MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

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MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive

Categories by toy size class?

Do we want the following categories?
Leader class toy images
Deluxe class toy images
Voyager class toy images
Scout class toy images
They currently have a very few things in them (and could obviously have many more), but the cat' pages themselves have not been created. JW 15:43, 12 February 2011 (EST)

No. --M Sipher 16:13, 12 February 2011 (EST)

No. --ItsWalky 21:06, 15 February 2011 (EST)

As long as it's only the images and not the articles, I couldn't care less. —Interrobang 21:09, 15 February 2011 (EST)

There's also a "Legends class toy images" category which has 90 images in it. --abates 21:21, 15 February 2011 (EST)

Legends are kind of an exception because they're a different scale/play pattern, as evidenced by the upcoming Cyberverse stuff. Scouts-on-up are generally meant to intermingle, Legends aren't. --M Sipher 07:41, 16 February 2011 (EST)

I could go either way on this one. It's a lot of work to fill these categories out, but the ability to find all the Deluxe figures easily intrigues me. If we did institute this I would also think that this would be the proper place to put the "exclusive figure" categories and such. Basically, any category that pertains to a particular toy and not to the character could be tagged to the image of that toy. --Khajidha 23:08, 15 February 2011 (EST)

I've been doing them because I saw other people do them. I don't mind either way. --FFN 05:51, 16 February 2011 (EST)

So, counting me as "no", that's three "no"s, an "I don't care", an "I don't mind either way", and an "either way/intrigues me". I think we're leaning toward "no". Final comments? JW 07:08, 16 February 2011 (EST)

I guess it's "no" or at least "not the time"? (Though I'm "I'm not sure".) --TX55^TALK 11:21, 16 February 2011 (EST)

I've gone with "no", and added a note to that effect to Transformers_Wiki:Images. JW 14:27, 16 February 2011 (EST)

Ha ha, none of the no's have actually said why they've said no. Such super debating skills that. 213.105.226.130 17:44, 22 February 2011 (EST)

Undo Redone?

I just undid an edit, but instead of getting the automatic "Reverting edit ##### by User1 to last version by User2" summary, that box was blank. In addition, above the edit window were the captions "Current revision" and "Your text", side by side, as if there's meant to be one editable text window under each. Instead, there was only one such text window beneath them, stretching across under both captions. The page is protected so only registered users can edit it, so that MIGHT have something to do with the problem, though I doubt it.--Apcog 20:28, 19 February 2011 (EST)

It doesn't automatically create an edit summary if you're doing an undo on multiple revisions, so that might be it. Not sure about the other part - it's always shown me a diff at the top of the screen when I've done an undo. --abates 20:54, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Okay, blank edit summary's explained, because it was indeed a group of 3-4 edits being undone all at once. Still inexplicable is the fact that I just checked the page history; it didn't even accept my Undo! LoneGamer78 ended up doing it instead. I've noticed some sluggish response from the site over the past fifteen minutes or so, perhaps whatever caused that was a factor? It may never be known...--Apcog 21:02, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Is it possible she just beat you to it by a few moments and thus there was an edit conflict? I've had that happen sometimes, and so there's no diff shown because now the page already matches what you were going to change it to. (Uh, does that make sense?) --67.252.49.31 22:17, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Can't rule it out entirely, but edit conflicts usually announce themselves as such, and they DO have two distinct editable text windows: one showing the text as it stands after someone edited while you were typing, the other as it would have been if you'd edited without interference.--Apcog 22:24, 19 February 2011 (EST)

A few times I've "undone" an edit, but someone else beat me to it. It doesn't seem to show an edit conflict if that happens, probably because the change is identical to the previous one. --abates 23:06, 19 February 2011 (EST)

Banner ad question.

The small side box ad (the one that's still a free-floater) currently has an ad for some webcomic. Which is fine, but one of the panels has GIANT ERECT LADY NIPPLES ALL OVER THE PLACE. I'm not offended by it, but it's, uh, something. -hx 06:39, 21 February 2011 (EST)

Ah, yeah. That'd be because it's an NSFW comic called DarkBrain which is read aloud by "adult film star Tabitha Stevens." -- Semysane 16:50, 22 February 2011 (EST)

If people don't like it, I can yank it. I didn't think its THO was that objectionable, apparently, when I okayed it. --ItsWalky 17:27, 22 February 2011 (EST)

help

I cant find the latest talk please help(Manmcmanman 15:44, 21 February 2011 (EST))

What do you mean by the latest talk? -- SFH 15:54, 21 February 2011 (EST)

Revenge of the Fallen Online Games

So, I figured I might as well finish up the online game write-ups for Revenge of the Fallen online games, in case they go offline once Dark of the Moon comes out. But, hot damn, do I ever suck. Which means I'm not very likely to get pics of later levels in some of these games. I'll be trying to add in whatever I can to these sections, but some help would be much appreciated! --Ascendron 14:57, 22 February 2011 (EST)

I can have a go at getting some screencaps tonight if no one else does. Which games in particular? I noticed some of them are already gone a couple of weeks ago, as Hasbro has redirected most of the monkeybar site they were on to the Hub site, which doesn't have them. --abates 17:58, 22 February 2011 (EST)

Well, personally I'm having difficulty getting pics of every character's sprite from Battle for the Matrix. I'm currently working on The RPMs Devastator game. --Ascendron 18:41, 22 February 2011 (EST)

I got caps of everyone except the Fallen, haven't uploaded them yet though. I couldn't get the flying drones to transform either. They just seem to fly around wildly in robot mode. --abates 04:56, 23 February 2011 (EST)

Dang! The Fallen is the only one I can't get to either! And yeah, the flying drones are near-impossible to get a screencap of. I got a couple mid-transformation, but that's it. If any of your pics are better than mine, feel free to replace them. --Ascendron 13:55, 23 February 2011 (EST)

I went and got pics from Flight of the Bumblebee and Allspark Highway. Unfortunately I can't get pics of Ratchet from the later since robovision isn't up anymore! Darn! I'll upload them later. --Ascendron 14:45, 23 February 2011 (EST)

I grabbed a screenshot of The Fallen finally. Man, that game is a memory hog. --abates 03:38, 25 February 2011 (EST)

Countdown?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to put this, but a while back ago, there was a countdown to ROTF on the Main Page. Perhaps a countdown to DOTM would now be appropriate as it's so close?

Also, I'd appreciate it if someone could tell me how to program/insert/design/<insert verb here> a countdown on a wiki page (it's for another wiki). What template or whatever does that use? I'd be very grateful if someone could tell me.

Again, terribly sorry if this is the wrong place to say this...
- ¡Usa El Queso! 4:02 PM, 22 February 2011 A.D.

Dark of the Moon countdown based on Derik's ROTF code: -5446 days until TF: Dark of the Moon! --abates 19:05, 22 February 2011 (EST)

When to omit "Transformers" from an article title

So I got a hankering to remove the "Transformers" from Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Prime (franchise) and all of their related pages, since unlike Transformers Animated, there's just no good reason to break policy for them. There are other video games that we drop the "TF" from, and if "Prime" is too common a term, then what about "Energon" or "Cybertron"?

But then I decided to check out which pages use "Transformers" in their titles, and holyyyyyyyy crap. I copy-pasted here all the ones I found that I thought could lose the "Transformers" without negating their meaning, destroying a phrase, or otherwise severely damaging the title. (I added an "(etc.)" to each one that represents a series of identically-worded pages):

For many of them, the choice to keep or drop the "TF" seems intuitive, and many others are in a grey area... but I'll be damned if I can put into words any kind of coherent rationale. I'm seriously thinking that we've outgrown the "drop extraneous 'TF's" rule. Back when we only had a few hundred pages, it made a certain kind of sense: Why bother writing out stuff like "Transformers: Generation 2" when just "Generation 2" is equally meaningful to everyone here? Besides, isn't every page about Transformers by default? But in the past five years, both the wiki and the subject matter have exploded, and with both so many fine-grain, obscure topics being covered and so much not-strictly-TF content we've added, I don't think the policy serves us anymore. It doesn't make things simple; it makes things arbitrary and unpredictable.

So unless someone can sum up our policy in a way that makes a lick of sense, I propose: If a topic has an official title, then that should be used in full as the title of the relevant articles. Period. So Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Prime (franchise) would stay right where they are, and yes, Generation 2 (franchise) would become "Transformers: Generation 2 (franchise)", Revenge of the Fallen (franchise) would become "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (franchise)", etc. I don't think we'd need to make that change happen instantly, but we could slowly propagate it as people feel inclined to. I also think we can keep the parenthetical abbreviations and in-sentence references as short as they currently are; this is only about the titles.

Thoughts?

- Jackpot 18:43, 22 February 2011 (EST)

What are these "Transformers"? -75.185.113.106 18:58, 22 February 2011 (EST)

I've always been for having the full name as article titles. (Maybe also drop the "(franchise)" disambigs, because durr, but that's other topic.) Not only do we keep the full name of the subject, it aids us in disambiguation (it's easier to have smaller sets of "Transformers: Cybertron" and "Cybertron" than a large set of just "Cybertron"). —Interrobang 19:22, 22 February 2011 (EST)

I don't have an opinion on adding or removing "Transformers:" from articles (other than that adding it would perhaps make articles and reading unnecessarily longer - right now, I hate having to type out "Transformers Animated" before "The AllSpark Almanac"), but I do oppose removing (franchise). If there's one thing I hate, it's when there's one 'most important' page that goes undisamb'ed (like Spark) and you'll have to go through a lot of trouble to ensure it all is meant to link there. When I cleaned up the Lithone links for planet and species, nearly every single one link directed the wrong way. Same for D-HQ, AllSpark vs Allspark, Junkion, Black Friday, etc. So, keep (franchise). Geewunling 01:49, 23 February 2011 (EST)

I too think "Transformers: " should be kept as well as " (franchise)". --TX55^TALK 21:46, 23 February 2011 (EST)

I don't mind losing Transformers when it the prefix in a title that's the form of Transformers: <subtitle>, as in that case the subtitle itself is more the actual official name and "Transformers" is just tacked on as an extra identifier.

But in some of those things, Transformers is, well, a vital part of the thing's actual name. I mean, for instance, the Club's full official name is "Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club", so removing "Transformers" from it would be incorrect. --67.252.49.31 03:00, 23 February 2011 (EST)

I don't think that distinction is clear enough to be workable anymore. Looking at that list, tons of them I have no idea which side of the divide they'd fall on. For instance, "Transformers Legends" is the proper title of the book; that's how it would be listed in any store or library, but for our purposes the "TF" is as extraneous as the one that we omit from Energon (comic) or Dinobots Strike Back. The "for our purposes" thing is so often so questionable... like, what would that dictate for Transformers: The Ultimate Guide? It's definitely a subtitle situation like you described, but there are lots of non-TF "Ultimate Guide"s published by the same company... but we would never cover them, so for our purposes is the "TF" still redundant?

I agree with Geewunling that it would be annoying to have to type out longer titles (though readability should be unchanged, since I think we could still truncate in-sentence references). But right NOW it's annoying that our lack of a coherent policy is making everything increasingly unpredictable. We're seeing a lot of creep in the form of stuff like Transformers: Prime (franchise) and for some reason video games. So I don't even know what should be "corrected" anymore or how to decide the matter when creating a new article.

- Jackpot 13:58, 23 February 2011 (EST)

The annoyance of editors doesn't really enter into my consideration; the wiki is ultimately for the readers, not our convenience. If we have to do some more work for the best presentation, so be it. —Interrobang, not logged in

I'm OK with moving articles to put Transformers into the title so long as we don't delete the redirects. If we move "Revenge of the Fallen (film)" to "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film)", there are going to be a whole bunch of sites linking to the old URL, and I don't wanna have a repeat of the "(Shattered Glass)" thing where all the redirects get deleted and a whole lot of other sites are pointing to useless error pages. --abates 22:25, 23 February 2011 (EST)

"(WFC)" vs. "(Prime)"

There are currently two discussions going about whether articles on subjects that originated in War for Cybertron-branded fiction (the games, novel, and comic) should be titled "(WFC)" rather than "(Prime)". It was suggested that this should be brought up in the Community Portal, so here it is.

For the record, looking at this list, right now we're using "(Prime)" for all named characters, even those currently exclusive to WfC, and "(WFC)" for all character types from the games. I'm not sure why that is, but that's the state of things.

- Jackpot 17:46, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I completely agree with Jackpot. It is stupid we have an article called Ultra Magnus (Prime) stating "Ultra Magnus is an Autobot Wrecker from the WFC portion of the Aligned family continuity". I blame myself for not doing this a lot earlier, treating the WFC navbox as like a subsection of Prime when the novel was so clearly a tie-in to those games. Alientraveller 18:48, 28 February 2011 (EST)

WFC is a tie-in game. As I pointed out, how many Mini-Cons from the PS2 Transformers game use the disambiguator "(Transformers)"? And even then, what of novel-original characters? Do they get "(Exodus)"? And heck, didn't Exodus come out before WFC? Shouldn't the characters thusly use "(Exodus)" over "(WFC)" or "(Prime)"? --Detour 18:57, 28 February 2011 (EST)

The book and game came out on the same day, as I recall. So... yeah. I'm completely against this. We used "Prime" because that was the name we WERE using for the continuity family; frankly, I find this wishy-washy "aligned continuity family" thing pretty lame. The core of the damn family is the Prime cartoon. It is THE central feature, and will be THE major fictional outlet and -almost assuredly- what future non-show fictions will adhere more closely to. I don't see the point in all this subdividing and adding more parantheticals. --M Sipher 19:19, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I find it extremely hard to believe that if Hasbro's "decade" plan goes through, Prime is the last franchise we're going to see spring from it. Even Aaron Archer thinks "Prime" is a bad name for the overall deal. Given what a fractured start it's already off to, I think separating out the "family" foundation is the only sensible thing to do. So that's why Aligned continuity family exists.

As for the "(WFC)" notion, I'm not as personally attached to that, even though I do think it's the correct thing to do. Mostly I think that WfC needs to be acknowledged as an entity unto itself, not just a subset of Prime. Strictly from a branding point of view, it ISN'T a subset; nothing has been both WfC- and Prime-branded. It's not just the title of a video game; it's in the titles of a comic and a novel, plus they've made toys from it that definitely don't fit the Prime brand. (True, the toys aren't labeled "WfC", but that's par for the course with Generations anyway. At the very least, it's a grey area.) Beyond branding, it just has a unique aesthetic and sensibility that's very different from Prime.

Based on all that, the best place WfC fits in our schema is as a "franchise", to my judgement. "Prime tie-in" doesn't cut it.

- Jackpot 19:55, 28 February 2011 (EST)

WFC is not just a tie-in game. It has online bios and online timeline. Hasbro made it its own thing. Franchise-like. Before any Prime show started we learned from the timeline that D-16 was an Energon mine laborer and rose to prominence in secret gladiatorial combat and took the name "Megatron". So Megatron (Prime) had a whole history before the show even existed. The non-show characters with the (Prime) disambiguation also shows it doesn't quite fit. I'd go for WFC. - Starfield 19:35, 28 February 2011 (EST)

AGAIN, Exodus came out the SAME DAY. So why does WFC get prominence? --M Sipher 19:56, 28 February 2011 (EST)

Because that's the phrase that's used in the names of all the media. - Jackpot 20:02, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I don't see how the subline "The official history of the war for Cybertron" is the exact same as "War For Cybertron: The Vidya Game". --Detour 20:24, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I agree. Aside from three (ambiguous) words on the book's front, there's not much that says it's part of the WFC "franchise". Same for Generations. If they wanted to, they could have made figures of every War for Cybertron character and released it in a toyline explicitly called "Transformers: War for Cybertron". But they didn't; they just released five toys based on WFC designs and released them under Generations, so Generations is a WFC toy line as much as it is a G1 one (actually, probably more of G1 considering how very few WFC toys there were). The video games are only different because of hardware limitations, so having multiple games with the same title does not a franchise make. Having a website with bios and everything is a moot point, because almost every video game has that. The comic, I'll give you that one, but I don't think it's a franchise if it's a game and a tie-in comic with a limited release. --NCZ 20:30, 28 February 2011 (EST)

For what it's worth, when you click on "War For Cybertron" it brings up all the Generations toys. I also think the WFC timeline ties in Exodus to WFC since the events in the comic and timeline are basically from the book. - Starfield 20:48, 28 February 2011 (EST)

It also brings up PCC Icepick (item 12 of 12, on page 2). --Khajidha 20:52, 28 February 2011 (EST)

The WfC-branded timeline and comic both cover events in Exodus. Hell, the comic was written by the same dude. I don't understand the logic that says that the "War for Cybertron" in the novel's title doesn't mean the same thing. If there were a novel called "Deuteronomy: The Official History of the Beast Wars" set during the events of the cartoon, I wouldn't be trying to say it was part of the Beast Machines franchise.

Let me put in a slightly different light: Because franchises are branding-based, not continuity-based, I'm not comfortable with the Prime franchise being stretched to include all this stuff that doesn't have the Prime label on it. Yes, it's clearly all RELATED, story-wise, but that's what continuity pages are for. This feels like taking Machine Wars (which is the opposite kind of sparse: a toyline with virtually no fiction) and rolling it into G2. Sure, they're in the same family, and there are connections between the two, but they're not marketed with the same label, so we don't do it. Before Prime existed, there were these other forms of media sharing a unique title (that even got the TF-logo lockup treatment!) and covering common ground. Then Prime showed up, and so far the two labels have not been seen on the same product. To me, that means two franchises.

- Jackpot 21:20, 28 February 2011 (EST)

But... there is no overarching label on the products we have poked into the WFC "Franchise". "Transformers: War for Cybertron" has its own logo which is also on the tie-in comic, and Exodus has its own logo. They're still prequels to TF:Prime. --abates 21:33, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I guess I just see the "War for Cybertron" in the title of Exodus as having more meaning than you do. Yeah, Hasbro could've been more blatant if they'd wanted to, but it's still clearly telling the reader it's part of the same deal as the WfC games and comic, without making any reference to Prime (or vice-versa). I can imagine a situation where the Prime branding might retroactively subsume WfC, like how the "Wreckers" comic was given the Universe brand (they say there's another game coming out, after all). But that hasn't happened yet, so in the meantime I say WfC doesn't belong under the Prime franchise.

Anyway, at this point if we don't see eye-to-eye, we probably won't, so I'm going to shut up now.

- Jackpot 22:39, 28 February 2011 (EST)

What about the next thing after Prime that is in the Modern/Aligned continuity? We would have a new disambiguation, like, "Spike (Next Franchise)." and characters that have never been in Prime, like "Ultra Magnus (Prime)." Kind of confusing. - Starfield 21:57, 28 February 2011 (EST)

No it isn't. The idea that WFC/Exodus are part of a big wad of continuity colloquially known as "Prime", and referred to as "Prime" because the "Prime" cartoon is THE core of the whole shebang, and will liekly BE said core for the near future, is not a hard one. It only gets confusing when you start letting obfuscating pedantry in, at which point you're only making more work for no payoff and making things harder for our readers. A trend which seems to keep coming up over and over again, I've noticed... --M Sipher 22:09, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I'm pretty sure I've had my share of "obfuscating pedantry" moments, but I completely agree with Siph on this one. --Khajidha 22:18, 28 February 2011 (EST)

For the record, if people really think that using "(WFC)" would be confounding to readers, that's not a decision I'm very invested in. This discussion has ballooned into bigger issues that I do feel more strongly about, but the parenthetical itself is very take-it-or-leave-it for me. - Jackpot 22:39, 28 February 2011 (EST)

I would at the least support migrating characters who have thus far only appeared in WFC to the appropriate parenthetical.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:55, 1 March 2011 (EST)

And move them back if they appear in Prime? Alientraveller 11:03, 1 March 2011 (EST)

Yes. I think that would make the most sense to people looking for the characters.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 11:24, 4 March 2011 (EST)

I am willing to make this compromise for the time being. Alientraveller 14:27, 4 March 2011 (EST)

War For Cybertron

War for cybertron is a relativley new game, but it is a great one. I am kind of new on this website, but to me, it looks like the War For Cybertron title has gotten mixed up with Transformers: Prime, a completley diffrent universe. also, WFC is G1 Canon. All the WFC pages and articles should be labled on G1, MAJOR cleanup is needed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Holymoses (talk • contribs) 06:30, March 3, 2011 (EST).

You clearly are quite new, because we would advise you to read this article before you start in on this notion. - Chris McFeely 06:33, 3 March 2011 (EST)

In Hasbro's own words: "The TRANSFORMERS brand team would like to confirm that Transformers War for Cybertron video game, Transformers Exodus novel, and the Transformers Prime television show are in the same aligned continuity. Hasbro is creating a single continuity to tell the bulk of our TRANSFORMERS stories going forward." Here's the link to the announcement --Khajidha 06:45, 3 March 2011 (EST)

You aren't completely wrong. The game developers were heavily inspired by G1, and were pretty much making a G1 game as far as they knew. It's just that, like Khajidha said, Hasbro says War for Cybertron is part of the same continuity as Prime, so that's what the wiki goes with. - Starfield 00:00, 4 March 2011 (EST)

Well that still seems weird, since "Prime" has a completley diffrent story, and "Exodus" doesnt connect the two sagas very well. even if its what Hasbro said, i think we should put all this into consideration, Aaron Archer himself said that War for Cybertron was a game set in the G1 Universe. I think its wrong of Hasbro to try and connect the two diffrent Continuities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Holymoses (talk • contribs) 09:12, March 4, 2011 (EST).

First of all, when did Aaron Archer say that? Second, Hasbro gets to define what is in each continuity for the simple reason that it is their intellectual property. It may not be to your liking, but it cannot be wrong as they are the ones who determine what is right. --Khajidha 09:35, 4 March 2011 (EST)

Yeah, gonna need a source on that Archer statement. Especially since he's been amongst the ones saying WFC/Exodus is part of the new continuity. Also, weren't a lot of elements in WFC, like Dark Energon, Hasbro mandates from a story bible they supplied the creators (hereby proving that Hasbro's intent was always for it to be part of the new continuity), or am I imagining things again? --Detour 10:08, 4 March 2011 (EST)

From what I read about that production bible, it is a result of guys at Hasbro sitting down and "coalescing all the mythologies that they had institutionally for years. Actually putting it down to paper." It sounds like they were just collecting and not adding new stuff in. I wouldn't be surprised if Dark Energon were added after it was in the game. And what about timing? Orci said Hasbro put together the bible after the movies came out (in mid 2009). The video game came out in mid 2010 with a video game lead time of ??? - Starfield 11:27, 4 March 2011 (EST)

Unless Dark Energon is actually just the new name for Angolmois energy. The name may have been taken from the video game, but the concept could well have been in the production bible before WFC. --Khajidha 11:37, 4 March 2011 (EST)

What a load of supposition and crap. I hereby dub it "crapposition". I can pretty much say that you are completely wrong. --M Sipher 12:38, 4 March 2011 (EST)

Matt Tieger said that High Moon started working on WfC when they shipped their "Bourne" game, which according to the accompanying notes was mid-2008, between the first movie and RotF. This interview talks up the G1 inspiration and then says the WfC storyline is "a completely original story that we made up at High Moon. We worked closely with Hasbro..." The consistent impression I've gotten from several different interviews is that High Moon started from G1 and then made pitches to Hasbro, which Hasbro would provide feedback on, and eventually there was a game. The only people who I've seen actually talk about the 400-page story-bible are the Prime creators. And if Orci was being literal when he said the bible was put together "after the movie’s came out", then game development would've indeed started earlier. At the very least, it sounds pretty likely that there was some simultaneous creation.

In the end, the chicken-and-egg question is basically moot because either way, WfC is part of the new deal. It doesn't matter who said the words "Dark Energon" first; it's part of the structure that binds all of the pieces, so that's that. But for nitpicking's sake, Starfield's suppositions aren't off-base from the evidence we have. Siph, if you have additional info that clarifies or contradicts any of that, please share.

- Jackpot 19:44, 4 March 2011 (EST)

I, similarly, have found it quite plausible when thinking on the subject to believe that High Moon could have created the idea of Dark Energon, and that Hasbro then said to themselves "We can use THAT!" and put it in the bible. It's certainly outside the realm of possibility, unless you know something we don't, Siph. - Chris McFeely 05:24, 5 March 2011 (EST)

Because nothing whatsoever can change in the millions of years between the WFC era and the Prime cartoon era. And yeah, good luck sourcing that Aaron claim. --M Sipher 11:24, 4 March 2011 (EST)

I think that if they were in the game or in Exodus:The Offical History of the War for Cybertron, they should be labled (WFC),but if they poped into the Prime teley-show or comics, they should be labled (Prime).-[ [User:DinoDigger97|DinoDigger97]] 2:11 3 Apil 2011

Captured-Prey ads

One of the things advertised there appears to be a fan-made Megatron min-figure. Seeing as how everybody was upset that the TFSource ad featured fansproject stuff, surely, this isn't right either? Item42 05:33, 8 March 2011 (EST)

Check the section back up this page titled Project Wonderful ads. --abates 05:59, 8 March 2011 (EST)

Revenge of the Fallen video game character articles - [X] Scout 1, [X] Scout 2 pages for the same design

With the upcoming DOTM games, I thought I should look at the ROTF game articles that were abandoned in 2009 and see if I could do anything for them. I believe it was Derik who made this decision, but I am now wondering if it is necessary to have say Aerialbot Scout 1 and Aerialbot Scout 2, Omnibot Scout 1 and Omnibot Scout 2 (and so on) considering "Scout 1" and "Scout 2" are just the two different colour schemes for these mass produced generic, nameless characters who only differ in terms of textures. Any completed articles on these will have different images, but exactly the same information. Isn't that redundant? Should we perhaps just stick both of each under Aeriabot Scout, Omnibot Scout, Stunticon Scout? --FFN 07:14, 11 March 2011 (EST)

According to the articles the two Aerialbot Scouts have different health, primary weapon and secondary weapon ratings. Is that enough for separation? I don't know, but it should be considered before making a decision. --Khajidha 09:55, 11 March 2011 (EST)

I don't even know where those stats came from - I don't believe the person who filled them in originally ever explained. Were they from a website, article or guide book? --FFN 11:42, 11 March 2011 (EST)

Found some much needed images, but...

I found them on this site, and I don't speak the language (I think it's Spanish) to ask for their permission to use them. The images are covers of the Marvel Books titles Battle at Oil Valley, Summertime Coloring Book, and Super Activity Book. That's right we don't even have an article for that last one. They also have page scans of these and other Marvel Books titles. I don't feel right just taking them for our use here and was wondering if someone who spoke the lingo would contact them for us. --Khajidha 09:21, 12 March 2011 (EST)

Nevermind, Google Chrome finally remembered that it had translational abilities. The poster is offering them for download to all and sundry, so he/she can hardly care if we borrow them. I'll probably still insert a link to the main site out of courtesy. --Khajidha 11:22, 12 March 2011 (EST)

After looking at them, I realized that they were Steve Stonebreaker's scans. I have contacted him and received permission to use them here. I'll be adding more soon. --Khajidha 09:55, 16 March 2011 (EDT)

Hey, I've got a new user talk page template request...

Can we have one that reminds folks that every new thing in Transformers that even vaguely reminds you of an old thing in Transformers IS NOT A REFERENCE AND THAT IS NOT HOW REFERENCES WORK AND STOP PUTTING THEM IN THE "TRANSFORMERS REFERENCES" SECTION. Ahem. --ItsWalky 23:18, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

You mean like this? --NCZ 23:22, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

Hooray! --ItsWalky 23:30, 13 March 2011 (EDT)

Brilliant. - Jackpot 02:39, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

That's an oldie, but a goodie. Personally, I'm wondering if there's any template that can be set up for the people that just drown episode articles in quotes... --Detour 02:42, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

I think we'd first need a consensus on how many quotes are appropriate. JW 07:41, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

It's a conversation that needs to be had, I think. You have to take length of the story into account - there are more quotes in a two hour movie than in a twenty five minute episode. I'd put the early cutoff at around five for episodes, though. -hx 08:00, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

I like the idera of a mximum of 5 per 30 minutes (or part thereof) for Episodes & movies, but what would be a good size for comics? I'd say around 3 per issue, but it breaks down with short issues and back up stories (i.e.e most of the Marvel UK exclusive stuff...) G1MarvelBlaster 10:19, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

I'd set a "soft" limit higher for 30-minute episodes — around 10 quotes — and I'd allow more than that if the episode was particularly well-written or quotable. I don't think there's any need for a low, hard limit, as I don't think lots of quotes hurt the wiki until we get into "quoting the whole darn episode" territory. Heck, in fact, I might favor a policy of judging each quote for itself. I.e., if a quote is good/noteworthy/illustrative/funny/wadeva, it can be kept, even if there are two dozen other quotes already. Each must stand on its merits, but there would be no hard cap. JW 11:31, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, some episodes happen to have a lot of funny/significant/memorable lines, others don't. If we set a hard cap, we might be damning ourselves to a lot of pointless fights over which quotes deserve to be included under the arbitrary limit. I'm more in favor of making a list of criteria that we can point to when we weed lame quotes out.

Oh, and I support making a template. Prime Soundwave is the best character I can think of to use, but Movie Bumblebee or G1 Wreck-Gar would also be appropriate. Or a shot of G1 Soundwave with a tape inside of him? Can't think of a good header, though...

- Jackpot 11:49, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

I mainly suggested it as a starting point because if it comes down to putting each quote in place based on "which one we like more" the talk pages are going to be absolutely horrible. HOW CAN YOU LEAVE OUT MY FAVORITE QUOTE IT IS SO FUNNY AND RELEVANT. The "5 per 30 minutes" is just a suggestion - obviously an episode that's really funny or poignant can get more. Comics issues we could maybe use pagecount as a starting point. But basically, combine the two ideas. A list of criteria is a good idea, but we also need to avoid having like, thirty quotes for a given story, twelve of which are totally shitty. If we get over five-six quotes, it's time to think about trimming, just because seriously, 90% of TF fiction isn't that goddamned quotable - or there are better places for the quotes. "I don't rock and roll - I burn!" belongs on Inferno's page, not on the episode it appeared in. -hx 11:51, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

Fair enough. Just so long as the number is sufficiently "soft" that we don't forget that our goal is high quality, not an arbitrarily low quantity. - Jackpot 12:17, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

Exactly. Like I said, I think we can also judiciously use key character quotes on the characters' pages. Some quotes are very episode/story specific, while others provide insight into a character's personality or mindset. I think that's a good way to winnow the chaff, you know? -hx at work not logged in gotta run

The 5-6 quotes before we start trimming sounds good, especially if some more individual character based quotes can be moved to the character pages. The big problem I keep seeing with quotes is that too many people want to quote an entire scene. If it goes beyond 3 lines it's probably not what we mean by quote here. And even 3 lines is pushing it. These should really be a single line quip or a two line set up and pay off. --Khajidha 14:22, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

5 to 6 sounds like a good starting point to me as well. Khajidha makes a good point about the definition of quote. That, along with Hooks' point about using key character quotes on that character's article, should be pointed out on Help:Example episode article, once it exists. --Tigerpaw28 17:32, 14 March 2011 (EDT)

What about block quotes? The page for Transformers (2007) is full of them. I think there should be a limit on how long the quote can be.--Megatron Prime 16:48, 19 May 2011 (EDT)

Maybe a silly question, can we?

Ok, exposing my ignorance here, but isthere a way to search the wiki by alt-mode? If I wanted to know every TF that turns into a Helicopter say? There's not a "helicopter" catagory, so howwould I find them all? Thanks for any help.--76.28.76.206 19:59, 19 March 2011 (EDT)

Popular Earth vehicle alternate modes covers some characters. There's been a few vague proposals to create a new hierarchy of categories for altmodes, but it would be a lot of work, and it's generally shouted down. JW 20:08, 19 March 2011 (EDT)

I think the current best option if you want to do something like this is TFU.info's Identify section. --Andrusi 11:00, 30 March 2011 (EDT)

Grimlock letter

I recently acquired this and thought it's exactly the sort of thing we should be covering. I had no idea it even existed until a friend sent it to me and on that thought, should we add letters from Soundwave, Ratchet(?), Dreadwind and Blaster to the Holy Grails? Was there a similar response from the US comic, and do Titan still send these letters out today from Starscream? Enquiring minds want to know. Incidentally, he said he got Tailgate as his free mini-toy. --Emvee 15:31, 29 March 2011 (EDT)

Good find. A letter from Grimlock is pretty awesome. That should go somewhere. The Letters Page page? - Starfield 16:58, 29 March 2011 (EDT)

I've added a link from there; I'll type it up verbatim if we think it's justified? --Emvee 18:09, 29 March 2011 (EDT)

Voice actors by series

We have a bunch of categories for voice actors by language, but I was wondering if we should have categories for voice actors by series? Would categories like "Beast Wars voice actors" and "Victory voice actors" be useful? --abates 04:27, 14 April 2011 (EDT)

That could be useful. It'd be better than looking up cast lists and opening up every character page, at least. -- Semysane 06:30, 14 April 2011 (EDT)

Sound like a nice idea to me. --TX55^TALK 10:01, 14 April 2011 (EDT)

"Just Stop" Notice?

Do we think there's a role for the following proposed user notice template, for users like Eagc7?

Just Stop

Please stop editing this wiki. While you haven't done anything ban-worthy (yet), you are not a productive contributor. (The reasons why are above this notice on your talk page.) So, please, just stop.

Opinions? JW 14:39, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

If one is created, I love this image for it! --MistaTee 15:35, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

It seems a bit rude, but the image would be perfect if this is made. --NCZ 15:45, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

If this gets phrased differently, I'd support it. Right now, the text's too rude. Geewunling 15:52, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

I think it is meant to be rude and probably should be rude. This tag is designed to be placed on the talk pages of people who have seemingly ignored the multiple instances of other tags. --Khajidha 15:57, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

I'm a little iffy on this proposal. I admit that Eagc7 has a very poor grasp of the English language, but I'm a little uncomfortable with telling a person to leave a site just because of that. If you look over his fiction edits (the ones you can read) the posts he has made are accurate, just...occasionally unreadable. -- SFH 16:02, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

I'm with SFH. Eagc7's English seems to be all over the place, but there are times when he gets it more or less correctly and only needs minor typo fixes. --Detour 16:21, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

Whether a person's edits are bad enough (and bad enough all the time enough) to ask them to never post again seems like something that shouldn't be in the hands of, well, everybody. Putting a template up that says you're a bad speller or that you're not using Preview enough... that's pretty straight forward. But I dunno if I'm comfortable with giving us all a tool to shame each other off the wiki entirely. --ItsWalky 16:49, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

In addition, if someone's edits are so bad (and so consistently bad) that they're more of a nuisance than they are helpful, then that person should probably just be gotten rid of, instead of getting the Middle Finger Personified In A Template. As Detour said, yeah, Eagc7's English could use some work, but he does enough good here that I don't think he's completely poison or anything. --ItsWalky 16:51, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

I could maybe get behind the idea of a "Stop editing until you've read the complaints on your user page" template for the blissfully unaware people constantly making edits that are being undone as soon as they make them whilst ignoring comments on their user page telling them what they're doing wrong. But a template like THIS, and this sort of behavior in general, is how we end up with trolls that come by and vandalize the wiki on a daily basis for years and years. We could avoid that sort of future headache by just not being all-out douchebags to people even if they're stupid and/or their contributions are annoying. --DrSpengler 17:15, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

I suppose the only problem with making a "read your talk page" template is that they'll never read it. -- Semysane 18:24, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

I like this idea, too. --TX55^TALK 21:01, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

Got me there. --DrSpengler 18:36, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

This will not go well. If someone's a real pest here, ban them. If they're being a pest but not quite that bad yet, notify them on their talkpage with whichever templates are already needed, and then if they don't clean up, ban them. We shouldn't be creating--publicly--an underclass of users. If you're allowed to have an account here, you're allowed to post--otherwise we look scummy. --Thylacine 2000 19:17, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

This is basically every stereotype of this wiki and its userbase given textbox form. I love it. -hx 20:33, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

The consensus seems to be against it, and the arguments are all good ones. (Kind of a pity, since the image was so perfect, but...) I withdraw the suggestion. Thanks all for weighing in! JW 20:25, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

It is a good template despite the rudeness, but it is potentially necessary for extreme conditions as a last resort. --TX55^TALK 21:01, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

Is it possible that we could reuse that image for another template? Perhaps a Final Warning template, letting users know that if they don't cut their shit out, they're gonna get banned. -- Semysane 21:42, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

Clearly it should be used for a "stop edit/revert warring" template. --ItsWalky 22:32, 26 April 2011 (EDT)

Our Blogger blog?

To me it appears that our blog doesn't have much use. Our twitter sends out links to occasional pages and our facebook is an easy place to congregate and talk about TFs and not take up our talk pages, but the blog hasn't been used in over half a year.

I'm thinking using it to keep track of current trends and such. We could highlight pages that are being worked on, point out users who have been creating/adding a lot to pages (i.e. Geewunling creating minor GI Joe pages, Chris McFeely going crazy with the Japanese food tie-ins). This way an editor or lurker who happens to miss a few days can easily catch up rather than having to sift through the new pages and new files (and even then if a page has just had an entirely new writeup from a stub, it wouldn't show up there).

Any thoughts on this? --Bluestreak7 14:21, 28 April 2011 (EDT)

I think it would be a good way to draw attention to obscure and/or new stuff on the Wiki. --abates 07:46, 2 May 2011 (EDT)

I think so, too, but there are questions left unanswered if we want to go ahead with this. Who would be given control over the posts? Should it be extra mod duties or instead given to some other veteran editors? If so, how many? Would we want weekly updates or something with less frequency? Overall, who is in the current position to grant other users the power to add posts. I can see this as a useful too, but like many things on this wiki, we need to come up with some sort of procedure before it comes to fruition. --Bluestreak7 11:33, 3 May 2011 (EDT)

TFwiki in the past week

Could someone tell me why the TFwiki has been down/inaccessible for most of the time in the past week? Geewunling 02:04, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

I would wager "massive spikes in traffic, as DotM stuff hits," which has happened before.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:20, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

I thought traffic wouldn't be a likely cause since the third movie is still over a month away. Guess I was wrong. Thanks! Geewunling 02:27, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

There's at least some clamor now that the toys are out there.--Rosicrucian ^Talk 02:46, 10 May 2011 (EDT)

Technical explanation or non-technical? Traffic HAS picked up a bit, the wiki hardware (such as it is) is slightly overtaxed, and we need to start doing some math on what we can separate into other servers, and how much it'll cost to do so.--McFly 16:15, 13 May 2011 (EDT)

Cowboy time. We've moved the application server and cache to another box, and synced over the contents. If anything's missing, we can try to sync it over from the old webserver, but it wouldn't be off by more than a few minutes, so here's hoping that we're back in business!--McFly 15:43, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

No wonder the connection becomes smooth again recently. Nice Works!! --TX55^TALK 22:45, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, I'd noticed that the site was back to normal. Thanks for the hard work. --Khajidha 22:52, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

Thanks for fixing our wiki! JW 07:15, 18 May 2011 (EDT)

Eagc7's movie comic section edits

Lately Eagc7 has been editing the somewhat neglected movie prequel comic sections in character articles, which is good. However, Eagc7 has been editing the somewhat neglected movie prequel comic sections in character articles, which is bad. I know he tries, but whenever he does this sort of thing, he just ends up creating work for somebody else to clean up, and frankly, it's easier to write stuff from scratch than it is to fix somebody's spelling & grammar, as well as trying to make the text fit the tone and style of the paragraphs surrounding it (which is important considering the Foundation comics take place during the other Movie prequel comics). I haven't read Foundation and Rising Storm, so I can't fix all of this myself, but that seems like a fair bit of work to fix at a time when the wiki was experiencing random downtime and BotCon is rapidly approaching (meaning a good chunk of our regular editors will not be able to edit much, and in any case would be updating stuff about/from BotCon). Like I said, I know he's trying, and he's getting much better than he used to be, but... maybe he should leave fiction edits to the professionals. --FFN 16:27, 18 May 2011 (EDT)

Take it up with him via his Talk Page or the E-mail a User link. If there's really a stylistic problem, then we need a Style Guide for new users to reference.--McFly 11:04, 19 May 2011 (EDT)

Page views

Where have they gone? I believe that they have disappeared from down the pages since the move a few weeks ago. Can they be put back? Geewunling 16:09, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

I don't recall pageviews... What in specific are you talking about? --ItsWalky 16:12, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

I guess popular pages? —Interrobang 16:20, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

Yeah those, how often a page has been visited. I kinda liked keeping tabs on relative popularity in pages (like how Mayumi and Shinichi never lost their 2:1 view ratio). Geewunling 16:24, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

The broken popular pages has apparently been a thing lately, as I noticed Abates was removing and re-adding the link to MediaWiki:Recentchangestext earlier this month. Maybe he knows more about it? --Apoc 18:41, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

No more than anyone else. I noticed it was gone and removed it from the template, but then it came back when we did the move so I readded it. I guess it got removed again, possibly for performance reasons? --abates 18:58, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

If I had to make a poorly-educated guess, the pageview thing sounds exactly like one of the many things I had to remove from Shortpacked.com to keep it from lagging so so badly. Lots of neat little things like page tracking and stuff like that used to be on there, but they were more trouble, resources-wise, than they were worth. --ItsWalky 19:20, 29 May 2011 (EDT)

I didn't change anything, but I generally make it a point to keep away from the Mediawiki software config, for fear of breaking that which I don't understand. --McFly 13:07, 9 June 2011 (EDT)

May have been Scout I guess? Looks like $wgDisableCounters got turned on at some point anyway. --abates 17:02, 9 June 2011 (EDT)

Wait, that WAS me. $wgDisableCounters is supposed to be off for squid-cached installations anyway, since it doesn't actually work when you add a cache. --McFly 21:26, 12 June 2011 (EDT)

Why is Melissa from Kiss Players on the same Page as Marissa Faireborn from G1?

I know they are some how connected ,but i see the two as different as G1 Starscream is to Animated Starscream ,maybe the same history ,but a little different.--Michael Alex Kawa 10:43, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

They are related in the same way that Orion Pax is related to G1 Optimus Prime. --Andrusi 10:51, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

Marissa = Marissa. Same continuity and everything. --ItsWalky 11:02, 30 May 2011 (EDT)

I don't know if this was what you are looking for when you asked for Kiss Players radio play translations ,but i hope this helps .

I found this on Youtube cause I LOVE Melissa and noticed in that Holy Grail thingy that you guys needed Kiss Players radio play translations .I hope this helps ,even if it doesn't it is still pretty cool and CUTE .I did not make it so that is noted .Here is the link so you guys can go and look to see if it what is needed ,it is the only one i can find ,if it helps i will try to find more .[1] --Melissa 18:25, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

I also found this site ,it gives a brief description of the radio play ,again i hope this helps .[2]--Melissa 14:32, 3 June 2011 (EDT)

I haven't looked at the material myself yet (I'm afraid it'll make me have to clean myself until I bleed to get the stain out) but if it's legit, then thank you very, VERY much. This stuff needs to be cataloged to serve as a warning to future generations. -- Semysane 07:25, 5 June 2011 (EDT)

The multiverse

So, at BotCon, Aaron Archer declared the Aligned continuity separate from the old, more meta multiverse. How does everyone want to approach this? Separate the aligned information about Primus, Unicron and the members of the 13, or keep it together for easy access and lack of confusion just as one article covers the various versions of the Matrix, or Energon, or the AllSpark? Alientraveller 05:06, 6 June 2011 (EDT)

Wait for Japan to release some piece of fiction with Prime as part of the Multiverse, then ignore him with a clear conscience. -Derik 00:05, 29 June 2011 (EDT)

Huh. I never realized until now that Japan even had the Multiverse. I guess because they don't have as many universes. And they don't have collectors' club fiction. I vaguely knew there was crazy dimension hopping in Alternity, but I figured that was its own thing. But yup, it's right there on the Alternity page. Something about Hasbro-licensed fiction and Takara-licensed fiction sharing one big happy multiverse seems very, very weird to me. Anyway, I'll put an Alternity stub on the Multiverse page. - Starfield 00:55, 29 June 2011 (EDT)

Moving from Wikia

Hello guys, can anyone give me some advice about how to leave Wikia? I mostly need advice about easily moving content. I found that Wikia provides a database dump as an XML file with all page content except files, and with the page histories. I really need to have the page histories. I installed MediaWiki on my PC for testing, with EasyPHP for the database, and importing the XML file actually doesn't work. It says "Import failed: Loss of session data. Please try again." So I guess I set up my database too quickly and forgot some things. This was just for quick testing after all. Did you follow that template for moving, or something else? I'd really appreciate any advice and help from you! Cheers. Klow 07:36, 21 June 2011 (EDT)

Right out of the gate, you need to go over EVERY page you download before you go live, because Wikia inserted code that provides linkbacks to Wikia in them, meaning your pages will be providing THEM with hits. I do not know exactly what process is involved, but it's a scumfuck move of theirs that you should be aware of. --M Sipher 14:18, 21 June 2011 (EDT)

Nice to know, thanks. But what about what I mentioned above? How do I start and all? Klow 17:46, 21 June 2011 (EDT)

A helpful resource for leaving Wikia is the Anti-Wikia Alliance site, which has useful info on departing from Wikia. The "loss of session data" usually means that you just have to try again. --abates 18:02, 21 June 2011 (EDT)

I'm just the server architecture guy, so I can't help with the XML import, but let me warn you right now, Mediawiki for a moderate-traffic site is a PIG. Get a server geek to help you out, as we've got a buttload of cache, and STILL have performance issues from time to time. It's all stuff I can probably fix, if I ever have the free time to dedicate to the problem, but it's definitely a big old pain in the rear. --McFly 08:27, 22 June 2011 (EDT)

Shoutwiki has been down for some time now, so the Anti-Wikia Alliance can't really help... :/ McFly, you mean I shouldn't stick to Mediawiki? Klow 07:23, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

I mean that you should make sure that whoever you've got really knows how to tweak your wiki installation to stand up to the traffic. Wikia is terrible at a great many things. Providing high-availability Mediawiki service to their userbase is NOT one of them.--McFly 12:15, 24 June 2011 (EDT)

Fiction Header Sprawl

Our fiction sections (particularly for movie characters) feature a gob-smackingly large number of headers (apparently one for each miniseries.)

This can make it difficult to tell, as one's reading, is the next section is a new continuity or continues from the old one.

I propose a {{cntd}} template that could be used to mark fiction headers which continue from the previous section. Proposed markup follows:

===Transformers 2007===
Mojo was a bling'd puppy.
{{cntd}}
===Revenge of the Fallen===
Mojo's got a bitch

In the above example the ROTF section would be marked by a "continued..." as in the image at right. (It's a CSS preceeding-content declaration. It could just as easily be an arrow, and indent, graying-back the header, a color, etc.)

The example at right is clumsy, but I thought I'd throw it out to see if anyone thought the idea had merit. -Derik 06:56, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

I'm seeing a flaw in this, in particular with movie fiction, since there are events in-between films that don't necessarily mesh with the movies themselves. Likewise, G1 characters popping up in BW fiction, where it seemingly continues both Marvel G1 and Sunbow G1. --Detour 08:32, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

That is a flaw which arises from the way we structure our fiction sections.

The IDW DOTM adaption, for instance, makes several slight tweaks to the story-- presumably to better fit its ongoing plans for tie-in comics. Thus 'Rising Storm' should not be followed by the DOTM movie... it should be followed by the DOTM movie adaption (See pic at right, which explicitly declares this.)

There have historically been problems with this-- we didn't want lots of redundant sections in character bios, the 2007 adaption dumped most of the Quatar action despite these scenes obviously occurring in their continuity... etc. So there was a hodge-podge "let's make only ONE section for each movie..." approach adapted.

That's not getting into how cludgy the mini-derived section titles are. Scenes in Foundation and Defiance interleave with one another, making them virtually impossible to properly wikify under the existing section-title bodge-up. What we really need are sections like 'Era of the Primes' 'Before the War' 'Exile in Space' al sitting under an "IDW Comics Continuity" header.

(Why the hell the Titans books are listed in the middle of the IDW miniseries escapes me.)

Whatever, our headers-- particularly for movie comics-- are broken. Above is one suggestion to render them less-so. -Derik 08:47, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

I can definitely get behind something to simplify our header layout for the movie characters - I actually proposed something similar years ago, shortly after ROTF came out, which if I recall right basically amounted to "describe the movies first, then subsequent to them, do a section for each continuity" - IDW all in one, Titan all in one, and so on, rather than the frustrating, fragmented attempted-chronological order we use now. It just about worked for TF1, but after ROTF, things have just gotten more and more messy. However, I will spit blood if we turn into Wookieepedia and start with those rubbish "In-fiction description of time period" headers. - Chris McFeely 08:53, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Hrm in the what now? -Derik 09:01, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

He means header titles like 'Era of the Primes' which describe a fictional time period. I can agree that those aren't a very good idea for us, given that such eras don't exist across all continuities in a continuity family. Trying to blend the various continuities in such a way implies they're more similar than they are. McFeely's idea of putting the films together, then having section for each of the other continuities, makes more sense for the way Transformers fiction is handled continuity-wise. --Tigerpaw28 14:54, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

I'm fine with Chris's idea or maintaining the current status quo. I am however, adamantly against time period sections. —Interrobang 15:03, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Yeah, I'm thinking McFeely's proposal has the least problems when it comes to sorting messy fiction. --M Sipher 18:08, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Took a bit of a poke around to see if that old proposal was still around, and restored it. Here's what some people thought at the time. - Chris McFeely 18:12, 8 July 2011 (EDT)

Uploading of pngs

I wonder whether a warning when someone tries to upload a png would help. By the looks, taking the 'png' extension out of Manual:$wgFileExtensions (Is Scout still handing MediaWiki configuration?) will cause the site to display a warning which you then have to continue through to upload the image. It's possible that people will just click through without reading it like with the "this is a huge file" warning, but it seems like it'd be worth a try. --abates 19:32, 18 July 2011 (EDT)

What's wrong with PNGs? I was under the impression that they worked. --McFly 13:28, 19 July 2011 (EDT)

Pngs use a compression method that is not well suited to screencaps, so a png screencap will be unnecessarily large compared to a jpg copy of the same screencap. --abates 15:59, 19 July 2011 (EDT)

I've made the appropriate changes. Let's see if it makes a difference. (I doubt it.) --McFly 11:57, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

MonacoBook Skin

Hello. Dota 6 here! I was wondering if the MonacoBook skin is a custom MediaWiki skin or can you actually download it from somewhere? --Dota 6 21:11, 29 July 2011 (EDT) Dota 6 signing out!

What gives

Okay, I can see that maybe you don't find my jokes funny. I can accept that, but to simply "undo" my first edit to the wiki without comment is rude. Obviously I am not a vandal, I am not trying to cause harm. I have been reading this wiki for a few weeks, and I simply came to a page filled with terrible captions. Captions so bad that one actually asked for someone to think of something better. This is the edit. Maybe you don't see that as an improvement, but surely it is no worse than what was there. Even if you can't stomach all of them, surely you could simply fix one or two, instead of the entire edit. Surely you could at least leave a reasoning in the summary, or a message on my talk page saying "Thanks for the edit, but that isn't quite our style" or some-such. What is the point of having a wiki if you are simply going to smack new editors away without even having the respect to mention why? I understand that fighting vandalism is a hard and full-time job, but that is no reason to people with good intentions poorly. JohnnyMrNinja 04:21, 30 July 2011 (EDT)

Read this:Transformers_Wiki:Caption. Simply put, you need to do some actual work around here before messing with captions. --Khajidha 04:33, 30 July 2011 (EDT)

Also, don't take it personally you weren't told why it was reverted. There's too many reverts in a day to bother to explain them all and it seems most anons and users-for-a-day simply don't care enough about their edit either to want to know why it was reverted, if they notice at all. If one cares, one can always ask - an explanation is guaranteed to be given. Geewunling 05:59, 30 July 2011 (EDT)

Bot request

And we get a bot to change out all the instances of "Jusco" with "JUSCO", the proper capitalization for the stores? --M Sipher 14:02, 1 August 2011 (EDT)

There din't seem to be that many, so I went ahead and did 'em manually. --abates 19:45, 1 August 2011 (EDT)

Do we still have a bot? -Derik 20:29, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

...Um, I thought we had your bot? --Tigerpaw28 20:44, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

And User:DNAVI. - Starfield 21:34, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

Oh, wait. DNAVI's owner thinks he's pretty much done with this place. - Starfield 21:36, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

Decptitran's database structure got trashed when my site got deleted. ...I should probably fix it dome day. -Derik 21:46, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

Interviews on External links

Flashback's recent plugging of his site's interview have struck my curiosity, what exactly is the standard for adding interviews to the external links on real-life people's articles? Anyone who's got an interview can add one, or do they have to be special interviews? --Detour 19:53, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

If the interview adds relevant and interesting information to the person, I think it's ok in the external links section. If it's supporting a specific fact, then the reference format should be used.--Jimsorenson 19:54, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

I think they should be primarily about (or at least have substantial coverage of) the subject's Transformers work. --abates 22:27, 3 August 2011 (EDT)

I think that should be the case too, unless the real-life person is tough to find any information on. I recently added an interview to Marlene Aragon's article that has nothing to do with Transformers, but does provide some information as to her age and her 'career' in voice acting. It wouldn't be interesting for anyone with a more prominent role in Transformers (or anything else), but since this is about everything the page can provide on her, it should stay. Geewunling 02:20, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

That's interesting, it's the same reason I linked to an archived Allspark interview for Elaine To. There was no other information I could find about her anywhere else. But in regard to Flashback and his Realmcast interviews... I didn't listen to any of them in their entirety, but I listened to a third of the Michael Bell one, which can be summed up as both interviewer and interviewee complaining about the Michael Bay films daring to make the original voice cast audition for roles and then only using Cullen, and IDW's declining to go with that All Hail Megatron motion comic... So I'm really not certain these links really add anything other than a plug for Flashback's site. But if anyone else feels like listening to them and proving me wrong, go ahead, I don't mind. --Detour 02:36, 4 August 2011 (EDT)

Gif uploads blocked?

I keep getting a ".gif" is not a permitted file type. Permitted file types are jpg, jpeg, ppt, ogg, ico, svg, ogg, psd, ttf, pdf, wav. when I try to upload a .gif.

Dis someone trip a flag in the settings, or have I just missed something? -Derik 15:18, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

I think that's an unintended side effect from the PNG ban. McFeely should be able to fix it. Geewunling 15:30, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

We banned PNG's? But they're occasionally useful!

Can't we ban people who upload PNG's instead. -Derik 15:39, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

You can read a little upwards on it under "Uploading of pngs". I'm not sure what has been programmed to prevent PNG uploads, though. You'd have to ask McFeely. Geewunling 15:45, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

I'm guessing you're meaning to type "McFly", not "McFeely," because I haven't a clue. /:) - Chris McFeely 17:37, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Gah, $wgStrictFileExtensions must be set true. I only intended for my request to display it as a warning rather than preventing uploading of them altogether (you know, like when you upload an image which is too big). I guess MediaWiki doesn't have enough options to do what I was suggesting. --abates 18:28, 13 August 2011 (EDT)

Bitch, bitch, bitch. (It's fixed, provided someone confirms that much. Drop any complaints on my Talk page, I've got a watchlist set on it.) --McFly 15:46, 14 August 2011 (EDT)

For the record... fixed. -Derik 22:21, 15 August 2011 (EDT)

Shout Factory Subs

Since these were looked over by the TF team at Hasbro, should we be making adjustments to episode titles, character names etc.? For example Fortress is now Cerebros, which is a major headache. Also, the episode titles on the subs (which we know Hasbro checked out) are often different from the titles on the guide on the inside cover. There's some other neat stuff, it seems like they intended to use the Hasbro names for the Battle Beasts and changed it back at the last minute, probably because Diamond Select has the Battle Beasts licence currently (Saber Sword Tiger slips through once, while he's called Platinum Tiger later). -- Terrortron 09:15, 16 August 2011 (EDT)

Manga vs. Comic

We use the words "manga" and "comic" interchangeably when talking about Japanese comics, the most annoying example of which is that pages are usually disamb'd with "(manga)", but subsection titles usually end in "comic". Can we pick one word and stick with it? Geewunling 07:15, 25 August 2011 (EDT)

Looking around some more, it seems the site had already incorporated a system of treating comic and manga differently, as we have a page on manga, manga-specific categories and use "(manga)" as identifier in most relevant cases. So, I propose to go with "manga" consistently. Changes this would mean are:

Moving all "(pack-in comic)" pages to "(pack-in manga)"
Changing "comic" in subsection titles to "manga"
Changing "comic" to "manga" in any piece of text talking about a manga
Creating a manga images category (not sure if there's be much use to separate it in interior and cover images as with the comic images categories)

The changes wouldn't be big, but I'm certain someone would ask me what I'm doing if I'd just go ahead. So, anyone got a problem with this? Geewunling 04:01, 26 August 2011 (EDT)

I don't see why we need to make the distinction where it's pointless. All manga are comics. We should only use "manga" when we want to inform the reader that it's a Japanese comic, like in categories. The end of subsection titles, no. —Interrobang 04:35, 26 August 2011 (EDT)

I'm perfectly fine with just using "manga". If I recall correctly, that's how it used to be. We're far from weeaboos on the wiki, but the use of the word "manga" just conveys more information in the same space. Person reads article. Sees "Great Transformer War comic". Wonders what the heck is that I've never heard of it I've read all the comics. Person sees "Great Transformer War manga"? Immediately understands that it's a Japanese comic and that that's why they don't know what it is. Could they make an extra click or two and find that out anyway? Yeah, sure. But now they don't have to. Just as a for-instance. (And yet, perversely, I wouldn't agree with switching out "cartoon" for "anime" for the Japanese-original shows. Huh. Maybe this position isn't too defensible.) - Chris McFeely 04:55, 26 August 2011 (EDT)

I think I'd only be comfy calling a cartoon "anime" if it never aired on US televisions. Because the entire UT cartoon series WAS made with the very specific goal to air in the US. "anime" implies "meant for Japan, and maybe then later imported to the US" --M Sipher 13:49, 29 August 2011 (EDT)

Actually, I'd prefer to call those Japanese animation "anime" instead of cartoon. I'd love to see using "anime" instead of "cartoon" for Japanese products (especially if we change all the [Japanese] comic into "manga"). Well, that's only what I think. --TX55^TALK 05:36, 29 August 2011 (EDT)

I wondered if someone would bring thát up, but I am not suggesting we should separate anime and cartoon either. I would oppose such a change, and don't think it's comparable. The division between comic and manga is reasonably clearcut in content and production, with only a few ambigious cases (like the RM 3D diorama manga). Anime and cartoon are much more alike, not to mention a good portion of the cartoons TF has had thus far are a cooperation that can't well be placed in either category if one would decide to separate them.

Also, the suggestion to split comic and manga isn't one just based on inherent differences between the two. As it is, the wiki has a setup to consider manga and comic different things. Such a setup does not exist for anime and cartoon. My suggestion to separate manga and comic is largely based on the fact our current system is illogical and inconsistent (comic vs pack-in comic vs manga, Super-God Masterforce (manga) vs Super-God Masterforce comic) and that it should either be put in use thoroughly or abolished. Geewunling 06:26, 26 August 2011 (EDT)

Peeps, I'm going to get stuck with my image sorting quest if I don't get clarity on this matter. One person is somewhat against, another is in favor but uncertain if he's right... Anyone else? Geewunling 02:48, 27 August 2011 (EDT)

I'm in favor your idea, for what that's worth. -- Semysane

That makes 2 yes, 1 semi-yes and 1 semi-no. Anyone else got a thought on the matter? Because with these results, I would kinda like starting some reorganizations (involving manga-comic separation) soon. Geewunling 04:47, 29 August 2011 (EDT)

I'd vote yes to Geewunling's suggestion. --TX55^TALK 05:39, 29 August 2011 (EDT)

My comment counts as a no. I still don't think the distinction is necessary to point out in every event. —Interrobang 13:57, 29 August 2011 (EDT)

I feel the need to point this out

Yeah, I dunno why either, since I'm banned (thanks for being a dick, Walky), but I'll do it anyway.

A certain "Mr.Treason II" (known here as User:ArchtransitLightspeed333 or User:Lolclerk5) has said this on another site:

"I've also imported my sock puppets on Metapedia, Wikifur and have set up accounts on Wikisage, Ohinternet, Encyc, TFWiki and MyWikiBiz to put Pro Gaddafi Pro Girlvinyl Propaganda "

I figured this might interest y'all.

-Blackout-, using 94.23.249.32 09:24, 30 August 2011 (EDT)

We'll be fine. Thanks for being mature and professional about this, BTW -- Semysane 17:27, 2 September 2011 (EDT)