2006 (Archived)

Walky: "Storylinks shouldn't float!"
Continuity range box (proposal)
Explicit continuity drilldown (proposal)
Passive-aggressive edit memos are not good communication
Monzo own the the G2 annual, but hasn't scanned it.
Derik confirms he's this guy.

2007 (Archived)

User:Rotty demands I be banned because i voted for a different wikia in a poll for a weekly feature.
Don't post spoielrs from novels
User:Crockalley calls my userpic 'the cutest catboy he's ever seen.'
Screed at people in a series of edit memos is impolite.
Autotrooper divisions
Derik should remember that is it not other users jobs to fix his opinionated edits.
Descriptive filenames are better.

2008

Templates in categories

I just realized that you were intentionally putting some templates in the categories they add other articles to. I don't really like that idea, but I figured I should ask you about it before changing more of them. I do think there should be a reminder somewhere on the category page that there is a template in charge, but I prefer to do it in the "text" at the top of the category rather than placing a template in it. After all, the template itself is not a "character with no pictures", for example. --Steve-o 22:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

That works too. I just feel like the 'cat page should have a clear indicator- "And this is the template which controls this." I was simply being lazy about it! -Derik 07:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

How old are you ?

how old are you, like 15? You look really young and where did you get that shirt and if your really young how were you allowed to wear that shirt?!!! -User:FIELDMAN 298,JAN,08,04:44 PM

That's not me, my userpic is a rotating series of images which amuse me. -Derik 08:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Punch=Seeker?

Are you high? --FortMax 23:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I wish! -Derik 01:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Derik, did you not notice the disclaimer that accompanies the Mosaic pieces, declaring that they are fan works and not affiliated with IDW or Hasbro? They are not canon. --KilMichaelMcC 02:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? I thought we were taking that as seriously as the 'these stories don't count' notice in Legends, (not at all) and treating it like the 'lil formers or Microwhosits strips-- "the ones that make it into an official publication are real, the ones that don't aren't." There is some active choices being made on TDW's part after all- they're not going the choose to publish a strip about Death's Head, even though IIRC such a Mosaic is in the pipeline. "We cannot tell an 'official' story about Death's Head, because we don't own him." -Derik 06:04, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Reproduction page

Um hi. I was just wondering how Transformers reproduced and i came accross a VERY disturbing image. Is Blaster really....well...y'know.....doing it with Bumblebee?Destro oy 20:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that was... explosive.

I suppose you've been pent up. Welcome back, Derik. Some discussions you might be interested in would be MediaWiki talk:AdminSkin and MediaWiki talk:Monaco-sidebar. We switched to Monaco as of around BotCon weekend, and most of the growing pains since then have been discussed in those two places.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 15:04, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Not pent up- I just knew my parole was in the pipeline so I brought along stuff to research during the Memorial Day weekend. (I seem to do 1 Legends story every time I'm at my parents cabin....) -Derik 16:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and other things during your absence. We managed to put together a coherent image policy (nothing really new there, just codifying stuff we already did) and started work on laying out a spoiler policy (which again is largely just trying to put into text the unspoken stuff we already do).--Rosicrucian ^Talk 15:11, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm tolerably familiar with the Monaco switch, I've tried to keep my toe in Wiki affairs without violating the terms of my ban (mostly monitor the community portal and main page talk to keep up on gossip) and I consulted for Suki on some of the CSS changes. For my sins I think she's nominated me to be TT1's liaison to Wikia-ops when complaining about Monaco problems we can't fix on our end. They've already implemented at least 1 global under-the-hood change to the search box in response to our specific requests.

I've seen the Image policy mentioned, but not seen the specifics... *goes to look* Heh, section on filesize of animated gifs... -Derik 16:05, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, when I was compiling it I mostly just tried to set down the random shit we'd always have to stick on a user talkpage when someone didn't get it. Programmer laziness meaning doing more work to mean less work later on (even if the returns aren't the same...) I'm certainly liking the ability to go "No, look here" instead of spelling myself out to each new user. I'm sure there are things I may have missed, but once other users started referring to the document I finally caved and slapped the policy tag on it.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 16:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I recognize some of the language here from various talk page convos. This seems like a pretty good coverage of our weird "here's what we permit, but then here's what we prefer" unwritten policiies as could be hoped for. I also feel like this got in there somehow... (I do vaguely recall offering that link months ago when someone was asking about our image policy as an exemplar of my understanding of it.) -Derik 16:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

From the other talk page

I'm not sure what you meant by the spoiler being in the subjectline - none of my edits that I have checked do that.

About the "consider that most of the frequent editors are also fans" - didn't detailed synopsis of Garbage In , Garbage Out and Black Friday go up long before they were available to anyone but BotCon attendees?KrytenKoro 18:00, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

If you click on a page for an upcoming episode, I think you risk being spoiled for whatever coming up. I avoid those pages.

But what I'm talking about are the kind of spoilers visible in the Recent Changes page- which I am exposed to involuntarily by inconsiderate editors. Comments that contain spoilers, new talk page headers that contain spoilers. Creating articles with specific headers that are, in themselves, spoilers. If I see that someone redirected Longarm Prime's page to Shockwave- that is a spoiler I have been exposed to due to the negligence of others.

And guess what? I saw Black Friday without any clue what it was about going in. I had no idea it was about BA or Prometheus Black. Because the Botcon atrtendees you so snarkily mocked exercised due consideration for others when making their edits, and I was able to participate on this wiki when that happened without having this upcoming experience ruined for me.

They have done it, therefore it is possible, and it is not an unrealistic standard to expect. -Derik 19:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Fine, but as far as I can see, I didn't put any actual spoilers in my edit summaries. At most, I put the word "spoilers" in an edit summary, but never a spoiler itself.KrytenKoro 02:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm vague about how this convo got started on the other talk page in the first place- I thought we were discussing this issue in the abstract when you questioned someone else's definition of spoilers. Hopefully I've been coming across as emphastic as i try to underline my main point, not accusatory, 'cuz the latter wasn't my intent. ^_^ -Derik 08:17, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for bringing this up here, then - it seemed like I had done something to offend you, and I was trying to figure out what. Cheers.KrytenKoro 02:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Not really no, but you're a new(ish) user, and it seemed worth discussing if you had questions. Spoilers and the logic behind them is kinda the 'topic of the moment' because of airings Dubai and the UK, and in my experience other users tend to listen into these Talk: convos, and often learn from them. This is a more useful conversation to have then by virtue of being public.

Anyway- meh. I had a point I wanted to communicate- and I think I have- but despite my emphatic manner (it's all the bold text, I know) it wasn't something I was mad about-- just something I felt was important to get across. -Derik 05:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

re:Dinobot Hunt

No Problem! Just trying to help where I can. --MistaTee 22:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

One thing...

I see what you're doing - but isn't display:block enough on its' own, without needing to fall back into tables? - SanityOrMadness 01:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Nope. I tested it on Wikia's ever-helpful test page. -Derik 01:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I love you. Now, all we need is a way to make Monobook the default. --FortMax 02:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, according to Toughpigs himself here, Monobook will suffer the same ads even if you manually select it. - SanityOrMadness 02:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

You could probably hide the ads withCSS- but doing so is a violation of wikia's terms of service. (Note: and individual user can choose to do so using THEIR CSS file, but the admins can not do so for the entire site.)

I want my damn Search button back! No wonder there was a 500% upswing in the number of searches performed- it was 5 times harder to find things! -Derik 02:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't adblock and the disambuig tables take care of the intrusiveness of the ads? I haven't seen a single ad below the wiki logo. --FortMax 02:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Adblock plus nukes 'em all anyway- seamlessly. The layout actually looks better if you have adblock. We're just worried about the anons mostly-- if the site is fugly no one wants to use it. -Derik 02:18, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

WHen I'm logged out I get two identical ads stacked verticly with the lower one covering important stuff. Is this what you're talking about? --FortMax 02:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The two banner ads at the top of the page partially obscuring things is a bug that just showed up today, it's unrelated ot the new layout and Wikia will probably have that fixed inside of 10 hours. -Derik 02:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

OK then. Other than that, everything is the same whether or not I'm logged in, and the stuff you have set up to use banner ads could be modified to work in Monobook should the setup be changed there or we decide to revert to Monobook if a bypass is found. --FortMax 02:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The banneradd logic would be the same for momobook as it is for Monaco. IIRC the only templates we have to change when we switched over to Monaco were the ones Monorail Guy broke through negligence. -Derik 02:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Post restoration Wikia link clean up

I recall you telling us last year about something you did that would remove all 250,000-odd links that wikia inserted into every page and every revision of every page. Would you be able to do the same again after we've restored our articles? --FFN 07:00, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

I made alterations to the import script, so they never even got to our database. They're in now, they need to be edited out one by one.

...I'll look at maybe setting up an edit script. 27,000+ individual edits in history. JOY. :p

Oh, for God's Sake :( So it needs to be done manually? --FFN 07:30, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

After I saw this (there's really no way to get them out the history?), I looked to see if AutoWikiBrowser could be used to start zapping the Wikia links - no dice, apparently http://tfwiki.net/w2/api.php is out-of-line with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php and it needs to be the same. - SanityOrMadness 10:59, 18 March 2009 (EDT)

Uhhh... I don't have a webcomic. And my name's not Tim.

Don't think too hard about it. I've been calling one of our admins Doug for a year and he never bothered to correct me. (His name is Alan... I think.) -Derik 14:42, 23 March 2009 (EDT)

The Franchise Navigation Templates

I figure that as long as I'm going through everything, I might as well update all the templates to the new look, right?

Question, though: Did I assume right that the plain links above the navigation templates are supposed to be links to the continuity families? (Like, it says "Generation 1" above the Generation 1 template, and "Live action film series" above the 2K7 and ROTF ones.) That stumped me a little when I got to the Headmasters template. --Jeysie 04:34, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

They are inconsistent.

The nav above the 2007 movie (pre-crash) should be "ready," in terms of HTML. IIRC The CSS for the new design was recovered. -Derik 06:01, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, I already updated the 2K7, ROTF, and G1 navs based on the cache files that used those templates. I just figured that I might as well update the other franchise headers to use the same format while I was at it (I hate pink, what can I say?) but was stumped over how to translate that one bit of the new template. That line in the G1 and movie templates ends up being readable as a continuity family link, so I was wondering if you meant it that way, so I know how to adapt it to other franchises. --Jeysie 06:43, 24 March 2009 (EDT)

A FYI

http://www.emopanda.com/cleanupbot/ - linked from Category:Cleanup by month - needs to be updated to fix our cleanup count, rather than The Other Place's. [Plus, I suspect it may overwrite the category on the page, so please make sure it leaves it in Category:Wiki cleanup. Although I half more than half a mind to just move the subcats from C:CbM to C:WC and save a redundant layer...] - SanityOrMadness 15:58, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

I don't think it actually updates their account either, it hadn't worked since the Monaco upgrade.

Hrm... you did just give me an idea though!

And a question: Is it safe to put {{speedy}} on the twelve month templates at the start of Category:Real-world_events_by_day? They don't APPEAR to be used, but I'd like to double-check that Template:Cal-date doesn't use them in any way first. - SanityOrMadness 16:55, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Nope! They're used for navigation! Clicking on a month in the date nav brings you to the 12-month calendar, because July redirect to Calendar. But clicking the "NEXT-MONTH" button takes you to Template:August, which is just the month of August, unlike August, which is the full 366 day calendar.

The idea being... if you click next-month, you're looking for a near-ish date. And if you click on the month itself, you're looking to navigate within the full year. Separating the two display options out with templates actually does (or at least should) make quickly navigating dates much easier, more "natural" to how people are likely to search dates. -Derik 17:42, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Well, could you do something to stop them appearing on Special:Unusedtemplates, if they're actually necessary, then?

It seems a hellava bodge to be using a template as, in effect, a page - can't you just change the links from (e.g.) [[July]] to [[Calendar|July]] and put the "Templates" in the namespace where they belong? - SanityOrMadness 19:10, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

I'll look into it. Part of the reason it's set up like this is simply-- this is the way ti was set up before the crash. -Derik 19:16, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

Admittedly I was thinking before the crash that if the Month links on the day pages are getting redirected to the calendar, they should, well, just actually link directly to the calendar. And the months should be actual pages, yes.

In fact, is it possible to have noinclude on a regular page? Because then we could have each of the months be a proper regular page with all of the day pages transcluded into it in noinclude tags, then have that page be transcluded where it needs to be in order to show just the calendar part.

(Um. When we have time to actually work on this sort of thing, I mean.) --Jeysie 20:32, 27 March 2009 (EDT)

This thing you describe is possible... I will think about it, it'd require some re-jiggering, and at least 320 edits. (Every day's page would have to have its code changed.)

Tell you what though-- I do know a way to get the month templates off the Unused templates page! -Derik 14:01, 28 March 2009 (EDT)

Hey

Since you worked pretty hard on figuring out Staff Sergeant Tracy's name , help me with this :) --FFN 15:33, 7 April 2009 (EDT)

Bot request

I have a Deceptitran request. Could links to "Revelation (comic issue)" please move to "Revelation (War and Peace)" and "Revelation (Dreamwave issue)" to "Revelation (The Dark Ages)"? Thanks! - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

Change links from Revelation (comic issue) => Revelation (War and Peace)

Requested by: - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
Status: Incomplete
I have a Deceptitran request. Could links to "Revelation (comic issue)" please move to "Revelation (War and Peace)" and "Revelation (Dreamwave issue)" to "Revelation (The Dark Ages)"? Thanks! - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

Change links from Revelation (Dreamwave issue) => Revelation (The Dark Ages)

Requested by: - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)
Status: Incomplete
I have a Deceptitran request. Could links to "Revelation (comic issue)" please move to "Revelation (War and Peace)" and "Revelation (Dreamwave issue)" to "Revelation (The Dark Ages)"? Thanks! - Starfield 21:23, 13 April 2009 (EDT)

The LongArm of the bot...

http://tfwiki.net/w2/index.php?title=Cybertron_Elite_Guard&diff=271888&oldid=267284

Huh? Even besides the fact that it seems to have been decided that the TransWarped credit was an aberration and the page has been reverted to small-a mode... wouldn't it have made more sense to change the link to Shockwave (Animated) in the first place? - SanityOrMadness 23:11, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

The bot is automated to detect moves and change links accordingly. Since somebody moved Longarm Prime to LongArm Prime (despite the fact that it was a redirect), the bot acted accordingly. —Interrobang 23:43, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

No, I add them manually. (I have it scrap the move log for recent moves and choose which ones to add to the queue.)

I just assumed someone knew what they were doign when they moved LongArm. Not correct? -Derik 23:56, 15 April 2009 (EDT)

In search of a less stupid cleanup tag.

A quandary. I'd like to make the cleanup tag template automatically datestamp if you neglect to specify one, via currentmonthname and currentyear variables, so it ends up in the proper category. However... if I subst those in the template itself, it will be forever April 2009. If I leave them variables, the date the tag was applied will not be preserved. Thoughts?--Rosicrucian ^Talk 19:05, 21 April 2009 (EDT)

This thing you say... I do not believe it is possible. The problem is that Template:Currentday will always be updated when the page re-caches. You need the page editor to either enter ~~~~~ or a subst: command for this sort of "expansion" to happen.

The only solution I've ever thought of would be to have an off-site 'bot monitor pages in a category "Pages with undated..." and make edits to those pages, adding the dates to the templates. The results wouldn't be perfect, but they'd be more-or-less right.

But that seems like a LOT of work for the result. -Derik 01:56, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

I think I may have found the trick:

A less versatile method for multilevel substitution is with a pair of includeonly tags: they can be used to prevent substitution on the page itself, while not having any effect when transcluding the page. Substitution is prevented by having the template call inside these tags. Substitution is also prevented by having one or both tags anywhere in the template call except inside a parameter definition. Thus the tag(s) can be before, inside, or after "subst:", or inside or after the template name. The positions of the two tags only influence the rendering of the template page itself. If the closing tag is put immediately after the opening tag the full wikitext is rendered, e.g.

{{<includeonly></includeonly>subst:tc}} is shown as {{subst:tc}}

wikipedia:Help:Substitution#Includeonly

Plausible?--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:21, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

I've read this documentation before, and it makes my head hurt.

How does that help us? -Derik 02:27, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

On further examination, it doesn't unless the template containing those includeonly tags is also substituted. Which leaves us no closer. Drat. I shall delve deeper into the nature of transclusion and substitution and pray I don't inadvertently become a cultist of Azathoth.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:30, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

The problem is you want to substitute on the page itself-- you want a 'flattened' date. So that means the editor needs to put in the "subst:." (Or more simply, a ~~~~~,) it can't be optionally assigned by the template if non-present, because that would require the template reaching 'up' into the page it's included on to make changes to the base text. -Derik 02:39, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

We could, I suppose, create something to the effect of {{lazycleanuptag}} which forces substitution and only outputs {{cleanup|{{subst:currentmonthname}} {{subst:currentyear}}|}} ...but that seems like going 'round Robin Hood's barn to get there.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:35, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

And of course misses the point entirely of plunking a date tag in when people forget to do so, the original point of this exercise. It is for the most part admitting defeat.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:36, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

See, I didn't think that was how that worked. See if you can make that work, with exactly that substitution. If it does we at least have a starting point. -Derik 02:43, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

It does work. In that if I use the includeonly trick on the subst bits in that, and also subst the shell template itself, said template would then leave in the article text {{cleanup|April 2009}}, being a multi-level substitution as described in the mediawiki help. But, as I said above, it only works if the template using the includeonly trick is also substituted. The date variables get rendered flat, and the lazy cleanup template also gets reduced to standard wiki text, but any templates it calls aren't substituted, and thus still render as genuine transclusions.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:50, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

The problem with that approach being that forced substitution is pretty much nonexistent, beyond a simple nag message.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:56, 22 April 2009 (EDT)

Bot request for image tagging

I've noticed that all of the images that haven't had their descriptions restored have the text "Importing image file" instead. Can we have Deceptitran replace all instances of that phrase in the image namespace with "{{bookworm|5}}"? I think that'll make that part of the recovery process go much quicker. - Jackpot 18:09, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

Link me an example file! -Derik 20:00, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

Perfect example. Oh, and I was thinking about it, and it's probably best to replace the phrase with "{{bookworm|5|Description and copyright info}}" just to make sure it's clear. - Jackpot 20:25, 24 April 2009 (EDT)

BW Neo Models

So, I'm looking for future projects, and BW II / BW Neo seem like likely candidates. A while back, while we were debating, you posted scans of Deadend http://www.emopanda.com/tmp/deadend_model.jpg that showed several angles. Do you still have access to that book, and would you be willing/able to make some high quality scans? Also, does the book cover the secondary characters like Survive, Bazooka, Bump, Hydra, Sharp Edge. Randy and Sharp Edge? --Jimsorenson 01:05, 2 May 2009 (EDT)

User talk:Derik

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