errors. (There's some holes in the data, so there could be other dead zones, but anecdotal evidence supports this assesment as correct.)

If this confirms that the downtime/server-bog does seem to be occurring every night, I suggest we reguest our webhost schedule it not to run every day. If we can get by with once a week, I suggest Friday or Saturday. (Google Analytics tells me Friday and Saturday are, very slightly, our lowest-traffic point for the week.)

Google Anayltics also tells me we've grown. It's hard to see on the daily graph graph (so I won't show it,) but where our daily unique visitors used to peak below 4000 on heavy days, it's now troughing just below 4000 on slow days and peaking in the 6000's. Encouraging! (Monthly breakdown is pictured, it's clearer. The graph starts in September when we installed GA.) -Derik^Talk 22:19, 9 February 2009 (EST)

More than half of all inbound traffic is directed here by links. (Since, since Wikia's traffic volume means it dominates search, isn't that big a surprise.) What thrills me? More of our readers use Firefox than user Internet Explorer.

Traffic coming from search engines continues to grow at abotut he same rate our overall traffic does. (That's neither good, nor bad, it just is.) Of note-- people coming from search engines tend to be 'lower value.' (They bounce away quicker, they view fewer pages, etc.) Kinda troubling... we get a vast majority of those via google. Yes Google has a majority of search, but not that vast a majority. We're underperforming in non-Google search engines. (Not sure what to do about that. Arguably we're just overperforming in Google... since we have GA installed it can better judge we have real traffic taking place here and has lifted our "duplicate content" penalty. Yahoo lacks that advantage and might just be slower to come around.) -Derik^Talk 22:19, 9 February 2009 (EST)

Card-Carrying Fans?

Not sure of the appropriate section to place this; it can be moved if necessary.

There's going to be official Transformers-themed Visa credit cards available in Japan soon through Pocket Card Co., Ltd. The site's front page isn't up yet, and probably won't be until the ordering period for the cards starts at 11 a.m. Feb. 16, Japan time.

The project is apparently the brainchild of Index Create, who also run the Ganbo Store. The cards have no initiation fees or annual fees, though the card company still has to examine your financial record and approve your application, per usual. I have no idea which bank backs the cards, what their interest rate is, etc. Those details will probably be available next Monday.

You can choose between two designs: a red Autobot card featuring a Prime in the foreground and a Megatron close-up in the background, and a purple Decepticon card with the characters switched. Both are by veteran Japanese TF illustrator Hidetsugu Yoshioka.

Several other bonus items are being offered in conjunction with the card:

1. A free Micron/Mini-Con
Customers who order the Autobot card will get a recolor of the Mini-Con Thunderwing as Sling (Slingshot), while Destron card orderers will get a recolor of the Mini-Con Divebomb as Volter (Vortex).

2. Original Quo Card
Those receiving a credit card will also get a Quo Card (prepaid cash card) worth 500 yen. The Quo Card design will match whichever card the customer ordered.

3. Transformers Basecamp site
Card owners will have exclusive access to Transformers Basecamp, a site overseen by Takara. What you can do there isn't clear yet (again, nothing more until Feb. 16, at least), but from the look of the preview page, at the very least, you can take popular TFs and guide them around Japan in battle campaigns, raising their levels enough to earn them positions on their teams. If the Ganbo blog post is to be believed, then you could have Prime as a scout, Megatron as a supply officer, and Starscream as Decepticon leader, if you like. You can communicate with other card members during missions, and completing missions earns you rankings as well as character levels. Top rankers will get free TF pins as "medals", which will also be added to their Basecamp profiles.

4. Exclusive Gentei! Gentei! Strafe offer
Card members will have exclusive rights to purchase a recolor of Universe Cyclonus as Technobot Strafe via the Transformers Basecamp site.

It's unclear whether any single customer will be allowed to receive both types of credit card and thus both types of free Micron and Quo Card, but I suspect that won't be likely.--Apcog 11:23, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Nobody has any right to complain about convention exclusives ever again. Also, I'm glad the Microns are pre-existing characters. This means I have little to no desire to try and obtain them. --M Sipher 12:17, 10 February 2009 (EST)

That's fucking brutal. Wow. -hx 16:58, 10 February 2009 (EST)

You just know some fans will get the card(s) just long enough to get the Microns, then cancel. Their credit rating would be ruined forever. --Thylacine 2000 18:05, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Got busy all day yesterday after my previous post. I see the info on the exclusive toys has been integrated into their respective articles and some of the order period dates have been added. Is there anywhere it's appropriate to write up the cards themselves?--Apcog 10:29, 11 February 2009 (EST)

Why not make a new page about this contest promotion: something merging the credit cards and the online campaign, with appropriate links to the toy pages? We have a page for Music Label, and this new thing is already bigger than that. --Thylacine 2000 10:37, 11 February 2009 (EST)

What would be the title? Transformers credit cards? They're the only element of the campaign that's essentially independent of the rest. All the others hinge on one getting one of those cards.--Apcog 12:08, 11 February 2009 (EST)

How about Transformers Basecamp? --M Sipher 13:13, 11 February 2009 (EST)

That sounds like the safest bet. All the special offers are via the members-only website.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 13:17, 11 February 2009 (EST)

Well, the cards themselves aren't. You can get one without ever participating in the Basecamp site or even accepting any of the exclusives, if you like. (I know, fat chance anyone ordering one of the cards is going to go that route, but in principle, it's possible.)--Apcog 15:37, 12 February 2009 (EST)

Canonical URL specification

I see Google and Yahoo are now supporting a method of specifying a page's canonical URL [2] [3]

I'm not familiar with customising MediaWiki, but is it something we could apply here? --abates 00:28, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Hrm. I'm not certain it's something we really need to worry about... AFAIK, all of our real content maps straight to the type of URL. Generally the only things that use the prefix are special pages and "action pages" that wouldn't be desirable to index anyway.

Essentially... those links are ways to specify multiple URLs as being equivalent, but AFAIK we only have one real URL per actual article page to begin with, so we have no "multiple URLs that point to the same thing" to worry about. --Jeysie 01:02, 13 February 2009 (EST)

I thinkt he gogole/yahoo webspiders might actually run into duplicates while spidering mediawiki... but because each page has a distinct title (and the duplicate pages have the same title, showing their "proper" name,) the search engines don't habe a problem sorting out duplication on MW.

(It's a real problem, but I don't think it's one that afflicts mediaWiki, since unlike many other sites, every article on a mediawiki install has a distinct <title>.) -Derik^Talk 01:45, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Yeah, so do you want this content, when a search engine retrieves it, to link to or to ? And of you think they won't spider that, have a look in the sidebar. --◄mendel► 23:29, 15 February 2009 (EST)

Hrm, does MW 1.3 do this ? -Derik^Talk 23:41, 15 February 2009 (EST)

Wikia's 1.13 has the canonical links on the ?printable page; Wikipedia itself has not, so it's not made its way into the software yet. --◄mendel► 11:51, 16 February 2009 (EST)

Unable to edit

just a question, how come i cant edit? i dont spam or anything and i do include links to any infomation i find thats official(just check the revenge film article on the other wiki acount) could anyone who replies send it to my talk page thanks. Behellmorph 13:03, 13 February 2009 (EST)

Category proposal

After making a couple of trivia entries for characters with names derived from Greek/Latin words, I was wondering whether something like 'Category:Greco-Latin names' would be worth doing. There are a number of contenders, both when there is a 'true' meaning (Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Fortress Maximus, Omega Supreme, etc.) and when a Latinate form is given to the name (Menasor, Bruticus, Abominus). I would happily do the legwork on this (tagging + trivia notes), if people think it's worth doing. - Tribimat 05:09, 14 February 2009 (EST)

Where does "Rodimus Prime" fall?

I don't think that there's much... use in a category like this. Why would you ever want to see them all listed together-- to go from Optimus Prime to Menasor?

A page on the phenomena listing everyone? I could see that though. -Derik^Talk 06:20, 14 February 2009 (EST)

Rodimus Prime would be classed as a derivative of Optimus Prime, so not directly Latin. How about, then, a category for names that come pretty much directly from Greek and Latin (not a big group), plus a page that covers these + the various coinages that are meant to sound like Latin? The only reason I proposed a bigger category is that it might be interesting to see the types of character that are given these names, but it would probably be too wide to be meaningful (I'm still trying to decide whether 'Devastator' would count). I do think the secondary naming convention (beside nicknames, puns and portmanteaux) is interesting, not least because it's one of the few pre-Budiansky things that stuck. I'll have a go at the page later today. - Tribimat 06:52, 14 February 2009 (EST)

In my case, it's a matter that I think a category should ideally encompass the content of the entire article, not just the title. But I think a page on Name Etymology might be fun to read. --Jeysie 07:22, 14 February 2009 (EST)

It's hard to say-- English is a romance language. Is Devastator "latin derived," or just a mash-up of the English "Devastate" and the suffix "or" for one who does? I'm not sold on a category... but if you want to temp it in I sure hold it against you. I'd be more interested in an article on Transformers with names derived from dead languages though. -Derik^Talk 07:30, 14 February 2009 (EST)

English is Germanic, not Romance, and that isn't really relevant to what you're trying to say. The classification of the language doesn't have much to do with specific vocabulary. On the topic, I think the number of categories we have now is excessive (even if most of them are necessary). I don't see a need to add to that with a category that's on the level of "Transformers with blue eyes". The topic is mildly interesting. That doesn't mean it needs a category. —Interrobang 01:19, 16 February 2009 (EST)

On the other hand, "Transformers with non-standard eye colors" would be kind of fun - there's only a handful that don't have red or blue eyes, y'know. -hx 09:30, 16 February 2009 (EST)

I dunno, this sounds a lot like the Head-For-A-Hand club, which I eventually just stuck on my user page. Fun but not really necessary within the scope of this wiki. Besides, Optimus Prime's eyes have been yellow, red *and* blue to my knowledge at least. --Emvee 03:56, 17 February 2009 (EST)

Okay, forget the category idea. I'm expanding the proposed page's remit to cover all naming conventions, so it'll take longer to put together but will hopefully be more interesting when it's done. - Tribimat 18:42, 17 February 2009 (EST)

Upgrading the Wiki software

Wikia recently updated the software on the Other Wiki, and it broke Template:episodenav. If/when we update MediaWiki here, we should keep an eye on it to make sure the same thing doesn't happen here (I'm sure someone will be, but I wanted to give a heads up). --abates 17:08, 19 February 2009 (EST)

Epnav was broken when we first moved over here. (We were 1 version more up to date than wikia @ the time, and the new version was less 'tolerant' or something we were doing.) I think it was broken for almost 10 days while we picked through code php-side to try and figure out what flag to fix to make the problem go away. (In the end we just re-coded the undocumented nested interdependent episodenav templates. That sucked, and anchor-linking still doesn't work right for some reason I haven't figured out.)

Did Wikia ever fix the problem? I mean-- I pity them. I wrote the episodenav template and I was pulling out my hair trying to fix it. -Derik^Talk 03:00, 7 March 2009 (EST)

n/m, I found it. I even contributed my own words of encouragement. I'm sure you'll agree that I was nothing but courteous to our former hosts. -Derik^Talk 03:33, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Bwahaha! Oh well, if it's not going to be a problem when we get the software upgraded, then great! --abates 03:46, 7 March 2009 (EST)

well I'm not sure until ti happens, but it sounds like they just ran into the same problem we had-- a stricter recursion... thing. (Wikipedia itself has pages that still feature ugly red errors because some of their obscure seldom-used templates don't comply with this--- mostly talk pages. It was not a smooth transition.) -Derik^Talk 03:50, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Watermakring original photos

TFWIKI.NET watermark image
Okay, I started this with the Breastforce toy images I took today... a TFWIKI.NET "watermark" based on our mainpage banner to be applied to any original photographs we take for this wiki. It's a PSD with a transparency, plus two invisible "marker" pixels, one in each lower corner, so's Photoshop can align it nicely if you push it into a corner (and have the "snap to edges" option on, which I do).
The way I figure it, we're going to have a large amount of original pictures up on this site as time goes on. I'll be taking a LOT of pictures of toys we don't have images of (and replacing images I don't like, such as the shoddy older Has/Tak stock photos with inaccurate pre-release toys, or Generations scans, or just shitty pics) over the next however-long, plus re-uploading a lot of my older ones with the watermark (also a good excuse to put them in the proper categories). I figure that if we're properly naming the damn files, they'll show up on image web-searches more... and having the site address right there in the image helps our visibility. Plus, helps us just look a titch more professional.
So yeah. This is for pictures we take only. It's not to be slapped on every screen capture or comic book scan or Has/Tak stock photo that we upload; that's just goddamn obnoxious. --M Sipher 07:12, 21 February 2009 (EST)

scratches head* but aren't watermarks always obnoxious? -08:09, 21 February 2009 (EST)

On tformers, sure. A small, unobtrusive watermark in the corner of an image? Not remotely. --M Sipher 08:15, 21 February 2009 (EST)

Yeah, only Tformers has the balls to put a huge watermark directly over a Hasbro copyrighted image. We can be better than that. We should be better than that.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 09:15, 21 February 2009 (EST)

Costumes

OK guys yesterday I came across this post on seibertron.com and after newsing it it got me thinking. A few posted in it and some posts provided some interesting information, information that would warrant one or maybe two more articles. Like Transformers costumes for a category concerning stuff like that and Hasbro Live promotional appearance for the actual events, sure they would be short as of now but there seems to be some information out there that would warrant these being covered, after all we do have very short articles. What do you guys think? Dead Metal 04:18, 22 February 2009 (EST)

New User Welcome message template

I think I've brought this up before, but I believe it's time for us to emulate other major wikis and have a welcome message template that staffers can copy-paste into the talk pages of new users that summarises what we expect of them and how this wiki works. Not having one wastes the time of people like me who have to type out what we expect from new users, particularly in the case of image uploads*.

No offense, but frankly, this should have been the job of our staffers to harass new users, not our powerless regular editors. --FFN 21:58, 27 February 2009 (EST)

Picture protection

So, uh, if we're not going to report the repeat vandalism to the ISP, could we at least set it up so that new users can't upload images? —Interrobang 16:58, 4 March 2009 (EST)

Partner section on character pages?

I think it would be nice to have a common location on a character page for links to partners (combiner parners, Nebulons, Mini-Cons). As it is, you have to search the body of the intro text, sometimes you have to go all the way to the toy section. If there is more than one combiner partner, the name of the combined form would probably be sufficient. In the case of the Unicron Trilogy, if a character can combine with multiple others, maybe a short note would work (combines with Powerlinx Gold). If we do make a standardized section, maybe we could throw their subgroups in there while we are at it.

I don't know how practical that would be given the number of partners a character could have in multiple toys/fictions, but I do know I spend time searching for links to their partners, so this is kind of a wish list. - Starfield 11:22, 7 March 2009 (EST)

In general principal, at least, I strongly agree. Sometimes we totally forget to mention binary bond guys, etc. Definitely something worth looking into. -- Repowers 11:28, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Don't we do this already? Hot Shot's page links to both Jolt and Mirage, and if you're a combiner part, it links to the group either in the italicized continuity note up top, in the opening paragraph, or both. --ItsWalky 11:30, 7 March 2009 (EST)

Alright, if I don't see it in the opening paragraph, I'll put it there. It doesn't seem that common for it not to be there. - Starfield 11:39, 7 March 2009 (EST)