MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive13

[[{{#sub:MediaWiki_talk:Community_Portal/Archive13|0|-0}}|«]]	Community Portal / Archive13   e	[[{{#sub:MediaWiki_talk:Community_Portal/Archive13|0|-0}}|»]]
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Section-title master list

I've made a sandbox for the purpose of assembling a master list of all section titles, their relation to each other, and their proper wording/formatting. Please discuss; I've introduced some new ideas, and I'd love to see a consistent guide established. - Jackpot 01:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I think this really look nice and useful. ;D --TX55 03:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

"First go here! Next go here."

I was thinking a bit about the various problems we've got around here -- stuff like incomplete image descriptions, orphaned articles, etc. There's really no one central place where a newcomer (or a regular who feels like doing something useful but doesn't know what) can go to find a quick list of things that need doing. The current help pages just send you to the list of articles in need of creation, which is kind of daunting, especially for a newcomer who has to learn a million standards and Wikia tags. Is there a more comprehensive way to point people in the direction of useful things they could be doing? Whatever it might be, it should include links to:

• Pages in need of creation
• Orphaned pages
• Stubs
• Pics needed
• Any current projects, like the Beast Wars one. Hell, I couldn't find that thing if my life depended on it....as well as a note about common problems: dead/missing storylinks, incomplete image descriptions, and whatever else. (Heck, who knows? Maybe it could even distract an IP person long enough to prevent them from screwing with captions.... ahh, who'm I kidding?} -- Repowers 21:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

There are some of those things catalogued here, but I think making links to the most important of these categories, and placing them together in one easy-to-find link off the main page, would be best. Perhaps on the Help contents page, since it's linked right off the main page already, in the most logical location? I think that link is a bit small, for what it's worth. --Sntint 22:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

One of the projects in the back of my head is a help-page/guide specifically breaking down the creation of character pages, plus the use of "common templates" for them (disambigs, stubs, notes). I'll see if I can scrounge up some time to rough-copy one. --M Sipher 22:56, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Other Maintenance Templates?

I haven't had much time to do more "substantial" wiki edits lately, but I've been prepping for later with the charstub sub-categories. Fiction really isn't my bag... I mean, I know it in general, but not issue titles and numbers and bla bla. But I figure it's also nice to have the "really needs a lot of stuff" pages separated from the "just needs some stuff in one subsection" ones, especially once I can make a concentrated effort to update the toy sections of various pages. I've been thinking about other similar "needs maintenance" template/categories, but I thought I'd bring it up here since I'm not sure who else might make use of them...
I've noticed quite a lot of pages missing storylinks. I'm not intending on going through a big wiki-wide hunt, but as I go through the stubs and other pages doing little maintenance and tweaks, well, I think I'd like to be able to mark pages I come across that are missing those links they should have. Picture and quote? Isaac Sumdac and/or Tutorbot, "I cannot believe I programmed you with such simplistic information!" (Idea courtesy of Trent Troop.)
I'd swear there was another one, but right now, too tired to think of it and must sleep. --M Sipher 06:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a tag for a page with too many damn redlinks for concepts that will never need articles?--Rosicrucian^Talk 07:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that will be neccessary, as it's a simple matter of removing the "and"s. Storylinks, though, require some research. --M Sipher 15:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I usually label such pages with {{stub|storylinks}}. JW 15:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Trick is, often they're not really stubs, are they? the main info is there, there's just not a "where'd this happen?" link. And maybe it's the data-manager in me that says this, but I think it'd be a lot easier to have a common problem like lack of storylinks as a category all its own, all together for easy identification and maintenance. --M Sipher 16:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation

We need a consensus on hiw we handle disambuigation in article titles. We've had some moving between Silverbolt (BW) and Silverbolt (Fuzor), and "Dirge (Timelines)" and Dirge (Whatever the Botcon 05 set was) because there are two Silverbolts in BW and two Dirges in Timelines. However, since one of those Dirges and one of those Silverbolts are G1 characters, the (BW) and (Timelines) tags are fine for the other two. The tags are simply for keeping the articles separate; not for telling you what continuity they're in. Plus, (Timelines) is much easier to type than "(Botcon boxset name I can't remember)". --FortMax 23:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Somewhat related to the discussion at Talk:Starscream (Shattered Glass). My personal criteria is that a name used for two (or more) characters in the same toyline requires more specific disambiguation, regardless of the characters' origin, because readers shouldn't be expected to remember whether some character was already in another toyline. —Interrobang 23:51, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

So... what should disambigs be?

• Distinguished only when strictly necessary. "Silverbolt (BW)" is fine because, while there were 2 Silverbolt toys in the BW Toyline, the other one is actually Silverbolt (G1)- so only one entry is trying 'sits' in the (BW) disambig, and no more specific disambing is needed. Parenthetical disambigs should be the broadest possible category the article can sit in without conflicting with another article, (usually a continuity family or franchise.) Absolutely no 'bumping' of disambigs as a concession to aesthetics.
• Distinguished on a logical basis. "Silverbolt (Fuzor)" because there are two Silverbolts in the BW toyline, and the article title should not allow for confusion between the two.
• Providing continuty info. A hypothetical new character Roller in the 2008 Universe line would be "Roller (Classic)" not "Roller (Universe)"-- so that the article title doesn't mislead people into thinking he's part of the 2004 Universe continuity.

My problem with #2 and #3 is that the diambig isn't supposed to convey that information. The first line of the article, right below the title does. It will say 'Silverbolt is a Fuzor in the Beast Wars continuity family...' or 'Roller is a Ultracon in the Classics portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.'

We are currently usign method #1. I oppose a change to methods 2 or 3 for the following reasons:

• The first line of the article already supplies the information that solutions 2 & 3 would seek to add- and does it better.
• Implementing 2 or 3 would make it harder for editors to know where article are sitting ("I know there was only one Silverbolt in BW, why is my link to Silverbolt (BW) broken?")
• The purpose of the parenthetical disambigs is not to convey info- it is to keep articles with the same title from sitting in the same namespace. Attempting to make disambigs convey information actually adds ambiguity, because it would force the the locations the articles sit in to become less standard.

Let diambigs be disambigs. If we want to make continuity notes clearer or more prominent, we can look at revising our approach to them. -Derik 00:41, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

We already have Help:Disambiguation to more or less lay this out. (I've just made a couple small changes to it for clarification.) There is going to be no simple rule of thumb which leads to tbe best results in every case, so make the parenthetical as brief and clear as you can. Derik is correct that the purpose of the parenthetical is to give the articles different names so the database doesn't get confused. To help out editors when we make links, it is good for them to be short and easy to remember. --Steve-o 21:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

So, should we move Silverbolt (Fuzor) and Dirge (Descent into Evil) and the mirrorverse guys back to Silverbolt (BW), "Dirge (Timelines)" and "Mirrorverse guys (Timelines)"? --FortMax 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Wait to see if others have strong feelings/argument first. (We have a policy, but it's subject to conseunsus, remember? Also- I think I wrote most of that page so my point of view is unfairly over-represented there.) On review, no, apparently this is one policy page I didn't write. ...why can't I tell Steve-o's writing apart from my own? Scary.  :~(

Personally I say emphatically yes on Dirge, indifferent affirmative on Silverbolt, and wait and see on the Shattered Glass pages. We don't now where/if they fit in existing continuity. There's no point in movinf them a half-dozen times while arguing about unknowables. -Derik 23:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Pages about fan sites

Is there a policy about this? I wanted to add TF Pulp, but I didn't see any other TF sites on here at all, so I figured I should ask first. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Might Gaine (talk • contribs) 2008-02-27T14:04:54.

We don't give unofficial sites their own articles. You can link to information on TF Pulp from appropriate pre-existing articles, though. That sort of thing enhances the wiki by allowing people to find further information on the topics they are reading about. Just put it into an "External links" section right before the categories. --Steve-o 21:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Cartoon episode title cards redundancy

Why are we moving towards using the title cards of episodes for the main/starting picture of episode articles? Isn't it redundant to have a boring screenshot with the name of the episode placed next to...... the name of the episode in the actual article itself? Wouldn't it be more interesting to do what we have been doing, and use a screen capture that somehow encapsulates the whole episode, or shows a pivitol point in it that sticks in our memory? --FFN 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've wondered the same thing myself, but figured it was a done deal. I too support the "memorable/encapsulating moment" approach. -- Repowers 03:04, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Uh... I'm sorry, I think I started it.  ;-) When I was doing some early RiD ep stubs I threw in the titlecards because the early episodes were boring as sin. I think McFeely did it for the JP eps because they tend to have those painterly titlecards...

Really, it's just something you do if there isn't a good representative image. -Derik 17:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Like Code of Hero (an article that needs a major overhaul itself), I originally put an image of Dinobot's sword lying on the deck of his quarters, because it looked poignant. Did the same for various other Beast Wars episodes. Then Interrobang replaced them all with screencap of the title screens. Gah. --FFN 07:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

So tell him to stop!  ;) -Derik 07:58, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. I did it because I like consistency, even with Japanese series. "Dinobot's sword on the ground" might be your favoritest image ever but it's the odd duck out now. (It also looks terrible due to the artifacting brought about by needlessly screwing with the brightness and contrast.) —Interrobang 08:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Consistency is Victory- but Transformers Victory was incredibly boring. (Victory Gundam was pretty good though...) The Weak Component, Survivor and End of the Line all have virtually identical title screens- an aerial shot of the Cybertropolis spaceport. That sucks— I'd much rather have an iconic image from each episode. -Derik 10:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Using iconic images is really good for the most episode guides, such as Code of Hero, The Weak Component, and several others, especially "Code of Hero" and "The Weak Component" are great and good examples. --TX55 13:38, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I started doing for the Japanese series for the reason Derik gives, because it was usually a unique image made for the title card, or a good one that's representative of the episode. There were some duds, but... consistency. And then... Masterforce started to do really, really boring ones, and I was about to give up, then it occurred to me to start using the image from the next-ep preview, which proved a winner in most cases (in fact, I may yet go back and change swap out some of the title-card images with these, if it's a better option). The mention of Victory here amuses me, though, 'cause it's a good example of title cards being boring - it's the same two images of Star Saber and Deathsaurus, rotated in and out, for the whole series. I've used them for the first two episodes just to get them on show, but I plan to use the title-images from the next-episode previews for this one. I mean, when I wake up from the dullness-inducing stupor that Victory induces. - McFeely, at work

I reverted Dinobot's sword back to the version I uploaded. As I had not viewed the page much since last year, I didn't realize that Repowers tried to brighten it up for some reason - that moment is supposed to focus on the sword, not the room. And it's the 'odd duck out' now because some people have been replacing whatever had served as the main image with the title card. --FFN 12:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I brightened it because, when it's reduced for the actual episode page where most people are going to see it, you can't tell what the heck you're looking at. Right now it looks a little bit of vague white stuff in darkness. -- Repowers 13:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Vaat? I can see if plenty fine there, unless you're using a very, very high resolution that makes everything tiny. --FFN 13:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Could be my home monitor, which is HUGE. It does look more discernable from a work computer, though IMO it could still stand to be a tad brighter. -- repowers, not signed in

I've changed my mind on this situation after mulling it over. A winner is FNN. —Interrobang 03:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

FNN sounds even more like a Simon Furman sound effect than FFN :D --FFN 04:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

You clearly changed your name after I replied. There's no another answer. —Interrobang 04:33, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Hnh. FNN never DID want to live forever. --FFN 04:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Help/policy page namespaces

As part of the help/policy page revamp I plan to do... eventually... I kind of want to consolidate the pages all into a single namespace. Right now we have a bunch of stuff in the Help namepsace, and a bunch of other stuff in the Transformers Wiki (aka "meta") namespace. This is needlessly confusing. I vastly prefer "Help" for the purposes of typing it all the time, but, the meta namespace is more general purpose and standard... and possibly required for some pages like the title blacklist. So I am inclined to shuffle all the Help namespace pages over to the meta namespace. Does anybody have an opinion on this? --Steve-o 17:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Help seems fine to me. -Derik 17:45, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

"The Battlestars" page disappeared

When the "Battlestar" (team) page got changed to "Battlestars", then "The Battlestars" page, which was the manga, disappeared. What happened? --Might Gaine 13:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that page actually existed in the first place. It was a red link before any moving was done - Chris McFeely 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. My bad. --Might Gaine 15:01, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Comic character box format Part IV

I believe we should change it from 'Major characters' to 'Featured characters' like we do in the cartoon recap articles. Doing it as 'Major characters' means writers of these comic articles will just not bother list the incidental characters, such as humans, even ones with dialogue, and if any of these characters have articles, they become orphaned articles. --FFN 06:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well I have gone thru nearly the entire U.S. Marvel series and I think I've included just about everyone who had a speaking line, except for folks who were un-named and such. If someone wants to change from "major" to "featured", it doesn't matter to me, but I'm not gonna go thru all 80 issues again and do it. --MistaTee 20:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I was concerned because I was looking for the article for that Professor Goring guy from Spotlight: Shockwave so I could update the article. To my surprise, Shockwave didn't link or even name him, and somebody had eliminated the 'human' column altogether because evidently we only dealt with 'major' characters. Essentially, Goring's article became orphaned. --FFN 20:32, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well that was dumb; he should indeed be re-added. --MistaTee 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh, yeah. That's not good. I support the change to "Featured" not just for this... but let's face it, this wiki is not simply about "Major" characters. The vast wealth of non-major character information is what makes this wiki great, and we should make sure that they are properly linked to so people can find them, even if they weren't looking. "Oh, hey, who's this?" --M Sipher 20:39, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

MistaTee, well sometimes even unnamed characters can be interesting enough to warrant their own articles if they are interesting in some way/stand out in some way. After all, we have an entire category devoted to unnamed characters. So I think they should have been mentioned in the article in some way. --FFN 04:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I agree, and if I've missed any, please feel free to add. I do think the 80 issues I've updated is a lot better than they were before though. --MistaTee 13:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course. Is there article template pages somewhere on this wiki or are we copy pasting every time we write a new article? --FFN 14:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just been going through the Stormbringer articles, and I was not at all happy with the with the way characters who didn't have significant dialogue (such as every Pretender besides Bludgeon) were for the most part not even mentioned in the articles. I assume the original writer of these articles just didn't know who they were, but frankly it's just sloppy considering the information available on this wiki even in 2006. --FFN 14:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe I reformatted them to the new format, but just copied the character list from what was there. When I get the chance to re-read, I will add in the others, if someone doesn't beat me to it. Oh, and I am copying and pasting from the previous article, but trying to be consistent. --MistaTee 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

So... what becomes of the former "minor characters" list? Do we even care about those dudes? Take Totaled! for example -- almost every Earth Autobot to date appears in the story (and most of the Decepticons), but the page currently lists only the speaking ones. Gods help the poor soul who decides to take that task on, but when some nobody like Air Raid makes a rare appearance in the comics, it seems worth noting. -- Repowers 15:25, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO, I think those characters should perhaps be in a cameos section, a subset of "Items of note". But I sure as hellz am not going thru the whole Marvel series again to do that. Someone else can have a go at it. --MistaTee 15:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Navigation boxes for shared US/UK stories

I wish I'd noticed MistaTee's changes to the Marvel US navigation boxes sooner, but that's water under the bridge now. When I set the boxes up, I deliberately left out certain links at points where the continuities split and come back together. The point was that there would be no duplicate links in the box. One hopes that the reader following the UK chain will be smart enough to figure out that the only "Next" link shown will lead to the next step in the chain. This goes double for US stories that have the same Next and Previous links for the UK. Why do the same links need to be duplicated?Compare:

• Old version of Cold War. There's no "next" for the UK spot, 'cause it would just be the same as the US "next" link.
• current version of Cold War! - two "next" links are identical.Also compare:
• Old version of Dark Star! - no extraneous info.
• Current version of Dark Star! - two redundant links.To sum up my take on current version: Minus:
• Redundant links add to confusion
• Double nav box is ugly and should be avoided when possiblePlus:
• Lists UK publication number right up front
• Consistent format for all US issues.But I've never been one to favor consistency at the expense of practicality. -- Repowers 17:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Now see, I didn't like not having a next for the UK, even if it's the same as the US one. What I think we really need is a revision of the nav box, and maybe have some more options. First, I think there should be a separator line between the US and UK nav. Secondly, maybe some logic could be programmed in so that IF "next2"="next" THEN it would say "same as U.S. version" or something along those lines. Same for the "prev"/"prev2" naturally. Thoughts? --MistaTee 18:10, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like an excellent trade-off -- it gets rid of the bothersome parts while keeping the good bits. Uhhh.... anybody have any idea how to do it? The coding of these things is an utter mystery to me. -- Repowers 18:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

How to spell Malay.

Hello everyone, I've noticed that on the 'English/Malay' dubs, people have spelt word 'Malay' wrong. It doesn't have a 'y', because 'Maylay' is incorrect, so if you see any mistakes, please correct it, thank you! Also, can we not put the word crack head next to it? It's quite offensive.--akindofdrifter

It's meant in jest because the Omni Productions dubis really, really bad, as if the dubbers didn't know what the hell was going on half of the time. But we have been changing such instances to 'RTM 1 dub name:' lately. --FFN 15:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

"crack head" is describing the dubs, and with good reason. Battleship Maximus is called "Spaceship Bruce", Blaster is called "Billy", Twincast "Blaster", Metroplex "Phillip", Spike "Sparkle", Soundblaster "New Soundwave", Minevera "Nightbeat", The Matrix and Energon cubes "Power Packs, etc... --FortMax 15:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

We should probably get the drone onto the task of replacing "Maylay" with "Malay", however. JW 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about the crack head comment, it's better to avoid offending people; 'though, Spaceship Bruce is my favourite, next to Wally. Also, you got your drone right here (yay?), but do we replace it with 'English/Malay dub', or 'RTM dub'? --akindofdrifter

I fully agree with the removal of "crackhead." Frankly, it IS offensive to equate the oddities that arise from the translation of Japanese into English done by people who's first language was likely neither with being on crack. --KilMichaelMcC 19:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Can we leave it in for just Spaceship Bruce? The others are at least somewhat understandable, but Spaceship Bruce? WTCHOP? --FortMax 19:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't wanna label another country saying it's populated by drug addicts. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have Headmasters/Masterforce/Victory in English in the early 90's(?), and for a non-Japanese speaking country, they made a good effort. I guess you can emphasise the weirdness that is Spaceship Bruce, in his bio or the RTM page. So, 'RTM dub' or 'Englsh/Malay' dub? Technically, there was no Malay in the English dubs in the first place, so I'd go for RTM dub :) --akindofdrifter

It takes a real willfully oppressed state of mind to interpret that as a racial/nationalist insult. I mean, you have to really want to be offended by something, and be on the lookout for any little thing to jump on. 'Cause "crack-head" is pretty clearly referring to the dubs, not the entire freaking country, and I'm not sure why anyone would decide to think otherwise. -- Repowers 11:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

You know, crackhead is generally a term that refers to people, not things. As I said above, we shouldn't be seen to be equating the people who produced these dubs with crackheads because of what we perceive as humorous oddities in the translation, which are possibly just the perfectly natural result of cultural and linguistic confusion. Now it might not be an insult to the entire nation of Malaysia, but it is still, I think, a bit offensive. --KilMichaelMcC 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, regardless.... shouldn't it actually be the "Crackhead RTM-1 dub"? -- Repowers 16:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

'Cracked-up English/Malay' dub, 'though it's not my idea, and it's not so blunt. Or the shorter 'RTM dub', since there is an Omni Productions dub page where people can redirect themselves there and elucidate the weirdness of weird names; but do we have to spell Malay with two 'y's? Maybe we can make reference to that on the RTM page again. --akindofdrifter

I think 'Cracked-up English/Malay' could be used for the article such as Ginrai and Minerva('cause their RTM dub name "Optimus Prime" and "Nightbeat" were too... hilarious?), while just "RTM dub" for Fortress Maximus' Spaceship Bruce. Well, just a little opinion. :) --TX55 12:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree! :D --akindofdrifter

Trivia section image formatting

This issue came up a while ago on Frenzy's talk page. There were opnions both ways, and it wasn't really resolved. The issue is, should images in trivia sections alternate left-right, or be all on one side?Part of the trouble with alternating sides is that it kills the bullet points. A double bullet has to be inserted for it to show up, and then there's some ambiguity over which bullets should be doubled and which left single. Dpouble bullets can also cause images to overlap the text.Several folks said there's a lot of ugly white space when the images are stacked on one side. I see it just the opposite on my (admittedly gigantic) screen, with every image having a big empty white space below it when they alternate sides. Apparently it's got something to do with monitor resolution, so there might not be a solid answer. But -- I'd love so see some screencaps from folks showing how they see things on their monitors. It's a little hard to understand this problem without seeing it from other people's POV.I started a little Sandbox at User talk:Repowers/Sandbox2 with two different versions of Frenzy's trivia. The first one stacks all the images at the top. Does this work for people on lower monitor resolutions, or does it still look like crap? With them all stacked at the front, I don't see how they could have any white space, regardless of monitor resolution. On my screen, it looks very neat and tidy, while the second one is messy. See:Stacked
Alternating Thoughts and input welcomed. -- Repowers 01:36, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Alternating does kind of suck now. I've been putting pics all on the right side where there are bullet points since Wikia updated their software... an update which covered single bullet points if you put an image on the left side of the screen. I suggest cutting down on images in Trivia, since most users here have smaller monitors and use lower resolutions. --FFN 05:44, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the easiest answer is to just remove the head images. They're essentially redundant and don't really add anything to the reader's understanding. I'd call for a general limit on how many images you can stuff into a section. —Interrobang 06:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd remove the head images from the article proper... but then make a text link to them within the relevant paragraph so people can see them anyway if they want to. --M Sipher 06:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That works. —Interrobang 07:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)