MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

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This is the place for discussion of topics that affect the entire wiki. Some topics that would ordinarily be here have merited their own pages:

The move away from Wikia:

Our policy on having ads in the wiki:

The Bookworm database-crash:

The server move:

Relicensing discussion:

Community Portal Archives

Affiliate sites

Over at Template:External, I've been poking at the coding that flags certain external links. (It's been doing this in External Links sectiosn for months, and there was a discussion... somewhere... where we agreed that everyone was okay with these sites beign thus flagged.)

Here's my thing... if we consider these guys preferred content providers... we should reward them. I think we should disable rel=nofollow for these sites. (Something that makes our links to them not be 'counted' in search engines.)

Also-- I notice that rel=nofollow has been reset for Wookieepedia-- it had been off, part of our 'friends of' networking program. The setting probably got un-flagged in the software upgrade. We should fix that. -Derik 02:18, 30 June 2009 (EDT)

Sounds good to me. We trust these sites, so it shouldn't be an issue if we unnofollow the links to them. --abates 03:05, 30 June 2009 (EDT)
While I'm thinking about it, we should also un-nofollow the links on Main Page to our status/twitter/facebook pages. I'm not sure how or where the whitelist is set, so I think that's probably a task for Suki Brits. --abates 21:40, 8 July 2009 (EDT)

And also we should do the same for the Cybertron Chonicle (cybertronchronicle.freewebspace.com) and RiD Forever (ridforever.info) on the G1 and RID cartoon pages, respectively. --abates 04:19, 20 July 2009 (EDT)

Our tech-people being apparently busy, I'm going to point out that the mechanism for making this change is made in LocalSettings.php, and follows this basic format;
$wgNoFollowDomainExceptions = array( 'en.wikipedia.org', 'wiktionary.org' );
-Derik 09:51, 1 August 2009 (EDT)
I think only the tech people have access to change that file. --abates 20:44, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

Firefox 3.5

Firefox is launching it's first major upgrade in 18 months, and it sounds like there's signifigant under-the-hood reccoding to make it lighter and faster.

Please report any problems associated with the new version here. -Derik 15:09, 1 July 2009 (EDT)

I've been using it since the beta. I've noticed no major issues with the site, and I've had it for months. The major under-the-hood stuff was related to javascript parsing, and our functions that depend on it (image description previews, faction symbol, etc.) seem to work just fine.--RosicrucianTalk 15:13, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
The History javascript problem is still there, but I'm hoping it disappears when we upgrade MediaWiki. I dunno about lighter and faster, but Firefox no longer properly terminates when I close it. Grrr. --abates 18:13, 6 July 2009 (EDT)

Size-scale references

someone is adding the scale size to a lot of the ROTF toys, and I was wondering A) if anyone cares considering they're not supposed to be any scale like the alternators/binaltech, and B) should we stop it before it gets outa hand. I don't think we need this information, personally, but maybe the rest of you disagree. it poses the problem of adding this ridiculous scale system to EVERY page on here. Cliffjumper prime 18:49, 1 July 2009 (EDT)

Nope, I don't care for noting scale unless it's some sort of unusual circumstance that should be noted (say a toy that turns into a train fitting on whatever scale train tracks). And like somebody who asked us to list the heights of every modern toy ever made, I'm not going to waste my time listing scales and such. I have more important things to do on the wiki. --FFN 18:55, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
I especially thought it was pointless considering a lot of more recent toys are simply approximations of real vehicles, or altered versions, not the real thing. Cliffjumper prime 19:10, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
I'd rather reserve the whole size-scaling thing for JUST Binaltech/Alternators and Alternity! --Lonegamer78 19:47, 1 July 2009 (EDT)
Oh, definitely. When scale is explicitly called for (1:24 Alternators, 1:32 Alternity, whatever else Takara tries) we should point it out, but otherwise it's just stupid. --Detour 19:51, 1 July 2009 (EDT)

Changes to comic issue format

I'd like to propose two changes to our comic issue format.

  1. I think that, when available, the 'covers' section should present the covers without copy. Virtually every TF comic printed this decade has had its cover art previewed online without the title, issue-box, etc. I'm not suggesting that old content should be purged... just that there should be an official preference for copy-free covers.
  2. I'd like to propose a 'Reprints and Collections' section near the bottom of comic pages, like the video release section found on some episodes. (This particularly applies to Marvel UK stuff.) It'd look something like this;
Reprints / Collections
  • Reprinted in Transformers Collected Comics #8 (1986) — UK only
  • Reprinted with Issue #98 as Marvel Comics (US) #34
  • Recolored and reprinted in Marvel UK's "1990 Transformer Annual" (1989) — UK only
  • Collected in the Titan Trade paperback collections "Primal Scream" and "Matrix Quest" (1997)
  • Reprinted in IDW's "Transformer Generations #16" (2006)

No single set template format can adequately describe the way Transformers stories are printed, collected, bundled, broken up, recolored, excerpted etc etc etc. A plain English approach (allowing for in/as/with etc...) seems best. (The above examples are kind of a mess... I was trying to throw in as many oddball scenarios as possible.)

Our existing comic template accommodates two publications for US and UK Marvel stuff... but a UK story might've been reprinted in the UK, ported to the US and bundled with another issue, gotten a 'Collected Comics' edition, been recolored for an annual, then gotten Titan releases in color or black and White... and that's without even getting into the IDW reprint series, which've had their own trade paperback collections...

It really just needs its own section. So I'm proposing one and seeing what other people think. -Derik 19:14, 8 July 2009 (EDT)

I disagree pretty strongly with point #1. In the "covers" section, we're documenting the actual, physical comic covers, are we not? What you propose seems like it belongs in a seperate "cover art" section. Does that distinction make sense? --Salt-Man Z 17:15, 23 July 2009 (EDT)

New templates for toy releaess?

In addition to the "comingsoontoy" template, I propose adopting one or two more templates that indicate a toy has been officially released on another market but not in the USA yet. Usually this is merely a matter of a few weeks, but in some instances it could mean several months of waiting (see ROTF Legends Constructicons). My main reasoning is that a) listing a toy as "coming soon" when you can already buy it in another country (Japan, other Hasbro markets) seems a little too US-centric, and b) listing a toy as "out" even though it's not actually out at US retail yet is equally awkward. So I propose a tag to indicate a middle status. Either one single tag, or two, one to indicate a TakaraTomy release and another to indicate non-US market Hasbro releases. Furthermore, we might also adopt one or two similar tags to indicate that some toys/multi-packs are/were exclusively available outside the USA, such as various Takara-only redecos, European late-G1 toys and such.--Nevermore 15:39, 19 July 2009 (EDT)

Upload image templates

A discussion about adding a list of insertable templates to the Upload form a couple months ago got derailed by the rush of other higher priories. I re-visit it now;

If you're running Kired Tools, a (perfunctory) list of image templates will now appear in your Upload form. This is being drawn from User:Derik/Sandbox10, so feel free to add to it, edit it, experiment, etc... there are a lot of image templates, and I'd like to try to figure out how to handle such a dense list... good.

Responses appreciated. -Derik 09:42, 21 July 2009 (EDT)

Category Proliferation

OK, just because you can make a theoretical grouping of seven or more characters, doesn't mean that it's wise or advisable to do so. We should limit ourselves to groupings that people might actually be interested in. The more categories we make, the harder it is to keep them all complete. Having an incomplete category is far worse than having no category. The natural assumption is that a category is exhaustive, so an incomplete category is basically misinformation - it implies that we've listed all of something when in fact we have not. Adding in more noise does not help anyone and gives us that much more inventory to mange without creating real value. --Jimsorenson 02:48, 22 July 2009 (EDT)

Great! Now digest that and write Help:Categories! -Derik 13:26, 22 July 2009 (EDT)
Okay.--RosicrucianTalk 12:07, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

Pointing out redirects while editing

Was trying to think of something less annoying than a blink tag. Maybe have them followed by a small graphic to denote them on the edit screen? Perhaps a scaled down version of this?--RosicrucianTalk 14:29, 22 July 2009 (EDT)

I think the point is that they're supposed to be annoying, so you easily notice them and feel compelled to fix them. The instances where a redirect is the "correct" linkage are rare enough that I don't see it as a big deal to ignore the blinking in those cases. --Jeysie 14:37, 22 July 2009 (EDT)
I still think a yellow u-turn icon is obvious enough.--RosicrucianTalk 14:39, 22 July 2009 (EDT)
I guess I just don't see it as a big deal, since you're only going to see it for the 30 seconds it takes to fix the link and refresh the preview anyway. (Plus, I actually find the yellow more annoying than the blinking, though it does make them nice and easy to pick out while scanning.) --Jeysie 14:46, 22 July 2009 (EDT)
I can see where Rosh is going... when you're drafting an extensive change, at some point you're re-reading the entire thing to try and see if it 'feels right' before committing the save. The blink tag is very distracting... making it hard to ignore to judge the overall 'feel' of the page.
The real appeal of it, OTOH, is that the blink tag is the one thing you can be sure will always work-- because blink isn't used anywhere else. Storylinks (for example) have inline background and border colors-- I think those would override the yellow background of redirects, so they wouldn't show up. But because no one ever uses "blink," blink will always show up.
I'd be open to adding the image... but I think (for example) if a prev/next link on a comic issue template was pointed at a re-direct... it would totally break the layout of the button because it imposes padding and background attributes that either:
  1. Won't show up (overriden by the template styles) so there's no indicator that the link is a redirect.
  2. Will show up-- and then break the template which was never intended to accommodate this.
(I'm having trouble picture which.) Basically as set up, it's a 'least offensive solutiont hat will always work.'
IIRC, we already have redirects with a yellow background and double-underline. So if Rosh wants, I can show him the code to turn off the blinking in his own CSS file and he can evaluate how it looks/try other solutions to propose. -Derik 15:31, 22 July 2009 (EDT)
Well, like I said, if I spot redirects to fix when previewing, I quickly fix all of them and then preview again to check for more possible mistakes.
I will say that the yellow and underlines do indeed show up over the grey of the storylinks, though, as I've come across more than a few "Shattered Glass (comic)" links in my editing. But that's in Opera 9.x; I can't speak for other browsers. --Jeysie 15:41, 22 July 2009 (EDT)

Image templates for video game images and screen captures?

Hey guys, do we have an image/copyright template for video game images (covers ect) and their screenshots? If not, we should consider making one at least for the big three english language series of TF games: The Armada PS2 game, the 2007 TF movie games, and the ROTF games (please be aware there are several games under 2007 TF and ROTF). What do you guys think? --FFN 07:35, 25 July 2009 (EDT)

Perhaps we can create a series of the gamecap template just like screencap, which is used to create G1cap, BWcap, BMcap, TFAcap and so on. I think there can be a Template:gamecap, which can be used to create Template:armadagame, 2007game, Template:rotfgame and more (if needed).
And, since there are many games under 2007 TF and ROTF, 2007game and rotfgame will feature parameter to co-op with the games. --TX55TALK 11:57, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
Screencap is already tailored to handle video game screenshots, and can take enough optional parameters that the ownership can be easily identified. Are we really going to have enough screenshots from each game to dedicate a template to each? It's not that hard to type out manually.
I do agree with FFN that something for non-screenshot images from video games might be in order, perhaps based off of the comic cover template.--RosicrucianTalk 12:04, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
...and I specifically think creating the "gamecap" template anyway is a dumb idea. There is no need whatsoever for a generic template for video game screen captures. There is nothing it can do that the screencap template isn't designed to do already.--RosicrucianTalk 12:11, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
Are we really going to have enough screenshots from each game to dedicate a template to each?
Yes we already do. Unfortunately, the guy who uploaded most of them seems to have disappeared.
It's not that hard to type out manually.
Try telling yourself that when you're the one actually writing it, yes? --FFN 14:08, 29 July 2009 (EDT)
No necessarily a dumb idea in some way, the gamecap template is more convenient than using screencap for game screen.
Take Image:Tidalwave_pushup.gif for example, when using screencap, we need to typing:
[[Tidal Wave (Armada)|Tidal Wave]] knows regular exercise is the key to a healthy lifestyle.

{{c}} 2004 Melbourne House and Atari
{{screencap
|source= the PS2 video game "[[Transformers (Melbourne House)|Transformers]]"
|owner=Melbourne House and Atari
|nocategory=true
}}
[[Category:Screen captures from video games]]
While using gamecap, we only need to type
{{gamecap|
[[Tidal Wave (Armada)|Tidal Wave]] knows [[Humanization|regular exercise is the key to a healthy lifestyle]].|
[[Transformers (Melbourne House)|Transformers]]|
Melbourne House and Atari|
2004
}}
without parameters such as "source=", "owner=", "nocategory=true" or "Category:Screen captures from video games"
--TX55TALK 13:23, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
That doesn't look like much work saved, to me.--RosicrucianTalk 19:34, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
Well, the template is kinda like G1cap, BWcap or TFAcap, which only need <description>, <source>, <year> and doesn't need to type those parameters mentioned above as well. --TX55TALK 21:18, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
Except all those examples autofill most of the fields the screencap template needs. Here, you're entering roughly the same amount of information you'd need to use the naked screencap template. It's an extra level of transclusion with very little payoff in terms of time/work saved.--RosicrucianTalk 21:21, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
I don't feel much, for the most apparent thing, at least we won't need to fill nocategory=true and Category:Screen captures from video games, just like the G1cap and others. --TX55TALK 21:27, 25 July 2009 (EDT)
As for the non-game-screenshot, I've created a concept for various covers which are not comicbook covers. --TX55TALK 08:25, 26 July 2009 (EDT)
Hey, I like the prototype template. --FFN 14:08, 29 July 2009 (EDT)
Thank you. ^^ Right now I think I need to search out which pictures are from games so I can figure out what should be done in the next move. --TX55TALK 23:53, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

Shattered Glass Character Categories

Anyone I catch adding redundant "Decepticons" or "Shattered Glass characters" categories to any character already in the "Mayhem Supression Squad" category is GETTING FED TO GRIMLOCK. Their omission not a mistake! Stop adding them back in! :P
...sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. Carry on. --Jeysie 11:47, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

In less ranting thoughts, I had been considering making a category to denote which characters are "Alpha Trion's acolytes". --Jeysie 17:55, 29 July 2009 (EDT)
A "factions of the Shattered Glass Universe" catch-all page might be interesting, showing the Elite Guard, the Wreckers, Trion's forces, Optimus' loyalists, etc.--RosicrucianTalk 18:05, 29 July 2009 (EDT)
Well, it's pretty much... we already have the Seekers, Dinobots, Elite Guard, and Technobots in those existing categories, and we should put the Wreckers in the existing category too (though do we even know any of the former Wreckers in SG other than Rodimus?). And we don't have enough of Optimus Prime's loyalists named to make a category for it - only Blurr, Nightbeat, Ironhide, and Grimlock.
Or were you talking about some sort of umbrella category and/or article? --Jeysie 18:28, 29 July 2009 (EDT)
An article, rather than a category. While we "hate lists" here, an article exploring the political situation and factions of the continuity could be informative.--RosicrucianTalk 18:47, 29 July 2009 (EDT)
Ah. I could get behind that. Especially since we have the ABN crew, the Micromasters, the Targetmasters, the Terrorcons, the Mayhem Suppression Squad, the Predacons, and Astrotrain's squad as well. There's also Arkeville and his interns on the humans' side. --Jeysie 18:51, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

Mold reusage list

I've been working on a list that lists the most reused molds. Sorted after Toyline and alphabetical order. Now I would like to know if this would be a useful piece of information or if it's uninteresting for the wiki. Check out the current poor and far from finished version here. Should I continue working on it or stop and erase it.Dead Metal 13:09, 29 July 2009 (EDT)

It's almost worth it just for that picture. LiamK 09:20, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
I think it would be worth it, just have all this info in one place. That and the comedy possibilities. I can see where it could be considered redundant though. --Tigerpaw28 17:33, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

Robot Heroes Organization

Allright. Robot Heroes from the first movie being listed below Revenge of the Fallen RPMs in characters' Merchandise sections is giving me a headache. Right now, the toy/merch lists are treating Robot Heroes as their own line, when they've really all been branded as subsets of other lines - you have TF 2007 Robot Heroes, Universe Robot Heroes, and ROTF Robot Heroes. Right now, the lists are mis-representating this aspect of the figures; I don't know who began the practice, because that info was wiped out in the crash.

I move to, at least, put the Robot Heroes under their respective franchise banners in characters' Merchandise sections — most relevant for movie-based characters, I grant, but characters having Merch/TF2007/Robot Heroes and Merch/ROTF/Robot Heroes sections makes more sense to me, as it makes it more like the toy sections. For other characters - let's say Perceptor - it could go Merchandise/Universe/Robot Heroes, or maybe Merchandise/Universe.

I considered starting on this myself tonight, but I'm tossing it out for opinions first. --Monzo 04:36, 31 July 2009 (EDT)

Relicensing vote

TFWiki.net has until midnight tonight to decide whether if we want to switch from a GFDL license to a CC-BY-SA3 license.

I've been studying the issue, and I have some thoughts on the direction I think we should go in terms of licensing. (As long as we're switching over, let's actually get it right.) But none of that has to be done now, the actual relicensing has to be performed tonight, and I'm calling for a vote.

  • User:Derik votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. -Derik 15:38, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:Jeysie still votes to switch to CC-BY-SA3. --Jeysie 15:40, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:Rosicrucian votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3 and is in favor of Derik's opinion draft on potential wrinkles and assertions we can make.--RosicrucianTalk 15:43, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:Starfield votes we drop all licenses and go without one. I normally wouldn't give my opinion on this, but since you seem to be soliciting my vote, there it is. - Starfield 16:01, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
    • User:Derik points out that that would make us GFDL, (whether we acknowledged it or not) because we don't have a legal right to drop their license. -Derik 16:05, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:Dead Metal votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3 Dead Metal 16:03, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:DrSpengler (who is at work and cannot log in) votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. --DrSpengler (at work)
  • User:Lonegamer78 votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. --Lonegamer78 16:57, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:MrBlud votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. MrBlud 17:17, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:Jackpot votes we switch to 007 and shoot anyone who steals our shit. - Jackpot 19:14, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:Shellshock votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. Shellshock 20:02, 31 July 2009 (EDT)
  • User:TX55 votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3.

--TX55TALK 21:07, 31 July 2009 (EDT)

  • User:ACIDSTORM92 votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3.--ACIDSTORM92 00:02, 1 August 2009 (EDT)
  • Nuts, I missed the deadline while I was working, and didn't see the vote listed in Recent Changes until now. FWIW, User:Apcog would've voted to switch. I'm still not 100% certain of all aspects of CC-BY-SA3, but it currently seems better than standing pat.--Apcog 02:21, 1 August 2009 (EDT)
    • Language in the GFDL relicensing clause simply says 'By August 1.' Your vote is still valid for 4 hours yet. -Derik 03:56, 1 August 2009 (EDT)
  • User:abates votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. --abates 04:32, 1 August 2009 (EDT)
  • User:FFN votes we switch to CC-BY-SA3. --FFN 07:29, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

Relicencing vote outcome

On July 31, 2009, TFWiki.net conducted a community vote about whether our content licensing should remain GFDL or switch to CC-BY-SA3 as afforded under the provisions of GFDL 1.3

In low turnout, 86% of votes cast were in favor of the switch to CC-BY-SA3. No votes were in favor of remaining to GFDL, and two votes cast in favor of general lawlessness.

The result of this voting being in line with previous general discussion on the subject, and 3 of 3 administrators being in favor of the change, I assert that at a time of 23:59:59 GMT-12 the operating body of TFWiki.net had voted to switch to CC-BY-SA3 and declare on my bare authority that all articles on this site have been so republished.

May God uphold the right. -Derik 08:08, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

I request that Suki or McFly set $wgRightsText in LocalSettings.php to be "CC-BY-SA", in accordance with this change. -Derik 08:08, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

Did anything happen?

The footer says GFDL; the editing page says GFDL; Transformers Wiki:Copyrights still says GFDL... Did anything get changed at all in time? --fleb 00:02, 4 August 2009 (EDT)

Also Transformers Wiki:General disclaimer - that and Transformers Wiki:Copyrights are easily updatable (Derik?), but only McFly or Suki Brits have access to change the configuration file to correct the other messages. --abates 00:18, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
We held a vote and declared the change had taken place. That the admins are slow in making the necessary changes is annoying, but does not change the underlying reality. (Even a storekeeper must be allowed time to repaint his signs.)
I have refrained from editing the other instances where it says GFDL to make a proper clean transition when our web-bravos get off their asses. Anyone else si free to do it though... we have transitioned. -Derik 00:23, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
Ah, fair enough too! --abates 03:05, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
My apologies for not checking three days ago. It is fixed. --Suki Brits 03:25, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.
I... guess you could interpret 'republish' that way. To optimism. --fleb 09:12, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
It's hard to interpret 'republish' any other way. The provisio specifies that the articles must be republished on the same site. You're not going to create another copy of every article in another namespace. It's very clearly a case of "republish in place," where 'republish' refers to the ephemeral act of changing the license. -Derik 22:44, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
No, I get that part; I meant interpreting republishing as an abstract decision-making process, instead of as the act of changing the actual, network-transmitted licensing text by a sysop. --fleb 11:12, 5 August 2009 (EDT)
The sysop could change our licensing text to read "CC-BY" or "CC-BY-SA-NC." ...but neither of those are legal under the GFDL's relicensing provision. (Neither is "NARF" or "MALP," to name a few more nonsensical examples.) Changing a central data string doesn't affect the individual pages any more than a diffuse declaration (less actually, they only have legal force when a subsequent edit is made.)
The relicensing proviso is vague on implementation. This is how I did it. *shrug* Seems as valid as any other way, really. And it's certainly true to the spirit of the thing. As always, YMMV. -Derik 12:15, 5 August 2009 (EDT)

Marvel UK issue pages

I feel that we need to make a change with how we handle Marvel UK comic issues. The UK comics split most of its stories up over multiple issues, and even reprinted some of the split up in a different way. This has led the story articles to become bloated with non-story info (covers, letter pages, other comics from the same issue, contests, ads) for multiple issues on a single story page. Also, navigating the UK comic is a pain in the ass, as many issues having two stories (one issue has three!), as well as the reprints.

Here's what I suggest we do:

  • Make "hub" pages for the individual issues. These pages will cover issue-specific things. Those UK cover scans clogging up every Marvel Transformer story? They go here. As does information from that issue's letter pages, ads, TransFormations, and anything else that isn't a part of the actual stories. Also, there will be a list of what each issue contains, mostly the TOC from the issue itself. Non-Transformers backup strips (Machine Man, Action Force) should need nothing more beyond the name of the series and the title of the story unless more info is given in the cover, letters page, TransFormations, Coming Attractions or the like. The TOC will also have links to our story articles.
  • Leave the story articles mostly unchanged The UK comic usually treated the stories like serials (think the early Flash Gotdon films or the original Doctor Who series), so splitting them up makes no sense. Aside from moving the issue-specific stuff to the hub pages, the only changes needed will be removing the story navigation box from the UK-original stories, removal of the UK navigation from the stories written for the US comic, and adding any needed "Reprinted in" links, and putting "Originally printed in" links on the stories written for the UK comic.

Marvel US 33 & 34 (Man of Iron!) and Action Force 24-27 (Ancient Relics!) would be handled in the same way. --FortMax 17:40, 1 August 2009 (EDT)

So you're suggesting that any issue which contained multiple discontinuous stories get a page for the issue, and a page for both stories? -Derik 22:37, 1 August 2009 (EDT)
Not exactly. Marvel UK is a special case because these multiple discontinuous stories are broken up over multiple issues. We would still have one page for Time Wars. I'll put together a sample tommorow. --FortMax 00:51, 2 August 2009 (EDT)
I have a very rough example at User:FortMax/Sandbox. The main reason I feel this needs to be done is because not only does the UK comic non only have multiple stories in each issue, these stories get spread out over multiple issues. For example, Time Wars was printed over seven issues. --FortMax 12:04, 2 August 2009 (EDT)
That makes sense... a 'landing page.' I'm tentatively in favor of it... but I'd like to see what others say. -Derik 15:40, 2 August 2009 (EDT)
I think this is a really good idea, because it enables us to show the very different format of the UK comic. Formats, in fact - something I didn't realise till I completed my collection is how very different the first 30 or so issues are from the rest. More like a robot enthusiast's magazine than a comic, and much more 'British' in feel. Unfortunately I've only got my scanned copies of issues 1-5 to work from at the moment, but I can mock something up to show you what I mean. --Tribimat 06:25, 4 August 2009 (EDT)
I've never been overly happy that a big, "blockbuster-that-changes-everything" story like Target: 2006 or The Legacy of Unicron only gets one issue, whereas, say, the issues leading up to US #75 get a page each. There's examples of serial storytelling and individual-issue focuses (eg, Prime surrendering, or the introduction of the Wreckers) in each. LiamK 09:25, 12 August 2009 (EDT)

Concept arts of questionable nature

As we all know, there are some concept art images out there of various Transformers in Revenge of the Fallen that we have up until now considered to be leaked art and will not use. However, it has come to my attention that Wikipedia is using this art without issue in their articles, as are our "friends" over at Wikia. I wanted to ask the powers that be what to do here, so can someone give me an opinion? -- SFH 19:21, 2 August 2009 (EDT)

I don't consider either of those a ringing endorsement. Yes, these are likely actual concept art, but I believe they are still leaked. The only officially released concept art we've been getting has been mostly through Josh Nizzi.--RosicrucianTalk 19:42, 2 August 2009 (EDT)
And I should probably elaborate on why I don't think Wikipedia using these images means we ought to (Wikia not being a good indicator should be obvious). Wikipedia has... well, both more and less copyright restrictions than we do. They are bigger wonks about the letter of the law and fair use justifications, and it may well be that the resident copyright nigglers just haven't spotted these images yet. Wikipedia is an enormous site, and that means there's large swaths of terra incognita where you can get away with nearly everything, just because the more anal-retentive users don't frequent them. On the other hand, Wikipedia has no real policy whatsoever on leaked information or images, and we do. That makes our criteria for use and retention of images wildly different from theirs.--RosicrucianTalk 19:52, 2 August 2009 (EDT)
I thoink Detour cited the image on Rampage's article as questionable. (I put that up.) And I could have sworn it came from someplace saying it'd been officially released... but I haven't been able to find it again, so I was probably just wrong. *sigh*
I suggest we yank the pictures and stick 'em on the talk pages, pending some anticipated future release. -Derik 12:22, 5 August 2009 (EDT)

State of Traffic August 2009 (Nattering)

A lot of major websites (including YouTube) have begun to harass users running IE6. (I personally find that a bit obnoxious, and the design of the main site behind the movement irritates the hell out of me, as well as being a thinly disguised PR ploy) ...which made me want to look up what % of our users still use IE6, (6.66%—no jokes) which got me into our analytics.

3 month overview

TFWiki had ~150,000 people visit us in the last month, making about 2 visits each. That's trending down from the previous month (which included the movie) but still well up from 3 months ago. The chart at right shows our last 3 months (the heavy downtime we experienced due to software upgrade, caching and traffic issues makes the hump a lot less pronounced than might otherwise be expected-- only about 200% our normal traffic. I estimate that about 400-500% our normal traffic was trying to get in at peak times though.)

Is there was to traffic-stress test our site before Botcon/TF3 in 2012?

Google analytics says that our "average time in site" per visit is 13 minutes, which means that TFWiki.net kills 1.5 parallel humans per year. That is to say; TFWiki.net absorbs 102 years of eyeball-time annually, or about 1.5 human lifetimes. (I rationalize my guilt about this by telling myself that the parallel dead would probably have just spent their lives watching youTube if we didn't exist.)
Alexa (which doesn't have access to Google Analytics more intimate knowledge of visitor activity and so makes 'best guesses') estimates our time-on-site as 7.9 minutes (so its numbers 'lose' about 40% of the actual time.) By way of contrast visitors to TVTropes spend about 15.9 minutes (26 minutes, corrected) per-visit. We are about 50% as 'sticky' as TVTropes. (Our 'bounce' rate-- people who leave shortly after coming here and don't visit another page are about he same, their is ~5% lower.)

Our highest 'quality' users (spending the most time on site, viewing the most pages) comes from Bing and MSN searches. (I have no idea why people who use Microsoft web portals spend twice as long here, but they are only a tiny fraction of our users.)

Firefox has barely scraped ahead of IE as the most common browser used on our site. There's no significant usage difference between FF and IE users... except that IE users tend to visit 50% more pages in the same amount of time. Does this mean IE users skim more? (I don't know.) Safari users spend ~30% less time on the site, with a corresponding decrease in number-of-pages-per-visit... which means they're spending ~ the same amount of time per-page. (I have no idea if this reflects the site being less usable on Safari, or simply mac users having a different demographic.) Safari users are ~6.7% of our traffic-- so if a tech issue is causing us to lose that 30% of Safari users time, remedying it would cause a ~2.3% overall traffic increase. (In short "worth looking at.")

New vs. returning users, 3 month view

The 'quality' of our users (time on site, # of pages visited) did not really change during the ROTF movie-- which means new users that surfed in during the ROTF promo rush 'behaved' just like our normal new users. The new:old user ratio also barely shifted from 4:6 to 5:5. (see chart.) We got (I'm guessing on these numbers, everything else went through a calculator) a ~120% increase in new users, and a 85% increase in returning users. I suspect our downtime skewed this. (Returning users having more reason to keep trying to get us vs. Wikia.)

New Users spend ~ half as much time and view half as many pages as returning users. Those numbers have remained rock-solid since forever.

Compared to TV/Entertainment sites or Comics and animation sites of the same size... our daily page-views are below average, but our bounce rate is half of average, and pageviews/time on site are spectacularly above average. I think this just reflects how wikis behave differently than other sites. (And really... any entertainment sites that has 10,000 pages is freaking huge. It's a poor benchmark for comparison all around.) -Derik 16:24, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Personally I find pushing people to get rid of IE6 to be a good thing. It's a bad browser both in terms of usability, performance, and standards compliance, and there's zero reason to use it when there's browsers like Opera where even the newest versions run fine on Win95 & 98. Websites are rightly dropping support for it anyway to focus on standards-compliant browsers that let them more easily code pages and use useful CSS properties. (I have a hard enough time getting IE7 to match up with FF and Opera without worrying about IE6 too, I know that much.)
There's a difference between letting people choose between those browsers that work differently but all meet standards, and wasting time supporting people who continue to use a broken browser. But anyhoo. --Jeysie 17:56, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
Oh, I agree entirely. As a web developer, I loathe IE6. But for TFWiki.net specifically... we're running mediaWiki which (mostly) addresses the worst problems out of the box, and any in-page templates/layouts etc... don't bump up against IE6's problems. (But another way, we have a relatively high proportion of IE6 users on our site simply because our site looks good on Ie6-- through no effort of our own.) -Derik 18:06, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
Well, the site looks useable on IE6. I don't know about "good". --Jeysie 18:38, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
It's more than most websites as graphically oriented as we are (and which don't use Flash as a crutch) can say.--RosicrucianTalk 18:40, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Images by Artist Categories

Uh, as much as I like the idea, could we possibly have the bot do the pure category adds instead? Having everyone doing it manually is doing horrible things to the Recent Changes page, and I don't want to hide minor edits because those can be useful to keep an eye on. (Folks sometimes mark Talk page comments as minor, for instance.) --Jeysie 17:48, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

A lot of what's being notated are ones that lacked image descriptions in the first place. If we restrict it to that, would that be okay?--RosicrucianTalk 18:07, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
Well, it seemed like from the size of the edits, people were just adding categories. The places where we have to do full-on descriptions and credits is another thing entirely. --Jeysie 18:34, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Need Disambig Help

Deathsaurus and Landcross need to be moved, but I remember us doing different stuff with the Victory characters, so I didn't know if I should move them to (G1) or (Victory). --Jeysie 22:09, 6 August 2009 (EDT)

Relevant discussions suggest "Deathsaurus (Victory)", etc. --abates 22:16, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
Okie dokie. Thankee! --Jeysie 22:19, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
*Derik growls*
...you growled, sir? --Jeysie 22:59, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
Derik likes the G1 parenthetical when applicable. Interrobang hates it with a passion. We are going to put them in Thunderdome.--RosicrucianTalk 23:44, 6 August 2009 (EDT)
Derik thunderously proclaims that the (G1) parenthetical is a reference to the umbrella franchise that contains all "Generation 1" franchises. If we truly named characters for franchises, we would have "Optimus Prime (The Transformers)." We're not-- ergo we prefer to use the umbrella franchise for disambig when possible, and that should apply to Victory characters as well! -Derik 00:01, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
Uh, no. More like it's one of those cases where we have to make an exception because the result caused by following the rule would be ridiculously unhelpful. Otherwise we do in fact disambig by franchise. --Jeysie 00:36, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
I disagree! -Derik 00:41, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
With which? You disagree that (The Transformers) is unhelpful despite the conversation on the matter (to whit: "Because, having 'The Transformers' be the name of a specific franchise and continuity family would be insanely confusing, when technically 'The Transformers' is the also name of the entire general franchise and continuity family that encompasses everything. Having two different concepts named "Generation 1" is already confusing enough without making it ten times worse."), or you disagree with the fact that we disambiguate by franchise?
(The Transformers) is a uselessly ambiguous disambiguation, and it is a fact that we disambiguate by franchise. --Jeysie 00:47, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
But... we don't use the "umbrella franchise" for anything else. We don't do it for the UT. We don't do it for Beast Wars (who some would argue falls under G1). We don't do it for the movies. Why only G1? And "Generation 1" is the name of the franchise, as established by numerous product. —Interrobang 12:33, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
Bah! Humbug! -Derik 22:45, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
Let's make sure we've got our terminology straight. At the very top level, we have the Generation 1 continuity family, which, NOT being a franchise, is never used for parentheticals. Underneath that, we have the G1 franchise, G2, BW, the 2003 Universe, etc. The G1 franchise is synonymous with "The Transformers", so Derik's point above about how we don't say "Optimus Prime (The Transformers)" is nonsensical. Every time we say "(G1)", we are saying "(The Transformers)". This franchise could be considered an "umbrella franchise" because it contains all the Japanese franchises like Headmasters, Victory, Zone, etc. So does a Victory-exclusive character get a "(G1)" or a "(Victory)"? Both technically count as franchise-of-origin. The only reason I see to get granular about it is to follow the example of the Japanese BW sub-franchises. For example, it would be perfectly valid if Skywarp (BWII) were "Skywarp (BW)" instead, but for whatever reason, we've decided those sub-franchises deserve their own parentheticals. I favor consistency, but I can't think of any clear logic that demands one outcome or the other. - Jackpot 22:19, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
It's the 'for whatever reason' I'm stuck on. I don't think we ever actually made that decision so much as some contribuitors have simply been pushing that view-- thus the periodic outbreaks of "What? Why the fuck is ArticleName now at such a retarded location?" followed by block reversions. -Derik 22:49, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
IIRC, I think that the reasoning was that we should always be disambiguating by franchise rather than umbrella franchise, so (Victory), (Zone), (BWII) was more correct. Basically, it was a change to make our disambiguating more consistent. --Jeysie 22:52, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
I can think of one umbrella franchise we do disambiguate by: the 2008 Universe. With the exception of the "Action Blast" Flash animations, all it does is subsume other franchises, but when a new character comes out of it, we use "Universe" as the parenthetical instead of whatever franchise they're from within that. I've argued against this, but to little avail. - Jackpot 23:06, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

I've been spending a fair bit of time lately adding to and updating our collection of logos, but it's occurred to me that of all our thin-ice copyright practices, displaying Hasbro's trademarks is pretty damn questionable. So I checked out how Wikipedia deals with it, and I think we can pare down their boilerplate into something that fits our typical copyright templates. What do you all think? - Jackpot 23:16, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

Logos are something you put out as a metonymic symbol for yourself. Mangling them or presentignt hem badly is bad... but simply presenting them should be fine.
Trademark infringement is an entirely different thing than copyright infringement-- it only occurs if we were trying to use their names/logos to represent ourselves. Creating "Genuine opportunity for confusion" between ourselves and Hasbro. We're not using them that way... we're usign them to represent Hasbro, which is entirely proper.
(It wouldn't hurt to work up a {{logo}} template for image credit though, that underlines that this is Hasbro's Trademark, not an image they own copyright on.) -Derik 23:37, 7 August 2009 (EDT)
I've done a first draft. Feel free to mangle it so that the language is more sound.--RosicrucianTalk 23:51, 7 August 2009 (EDT)

A solution for all this Goldbug/Galvatron/etc. madness

Would it be possible to design a template or other standard that allows for an intro-style paragraph in the middle of a page? So, rather than Fortress Maximus getting a footnote under his intro paragraph about how his Japanese portrayal is totally different, his Japanese fiction section gets its own introductory writeup, maybe complete with its own main pic, with some kind of standard disclaimer that it applies to this particular fictional section only?

This allows us to keep characters who are clearly related in a meta-fictional sense on the same page, while allowing us to acknowledge the vast differences in their characterization and/or backstory. Then we have a much smaller debate about who should or shouldn't get such a subsection, instead of an unwinnable argument about disambiguations with all the associated link and header messiness. -- Repowers 12:02, 12 August 2009 (EDT)

That is a very good idea, I like it a lot. But how would that work, will we need a software update or something? Dead Metal 12:06, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
=Section title=
The single equal sign header currently isn't used. - Starfield 12:10, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
That's because a single equal sign header produces an <H1>, which should only be used once per page per webstandards. --Jeysie 12:13, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
From a web-standards standpoint, there's no reason not to use a H2. I the goal is just to have a horizontal line... um... I bet that can be made to happen, I'm just blanking on how.  ;)
I'm not opposed to the idea of a 'mini-bio template' (or something) to call out these kind of mini-bios... but I'm also wary of them, because I fear that they could become a crutch; a "default" approach used whenever there are different portrayals of a character instead of achieving actual consensus.
I really don't want to discuss this until after we've come to a conclusion on the Bumblebee/Galvatron thing. With the original argument deadlocked, (and seriously, calling for an up-and down vote so early into the discussion was not helpful) it's now spilling over and opening 'new fronts' to argue on. Any 'wide ranging' layout change we make will stem from the resolution of that argument. Attempting to begin such a change now, with the problem unresolved is bad policy, pisses everyone off, and could be (read: is) interpreted as a pressure-move by one side seeking to advance its agenda by presenting a fiat-accompli policy revision to strengthen its position. :D -Derik 12:37, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
We probably should mention Blaster (G1) in this mess as well...
I'm honestly not sure how to feel about the whole thing. My inclination would be inherent personality/concept. So if you have character incarnations who have different origins but their personality ends up being the same, they go together. If you have character incarnations with similar origins but who otherwise act very different, they don't go together. And if you have character incarnations who act similarly, but most have a certain origin as a key part of their identity and one incarnation lacks that origin, that one incarnation would still be different.
Of course... that's obviously a pretty darn subjective thing to be trying to decide on, and I'm not sure it'd be ideal. I'm just really not sure how else to handle it in terms of a way that would be objective. Seeing as how once you get past continuity/franchise divides, all we have to go on is how the individual stories handle things, which usually aren't clear-cut. --Jeysie 12:51, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
We've got plenty of evidence that Unicron can create Cyclonus and Scourge out of any robot-- the individual going into the transformation has no bearing on the individual that comes out... it's just a 'stock' body/persona Unicron seems to use a lot.
I suspect that Galvatron is similar. (Though the evidence to support this view is much more circumstantial.) Because the dudes who get turned into Galvatrons tend to be alive going in (unlike the 'doners' for Cyclonus and Scourge) their personality obviously carries more sway.
I think that treating Galvatron like that makes a lot of sense without dis-servicing the material... but I'm not sure we can reach an consensus to do so. Can anyone think of any similar instances of a character with wildly different 'incoming' origins? (Orion Pax doesn't quite cut it. We'd need a separate origin where T-Spoon was rebuilt into Optimus Prime...) -Derik 13:05, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
Sunbow Dinobots vs Dreamwave Dinobots immediately come to mind. I've been thinking along the lines of your "Unicron's mass-production type" for a while now.... which still leaves both IDW and Henkei Galvs as outliers. But even those two weirdos fulfill basically the same character roles in their respective continuities, and there's no evidence Hearts of Steel Scourge was built by Unicron either and he's still "himself". Honestly I think they should all stay where they are. --Thylacine 2000 13:25, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
Cartoon Constructicons. Built on Earth? Brainwashed Autobots? Decepticons who've always been around?
Any rate, I really don't see the point in moving stuff around. People are actually talking about wiki-wide changes to account for maybe that %0.1 of characters that don't fit neat-and-clean into the way things are set up now. As it stands, I'm not exactly sold on the "mini-profile" proposal, I'd have to see an example Sandboxed up before I could get behind such a thing. --M Sipher 13:44, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
Leave it as is. Galvatron is still more or less the same guy - he's a crazy badass killer guy who wants to betray his masters. Goldbug is a fucking nonentity. (On the other hand, is there ANYTHING to suggest that Spotlight: Metroplex doesn't take place in the future and that Bumblebee became Goldbug at some point we haven't encountered yet?) Hooper_X 19:34, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
There's a note on the inside cover that says it takes place immediately before AHM#1.
As for the subsection-intro idea, I like it a lot - it's an idea I've had since I first started reading the wiki, and it applies to WAY more than the "0.1%" of characters that have had actual debates around them. Save the main intro for universally-applicable info, and elaborate on the conflicting details in the subsection-intros. The big issue I see is overall readability - as Siph says, it'll need some sandbox-testing to see if it would actually work in a practical sense. It could easily make our articles even harder to parse than they are now. But there's no way to know without trying.
- Jackpot 19:50, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
Considering that Blaster's page is already set up like that... really, go look at it—there's three separate intros already, one at the beginning of the cartoon section, one at the beginning of the Marvel comic section, and one at the beginning of the IDW comic section.
We'd maybe have one normal Fiction section with Dreamwave and TF/GI Joe, and then three different H2s with "Cartoon continuity Blaster", "Marvel Continuity Blaster", and "IDW continuity Blaster" each with their own separate H3 Fiction section. If that makes sense? --Jeysie 20:22, 12 August 2009 (EDT)
Speaking solely in terms of 'the insertion of more time fixing the problem...' Goldbug's 1987 tech-spec says that he possesses the mind of Bumblebee. ('tis a very odd phrasing.) It also notes that he has become "More serious, assertive, mature than he was. Realizes what others think of him isn't nearly as important as what he thinks of himself."
Now, I happen to think that "Spotlight: Metroplex" presented Goldbug as joking, passive, naive and deferring to what others think instead of trussing his own judgment. (Caveat: These are subjective judgements, YMMV.) Which would make "Spotlight: Metroplex" Goldbug is simply Goldbug prior to the state his tech-spec describes. He will grow into being the more assertive etc etc etc individual the tech-spec describes. It's entirely possible that at some point in the future Goldbug's mind will be merged with G1 Bumblebee... at which point the character would no longer be in conflict with the tech-spec (but still a distinct character.)
Let me stress; I don't think that this is likely. But I'm reluctant to make sweeping changes aimed at "addressing this completely irresolvable situation" when the situation is (at least potentially) resolvable. And in the scenario above, even if the discontinuity with the tech-spec were completely resolved... we'd still need a separate article for the character; addressing who he was prior to the merge— just like the hapless trooper Straxus rebuilt into a clone of Megatron is a distinct character.
Reiterating: I am not saying this is the case, I do not think it should go on his page, etc. I am merely demonstrating that it's possible to have a scenario where even if the problems with the tech-spec were resolved this Goldbug would still need a separate article. With that in mind: can we back away from the "conflict with tech-spec = new character" argument (because I don't think either side is actually proposing that Beast Changer be split into a separate article from Noble) and start looking at at Goldbug's article for what it is; an odd and fairly rare circumstance which lacks a clear precedent in the form terms of how we treat other articles (Since Galvatron's article has that's been regularly argued about since it was set up... to a conclusion that "this sucks, but no one can agree about how to do it better" I don't think it qualifies as "a clear precedent.") for which open non-acrimonious discussion is required to determine the best treatment.
Now, *I* see no urgent need to make a decision this second. I propose a 4 day cooling-off period where all parties desist working on the article or pushing their points on talk pages so that everyone can calm down and it can be re-visited with fresh eyes on Monday. -Derik 00:21, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
We should just plainly present the character as the fiction presents him while taking as little stances on anything as possible. The only way to do that, I think, is to have all Goldbug-related information on the "Goldbug (G1)" page, and just give the information, perhaps linking to Bumblebee in the appropriate fiction sections to prevent duplicate information. Having separate Goldbug pages gets the whole process off on the wrong foot, drawing subtle conclusions before any text is actually written. - Starfield 00:47, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
But that's a terrible way to present (for example) the Marvel comic, where he goes back and forth between being Bumblebee and Goldbug. To say nothing of Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime. -Derik 01:27, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
You know, the more I think of it, the less certain I become about what works the best for the wiki. Think of Optimus Prime (G1). We're mostly pretty happy with his article, right? But then, sometimes he was rebuilt from Optronix, sometimes Orion Pax. To me, that seems like a pretty analogous situation to the whole Goldbug / Bumblebee situation. So, whatever we decide for Goldbug may apply to the cartoon vs dreamwave Optimus Prime. Or not, just kinda thinking out loud. --Jimsorenson 01:54, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
The Keepers Trilogy established that Orion was a friendly nickname for the 'bot known as Optronix.
Try to keep up with the retcons man! -Derik 02:25, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
Personally, I think Jackpot (I think it was Jackpot, anyway) sandboxed up the best solution I've seen: make a Goldbug (G1) page, with the Marvel and Sunbow sections consisting entirely of "See Bumblebee (G1)" (and maybe a sentence or two on how he became Goldbug). There's no back and forth from Bumblebee to Goldbug for the continuities where they're one and the same, it eliminates the potential mess that would appear if another G1 continuity decided to make a Goldbug that's not Bumblebee, and it pretty neatly resolves the debate over how the intro paragraph should be written. I'm also going to take this opportunity to point out that the intro paragraph for Scorponok says something to the effect of, "this guy is totally different in every continuity." -- Dark T Zeratul 04:40, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
Wait for the smoke to clear. We'll decide to do that anyway. The non-Bumblebee Goldbug clearly has his own independent existence, just like Hapless trooper does, and (IDW) is a terrible diambig.
Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to be a crotchety old man and point out that I think people need to chill. IDW introduced a bizarre retcon involving Bumblebee the same month they announced a Bumblebee series. Until I'm given reason to think differently, I have to believe who thing is too retarded not to be related. -Derik 04:59, 13 August 2009 (EDT)
So, why is (IDW) a terrible disambig, Derik? Because some other publisher may use a non-Bumblebee Goldbug later? How is that particularly different from a character from one franchise later turning up in another? - SanityOrMadness 16:48, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
Because in this case it's not a character from another franchise. It would be another version of the same character from the same franchise with the same uncommon interpretation. -- Dark T Zeratul 18:11, 14 August 2009 (EDT)

OK, what's with the new featured characters template? ---Blackout- 05:38, 14 August 2009 (EDT)

Changes were proposed over at Template_talk:Featuredcharacters#Makeover, sandboxed, revised, various users participated etc. It's been going on for a few days. A 'mature' version of the template evolved, and we announced it would go live; giving users 36 hours to object if theyw anted to. No one did.
(This is typical. Most of the time only a very tiny audience participates in talk about template revisions until they're rolled out and catch the rest of the users off-guard.)
It was expected there would be more commentary after it happened. What do you think of the revision? -Derik 06:27, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
It's not really that different, but I think I preferred the other one. ---Blackout- 06:59, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
That's my initial reaction too. But I'm not sure if that's just because I was used to the old one, or if it's actually better somehow, so I'm giving myself a few days to grow on me before I cast judgement.
(IIRC this originally started because the old one needed to be re-coded due to some IE problem... which snowballed into a full-on redesign. So even if we reverted things template would still need changes.) -Derik 07:48, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
I mostly like it much better, however...
The dotted border needs to be a normal border, IMHO.
The default "Human" and "Others" sections are now the wrong colors, and I don't think we really want to have to manually swap the code on every single instance of the Template. Example... you can see how the "Others" has the nice fleshie color, while the "Humans" are the deeper color that doesn't match as nicely visually. Unless you can figure out how to swap the display without having to swap all the code, I think it needs to go back, unfortunately for your alternating. --Jeysie 08:04, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
Is this like Crayola defining a peach crayon as "flesh" tone? -Derik 11:52, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
*snerk* OK, I deserved that. But more like, when I look at the light beige I think "human" and when I look at the orangey-yellow I think "human suffering from jaundice". --Jeysie 12:03, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
Hmm... the reason the 3rd and 4th column's colors were swapped was for their density (grayscale) values so that the template would be more readable the low-color-depth e-readers (there are already ~ a million unit out there, and the category is expanding rapidly.) But the loose subject-color correlation we've got going on is useful. I'll take a poke at the template tonight and see if I can't tweak the hues without affecting the density; best of both worlds. -Derik 14:17, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
While you're at it, see if you can figure out how to fix the fact that the top and bottom borders of the two outside columns are thicker than the same borders of any columns between them.--Apcog 16:58, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
Which browser are you using? I only have Firefox 3.5, IE 8, and Chrome 3.0 handy at the moment, but it looks fine in all of those. --abates 18:24, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
Firefox 3.5.2 on a Mac, FWIW. You can see the problem on this screen shot here. Even allowing for JPG artifacting, the thinner lines at the top and bottom of the Decepticons column should be apparent in the full-res view.--Apcog 21:12, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
Can you check this page and see if the borders are correct? I suspect it's some sort of border-collapse bug. --abates 22:23, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
I thought we just sprayed for those things.... Anyway, the test page looks fine, all borders equal.--Apcog 17:50, 15 August 2009 (EDT)

"Murder" Category

What is that all about, why is it stuck in flux like "Things that doesn't exist", and why has it magically returned back to its former state after I pressed the "Save page" button? ---Blackout- 13:48, 14 August 2009 (EDT)

Well, I'm not a scientist, but I suspect it's related to the fact that both pages in the category promise to murder you if you don't understand a key concept described therein.
I have no idea where your edits went; but they're not listed in history. Maybe it was just a server hiccup? -Derik 14:03, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
That's obviously policy related. --abates 18:29, 14 August 2009 (EDT)
How can you view that category's history if it doesn't exist? ---Blackout- 02:50, 15 August 2009 (EDT)
How can you view something that doesn't exist?
We used to have a policy page specifically forbidding murder as a form of resolving debates. It got deleted.
People are a lot more civil now. -Derik 18:34, 20 August 2009 (EDT)
I think we might need that page back.
I admit that I may have at one point threatened anyone who dared to say that Alpha Trion was one of the 13 without any plausible evidence to back them up with murder using SG Alpha Trion's sword. ---Blackout- 14:23, 24 August 2009 (EDT)

Login Timeouts

I've noticed recently that I keep getting logged out constantly... did we tweak something lately? (I think I had to log back in a good five times while working on Jackpot's article yesterday...) --Jeysie 11:50, 19 August 2009 (EDT)

The system seems fine to me, I haven't got problem like this. --TX55TALK 20:52, 19 August 2009 (EDT)
No problems here. Have you tried deleting your site cookies? That was happening to me on another site (a forum) and the problem went away after I deleted the cookies and logged back in. --abates 21:09, 19 August 2009 (EDT)

Software upgrade (and known issues)

Now that the traffic from ROTF has died down some, is it time we looked at updating the MediaWiki software we're running? The latest version out is 1.51. --abates 17:00, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

Interwiki linking

I was trying to link to this ( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Second_Inaugural_Address ) article today... and I realized I couldn't do it.

I can interwiki link to WikiSource... but not to en.wikisource.org. [[wikipedia:Articlename]] links properly direct to en.wikipedia.com; since we are an english wiki, it assumes we want to link to the English wikipedia... but no such assumption is made for WikiSource (because you could reasonably be assumed to be linking to a non-English source, once supposes.)

In fact I can't link to the spanish-language version of the Tacitus article either; [[Wikipedia:es:Tácito]] takes me to a non-existant article named Tácito on the english Wikipedia.

It's not a big deal... the need to link to non-english articles is so rare that we can just substitute an external link. but it does means that we can't link properly to Wikisource at all because their articles require the language code to be set.... and we simply can't do that. (We should check back on this problem and see if it fixes itself with the software upgrade.) -Derik 05:04, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

That es:Tácito link does, in fact, take me to "http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tácito"! Once I hit en.wikipedia.org, I get redirected to the Spanish version. --abates 05:28, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
I think that's being handled server-side by Wikipedia's server though. "No article by this name, what could they be searching for? There's a spanish one..." The point is that link format should take you to the correct sever without the server itself acting as a catchment for sloppy linking. (And Wikisource doesn't do that, which brings us back full circle.) -Derik 05:35, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
Sure, ideally, but from looking at the MediaWiki source, it looks like that's how they intend interwiki links to the Spanish version of Wikipedia to be done. There's nothing stopping us from adding in our own Interwiki prefixes of course! So even if the update doesn't fix the problem, someone with database access can tweak the Interwiki table. I have noted down to suggest this extension, when we get around to installing extensions. --abates 06:20, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

Macron issue

I've only tested the SQL statement I came up with to fix the macron issue on version 1.12, so ideally that should be done before we upgrade the software. I sent it to McFly a while back, but haven't heard anything more. --abates 22:30, 25 August 2009 (EDT)

Article "suites"

We've got a couple articles that're broken up into chunks because of length. (Mostly toy-sections.) I worry that the broken off bits become "less" somehow.

Enter Template:Suite which I've roleld out on the Optimus Prime (G1) article. It throws a quicknav up in the empty space to the right of the continuity note, and snugs it up against the disambig (if present.) The template has an "easy mode" and a "hard mode," but neither mode is particularly hard. Anyway... I thought this seemed useful. (Besides, Wikia has a proper nav for this sort of thing, and it irked me that we didn't. Theirs, however, occupies the spot where our "Factions" icons go, so...)

Thoughts? -Derik 23:08, 20 August 2009 (EDT)

I like it. - Jackpot 01:44, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
I like the idea! ;-D
By the way, since we now have Template:Suite, do we still need ==Toys== or ==Merchandise== section (which contains nothing) in those page with template:suite? (But section such as "Marvel Comics continuity" should be kept because there are summary in the section.)--TX55TALK02:46, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
I think... yes? If only because people are so used to seeing them... they're level-2 headers. I don't think it's wise to depend on people noticing the suite thing at the top of the article.
And anyway, we still have a section for Prime in the Marvel comics, neh? -Derik 03:22, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
I agree. If people miss the suite box and go to to the bottom of the article, looking for Opty's toys, they'll be confused when they don't find the forwarding link. Definitely keep the toy sections. --abates 03:43, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
Like the faction symbols, I view this as a more of an enhancement of the existing layout than a replacement. (Which is why I was so pleased to be able to sneak it into the 'empty space' to the right of the continuity note... no additional disruption to the layout.)
I wonder if this (or a version of it) might proove useful for sub-franchise pages; e.g. Linking the Marvel Comics series page to the Marvel Comcis timeline page. Replace the game navigation we use. (It never quite sat right with me, switching to a different franchise navigation just for the games.)
This isn't... there yet, but it's a step in the right direction I think. Just like creating the Franchise Navigation at all was a big step in the right direction in 2007, I think this (or a solution we evolve once this is in practice and we've got a clearer idea of what we need) could be a step toward that next-level-down interlinking that we're missing.
And frankly, Wikia had it and we didn't... and that's shameful. This wasn't even on my radar (at least in this specific application) until I noticed Wikia had it. (I happen to like their highly-visible solution better but; 1) We have faction icons in that space. 2) I think that solution breaks down when you have more than 1 sub-page... and we already have 3.)
Unrelated to all that... the sub-pages are a bit bland to cross-navigate to. Is there any reason not to put pictures at the top of them? (I'm gonna throw one at the top of the Marvel Comics section as an example.)
Even more meta... how do people feel about an Optimus Prime (G1)/weapons page? A sort of clearinghouse article to link provide top-level links to Roller, the Combat Deck, his Powermaster partners, our article on the Energon axe and his gun? (Note: I don't think we have an article on his gun... but we ought.) As well any anything else that's "form specific" (and thus really doesn't belong in the suite itself) but still prominent enough to have gotten its own article that's really "about" one aspect of Optimus Prime. ('Weapons' feels better than 'Equipment' for some reason... I don't know.) I'm just throwing the idea out there. -Derik 04:18, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
If that counts, we do have Optimus Prime's gun. --TX55TALK 08:22, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
Oh yeah, in fact TX55 set up the Wikia solution (it's identical code to the link on Christmas to the gallery). Personally I actually find it less visible than the suite block, partly because of the big three-line sitewide message they have which pushes the page title down. I completely missed the link to the archives on their Community Portal page, so at first glance it appeared as though someone had deleted all the portal chatter from before this April.
Also, I agree completely about putting pictures at the top of the sub-pages. :) --abates 04:58, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
If you were logged in the ad-spam wouldn't be there and it'd display properly in the H1. (The reason we don't do the factions this same way is because a sufficiently long page title is expected to wrap politely around the icons... and using CSS positioning would actually cause them to just smash on top of one another. It's not a big deal, but our solution is preferable; iPhones might have zooming full-screens, but the expanding e-reader market can be expected to mangle pages.) -Derik 05:16, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
Definitely like it. And yeah, we should try to have a main pic for sub-pages. (For Prime's cartoon page, I propose his robot mode at the start of that one transformation sequence that got used in like half the episodes.) -- Repowers 09:41, 21 August 2009 (EDT)
When I took a look at this last night, I liked the idea but wasn't overly keen on the plainer look. What Derik has up there now however, that's ridiculously full of win. I approve.
I also agree both with main pics on the subpages and the weapon/equipment sub-page for Prime. Perhaps the main pic for the weapon/equipment page could be a screen capture of Prime pointing his gun at the "camera"? --Tigerpaw28 13:25, 21 August 2009 (EDT)

I've noticed that some of our external links are to sites that are defunct. I can understand why we'd want to keep the link on, say Transform Your Way, but we'll get dinged in our Search Engine rankings for each dead link. Is there any way we can get the rel="nofollow" tag in there for defunct links?--Jimsorenson 04:15, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

As far as I'm aware, rel="nofollow" is already enabled on all external links as a matter of course. It's enabled on the link on that page, for instance, if you look in the HTML source.
Generally it's the opposite that we have to deal with... disabling the nofollow on links we want to send Google juice to. There was talk of that for TFU.info, the Universe profiles, and a few other sites, but I don't know if it ever got implemented. --Jeysie 08:48, 22 August 2009 (EDT)
Ah, good to know. --Jimsorenson 11:15, 22 August 2009 (EDT)
It hasn't been implemented - it needs someone with server access to edit the configuration file. --abates 19:48, 22 August 2009 (EDT)
Scout's taken a whack at it, but the software is Mysteriously Not Cooperating. (I suspect that like similar issues it's just going to wait until we upgrade and see if that fixes it.) -Derik 19:53, 22 August 2009 (EDT)
Ah, that explains a lot! (I had similar fun trying to set up PHPBBS a while back) --abates 23:57, 22 August 2009 (EDT)

Water gun article

Is there an article about the squirting guns of transformer toys? there is an article about a water gun used by Ironhide, but it has nothing to do with the gimick of a transformer squirting water. Should we make an article like the rest of the gimmicks?--Sunjumper 14:32, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
Yes. How about "water weapon"? - Starfield 14:48, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
To make it more easy to look for, could we call it water-gun? or water gun(toy)?I'm not going to start untill i'm sure what to call it.--Sunjumper 15:05, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
In the toy bios it is called a variety of things: aquapower, water power, water weapon... what about following the lead of sparking gimmick and call it "water gimmick" or "water-squirting gimmick". - Starfield 15:14, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
I'll do my best to make a good article, be gentle on me, i've only made an article once before.--Sunjumper 15:18, 24 August 2009 (EDT)

Our new resident vandal.....

Well, it seems that we might have a new resident vandal on our hands.

I suggest we block this guy, ban his IP if he continues, play whack-a-mole with his IPs if he's on a dynamic-IP, and if all else fails, temporarily block all account creation. ---Blackout- 14:53, 24 August 2009 (EDT)

He is likely still Assaulthead.--RosicrucianTalk 14:55, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
Yeah, he does have Assaulthead's rabid obsession with reproduction, although this time he no longer appears to be repressing homosexual urges. I swear he'd be a perv if I thought he was old enough to understand half of this.
Still, this is starting to get out of hand. Our policy of "deny recognition" is starting to become "ignoring a problem". There was talk about contacting AT&T or something along those lines to prevent him accessing our site anymore. What happened with that? -- SFH 14:59, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
We need McFly and Scout to pull out the logs, except we haven't heard from either of them in a long while. --Lonegamer78 15:05, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
Well, he has to run out of proxy servers sometime.....
At least, we can limit his choice of user and article names via the title blacklist. ---Blackout- 15:19, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
*takes another quick look at the RC* I really need to create the remaining SG pages tomorrow. That way, he'll stop messing around with them. ---Blackout- 15:24, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
I have to admit I keep putting off making the Ark and Nemesis articles because of all the fiction-writeups they'll need... *needs to stop procrastinating and get back into things* --Jeysie 20:10, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
Er, on that score, regular backup are still being done, right? Anyone? --abates 20:46, 24 August 2009 (EDT)
Look who's back.
And guess what: he's decided to confirm our suspicions and reveal that he's Assaulthead. The title of one of the articles he made is a giveaway.
But seriously, can't we just get this guy off our backs for a while by blocking him, putting his user and article names on the title blacklist and temporarily disabling account creation? At least it'll buy us some time while we try and wake up McFly and Scout. ---Blackout- 12:26, 25 August 2009 (EDT)
PLEASE, SOMEONE KILL THIS GUY ALREADY.
THANK YOU. ---Blackout- 12:17, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Alright, I need to get this off my chest.
This guy is seriously disturbed. ---Blackout- 14:33, 28 August 2009 (EDT)
We have logs going back two weeks. Anyone want an 80MB gzipped apache log? Any tracking that I've done in the past showed that he was coming from multiple IPs as he's blocked, so the sad fact is, he's NOT running out of proxies. I'd almost propose that we start looking into blocking edits from proxied users. I understand the negative implications, but this isn't exactly a hotbed of political commentary. All that said, the records I have for edits made to articles that were obviously kicked off by him have IPs coming from blocks owned by Bank of America, Best Buy, Level 3 Communications, Verizon, Bell Canada, BellSouth, and AT&T. Some of those might be editors cleaning up the mess from home, some of them might be people catching the issue from work, I don't know. We *could* attempt a banhammer of epic proportions, but I suspect that we're going to take out a lot of innocent bystanders. --McFly 11:08, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

Wiki Acting Weird

Ok, what's up? I've just had an edit conflict with myself. ---Blackout- 12:28, 25 August 2009 (EDT)

Googlejuice - Bad News Everyone

Current Google: TFWiki third for transformers wiki, behind two Wikia results

New Google (a.k.a., "Caffeine"): TFWiki fifth, behind two Wikia results and two Wikipedia results.

So. - SanityOrMadness 18:38, 25 August 2009 (EDT)

Hmm, for me, we've been in "fifth" on google.com since soon after ROTF came out. I assumed it was just cause a bunch of bloggers had been linking to the Wikipedia article (and Google regards "wiki" as a synonym for "Wikipedia") in which case as the posts they made with the links in moved off their front pages, Wikipedia would move down again. --abates 20:11, 25 August 2009 (EDT)
The sandbox link you gave there is showing us third, San.--RosicrucianTalk 20:41, 25 August 2009 (EDT)
The sandbox link doesn't actually work for me now, for some reason. And, re: Abates... now I look, google.com does show as fifth, while google.co.uk shows as third. I didn't realise that .com and .co.uk showed different results for a worldwide search... - SanityOrMadness 16:19, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
They use a bunch of different databases which all seem to be updated at different rates. I see the one the sandbox version is using has an updated version of our Dirk Manus article (which annoyingly seems to have dropped out of the database google.com is using). --abates 19:09, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Content-wise, there's not a lot we can do. We were down a lot during the period when the Great Unwashed were blogging about Transformers and didn't know to link to the good wiki.
SEO is server-side, and no one's seen Scout in weeks. (I'd recommend we pursue the "canonical URL" thing, which search engines are supposed to like.) I'd be happy to take a whack at it... but I don't have FTP access. :p -Derik 21:20, 25 August 2009 (EDT)
Note: canonical url's have been added to MediaWiki 1.15, the most recent version released in June. -Derik 21:33, 25 August 2009 (EDT)
Another good reason to upgrade! --abates 22:17, 25 August 2009 (EDT)
No, another good reason to perform a full database backup.
Once that is done and copies saved in at least 3 different locations... then we can attempt an upgrade. -Derik 01:37, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
One hopes after the previous incident that that would be taken as read! I'd reiterate my previous query regarding regular backups, but... --abates 02:07, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Backups are fine, I'm running a test restore to an alternate machine to confirm that the beloved database is okay. If we're going to run an update, I recommend we bring the wiki back to read-only prior to a nightly backup, do a test restore, make sure said test restore is functional, and then (and only then!) attempt the upgrade on the live server. That would probably take a few hours, and you're working around our job schedules, which makes it a little hard to find us. I'd probably drop the macron fix in at that point as well. --McFly 11:15, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

So Someone at IDW Reads the Wiki it Seems...

Oh, hey, the wiki's back up for me. Er. I guess I'll double-post this for the folks who don't read the Allspark, then:

Someone on the IDW forums pointed this out, and I realized they're right: At the back of All Hail Megatron #14, on the page advertising All Hail Megatron 15, the blue text behind the drawing of Perceptor is taken verbatim from our G1 Perceptor entry. All of it, seriously (I did manage to check before the wiki went poof...) I actually have no idea what to think of that. --Jeysie 18:41, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

Is that in-line with the CC-BY-SA licence (or, I suppose, the GDFL depending on when they locked for print), especially the "Attribution" part of that? [I don't have the issue, since I've never bothered with AHM, so I can't check that for what was said/used] - SanityOrMadness 19:52, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
It means that All Hail Megatron #14 is now Creative Commons, and anyone can make a copy of it or remix it without fear of legal repressions. -Derik 19:58, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Edit: Oh, it was an ad for the next issue. Just the ad is creative commons then, no biggie. We'll see if anything make it into the issue itself.
Seriously, this is exactly why I was suggesting we adopt a separate license with terms for comercial productions that already have the TF license from Hasbro/Takara, to prevent exactly that sort of legal ambiguity. -Derik 19:58, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
I agree we should have a license that better reflects our legal rights and not-rights... it's just the question of how to legally switch to it without the impossible task of getting permission from every wiki contributor that's the problem. --Jeysie 22:55, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
I talked about this (how to rollout a second Hasbro-friendly license) a little... somewhere in that long-winded thing I wrote.
I've been poking at it for a couple hours... and I think that we'd be best off invoking the principle of a "customary freehold", an unwritten legal arrangement that's seldom seen anymore (because since the 19th century all contracts have been written down) but which is still recognized to be valid.
That would cast us as (try to keep a straight face) untaxed tenant farmers on Hasbro's land. We keep the result of our labor, but our work also benefits Hasbro in that it cultivates their land (promotes their brand.) No contracts were signed, but our mucking about on/with Hasbro's property does not make us outlaws... but some mixture of neighbor, a guest and serf. We incur obligation to our host, and Hasbro incurs obligation to its fans... both of which can be said to be "paid down" by characterizing the kind of fractional diffusion/transmission of intellectual property that takes place between both parties is a 'gift.' (This is distinct from turning a blind eye and pretending it does not exist, because it means that Hasbro actually has a right to use a small non-specified portion of our labors... we gifted it to them!)
Put more simply, it makes fans pilot fish existing in a mutually beneficial symbiosis with a larger corporate entity.
The reason I favor this solution is because
  • That's not a license. It's an underlying legal principle that was always in effect. (In other words, it applies to all past edits.)
  • I think this actually reflects what fans believe they are doing then they contribute to the wiki, as well as our general belief that we've incurred some (though not overwhelming) moral obligation to protect our "Landlord"'s interests.
  • The actual second license itself would grant limited usage rights in a more explicit manner for all edits made past 11-01-2009 (or whatever), then fall back on customary freehold rights for the remainder... and only when that is exhausted does Fair use come into play. In short- "we give them explicit permission to use this portion, they had implicit permission to use a portion of the remainder, and they have a legal right to use another portion of that remainder afterward without our permission." 3 levels of diminishing legal protection that act as "catchment" for Hasbro's use of our content. They would have to heroically abuse our content-- wholesale reprinting-- to bust all 3.
That's pretty much the best of all possible worlds... in that it actually has some retroactive application to old content, because rather than releasing the content under this principle it recognizes that this principle had always existed, just like Fair Use always exists. -Derik 00:08, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
I voted for that. At least I voted as close to that as possible without knowing a whole lot about the ins-and-outs of licenses and such. - Starfield 00:46, 27 August 2009 (EDT)

Actually, this makes me happy. You know why? Two reasons:

  1. The text is very definitely from our version of the article, not Wikia's. There are passages in that promo that we wrote after the split with Wikia.
  2. The text includes one of our nutball captions: "Like every other tough-guy group walk in the movies..."

This tickles me pink, really.--RosicrucianTalk 22:09, 26 August 2009 (EDT)

That's awesome, especially the (no doubt unintentional) use of the caption. --abates 22:50, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
True, I am glad to know that the IDW folks don't look at Wikia... Does this merit a mention on the issue's page itself, with a link to the current Percy revision? (And maybe a nice, clear scan of the advertisement?) --Jeysie 22:53, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
I think it only means the colorist of the graphic reads our Wiki. I believe it's one of the covers of AHM #15, not merely an ad. --ItsWalky 22:59, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Yep. It's going to be Cover A.--RosicrucianTalk 23:10, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Ah! In that case, I think Joana Lafuente is the colorist, if I'm remembering my IDW forum posts correctly. --Jeysie 23:18, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
Not surprising she'd throw a little love our way, considering. Personally, that's all I take this as.--RosicrucianTalk 23:19, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
If Hasbro contacts us RE: that cover, can we offer to settle a nickel? --FortMax 23:13, 26 August 2009 (EDT)
No actually, under CC-BY-SA3, no one person or body has the ability to act as legal proxy for all contribuitors. IDW would need to contact every single person who's ever edited the Perceptor article and get them all to sign off on it. (I'm not kidding, that's actually what the code mandates.) If they fail to do this, the result automatically becomes CC-BY-SA3.
...or we could do this. (I've been researching you see.) -Derik 20:56, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Wait, if AHM14 came out on August the 19th, surely they went to print before we switched licences? Marvel print in North America, and they still go to print 19 or 20 days before an issue comes out. IDW print further afield (in South Korea, wasn't it?), and even AHM15 may well have gone to print before Aug 1. - SanityOrMadness 19:57, 1 September 2009 (EDT)
[Oh, and while you're saying the "infection" is small, and limited to the ad/cover... the "infected" cover would/will include the Transformers and IDW logos...] - SanityOrMadness 20:00, 1 September 2009 (EDT)

A new argument

Okay, this is a little specious, but I'm going to throw this out and see what others think...

  • Preview art is often pending approval, (particularly covers) and may receive changes prior to the actual hard-copy publication.
  • It would be most accurate to say that the work is first licensed (or at least re-licensed) at the time of hard-copy publication.
  • The AHM#15 ad then, would be a work unto itself... complete with ad dress.
  • The AHM #15 cover, which will remove this ad dress (and possibly re-crop or re-present the base illustration) before adding cover dress is a new work... not derived from the AHM#15 ad. (the ad dress was not an earlier state from which the actual cover derived-- both the ad and the cover are branches of a dress-less illustration.)
  • As such, at the time of AHM#15's publication, that cover will be licensed under whatever terms we have available... and not as a derivation of the AHM#15 ad.

I'm a bit wary of this... because it seems to claim that the online previews of the cover with no dress does not count as a licensed work. Yet such previews often are listed as 'subject to change' and thus are demonstrably not a final product. (In the case of Marvel titles, they can have cover elements completely altered when they realize their penciler traced copyrighted images.) Finally, and perhaps most lamely... the text on the preview isn't legible.

(Uh... FWIW the ad itself appears to be a slight crop-down, and perhaps had its colors re-graded compared to the original preview.) Basically this hinges on the online preview not having licensed the content from us... defining it as 'an internal work-document' whose use of our content was not yet licensed under CC-BY-SA... the licensing to take place after final approvals at the time of hardcopy publication.

(This isn't entirely crazy, fair use allows you to make a cull copy of a movie for your personal use, but you'd have to clear the rights to use more than snippets for a comercial product. Graphic designers routinely do mockups of layouts without clearing the fonts or stock photography used... only doing so after the final version is approoved. Who are we to say at what point in the process the licensing occoured? We know only that it must have happened before the end.)

Thoughts? And does anyone know the actual publication date of AHM #15? -Derik 10:15, 31 August 2009 (EDT)

Nothing more specific than "September" for the moment. With any luck IDW's newsletter will come out tomorrow so my placeholder can finally get properly sorted. (It used to be that Tipton would have an up-to-date schedule on his blog sidebar, but he seems to have stopped regularly updating it.) --Jeysie 20:02, 31 August 2009 (EDT)
Looks like it's coming out on the 16th. --Jeysie 18:23, 1 September 2009 (EDT)
What a lovely due-date we have! -Derik 18:30, 1 September 2009 (EDT)

Blinking redirects gone from Show Preview?

Was wondering where the triple-underlines and yellow blinking went whenever I hit "Show Preview". I might've missed the memo regarding that. --Lonegamer78 13:19, 27 August 2009 (EDT)

You're right, it's not working for me either. I want that back, it was incredibly useful! :( --Jeysie 17:56, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Looks like Derik made a typo when commenting out a bit of code in the stylesheet - there's a stray s after the comment. --abates 18:27, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Oops. I shall fix. -Derik 20:51, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Shouldn't stuff like that be in MediaWiki:Common.css anyway? Once it's tested and working, etc. --abates 22:36, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
In theory, but some people hate the blinking so I've held its status as "in development" until people either get used to it or a superior solution emerges. For example, Rosicrucian specifically asked me how to override the blinking a few weeks ago, so I think he's either messing about with different effects or at least intends to do so. Given that he's done a good chunk of our designwork (I do a lot of the template stuff, but he developed monacobook) there's a reasonable chance he's could come back with a solution everyone likes better, so holding the code as 'in development' for awhile longer is merely prudent.
(If I had admin access I might feel different, but I don't, so going back to try to tweak code once it's in Common.css because you later realize it needs changing is a major hassle. So I try not to migrate these styles until they seem final and there's nothing on the horizon that seems likely to change 'em.) -Derik 23:00, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Ah. Maybe just yellow highlight and triple-underline them without the blinking? --Lonegamer78 23:41, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
I kinda like the animation as it catches the eye, though Firefox seems to have problems figuring out when you click on a blinking link. I'm thinking maybe if the text stays put and instead it has an animated background, which could be a small animated gif that pulses or something. --abates 23:54, 27 August 2009 (EDT)
Oh, so THAT'S what that was. I was getting incredibly annoyed by that. ---Blackout- 03:39, 28 August 2009 (EDT)
It's supposed to be annoying, so you'll be motivated to change the redirect to the proper link to make it go away. (I tried telling that to Rosicrucian when he complained about the blinking, but I don't think I explained it very well...) --Jeysie 19:31, 28 August 2009 (EDT)

GoBox Problem

Is there something wrong with the GoBoxes? Whenever I go to Talk:Bulkhead syndrome, I get a GoBox that leads to this page. ---Blackout- 09:20, 2 September 2009 (EDT)

Go-boxes for a given page will sometimes cache for short periods of time.--RosicrucianTalk 11:09, 2 September 2009 (EDT)
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