MediaWiki talk:Community Portal

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

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MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive

Wiki update issues

The recent wiki update seems to have affected the {{--}} template, in that it doesn't seem to work anymore. {{-}} seems to work, though. --Inkblot (talk) 21:39, 9 November 2013 (EST)

I see the problem. Mediawiki doesn't use a name tags for anchors any more. --abates (talk) 22:04, 9 November 2013 (EST)
And it's fixed. Thanks. :-) --Inkblot (talk) 22:13, 9 November 2013 (EST)

Also, I noticed that the galleries aren't bordered anymore. --Inkblot (talk) 01:39, 11 November 2013 (EST)

That actually appears to be an intentional change. If I use the gallery tag on Wikipedia, the gallery doesn't have a border either. --abates (talk) 02:25, 11 November 2013 (EST)


Nav templates have gone a bit wibbly. I kludged a fix for the BM one there, but it would probably be easier converting them all to use a base template at {{Nav}}, and just having the links and logo entered in the individual navs. Similar to how {{Messagebox}} and many of the copyright templates work. - SanityOrMadness (talk) 13:54, 18 November 2013 (EST)

Yes, that seems like a good idea. It'll keep them standard! --abates (talk) 02:59, 21 November 2013 (EST)

Marvel G1 Cover Artists

Hi, can I just ask where we got the info for US cover artists from, as they weren't credited in the issues themselves. I only ask because this wiki says that Mark Texeira did the cover for both US#3 and US#4, but on the Comic Book Database (comicbookdb.com) they list Mike Zeck as the cover artist to #3. So, which site is correct, the TFwiki or comicbookdb? And if the wiki has the wrong cover artist for US#3, is it possible some of the cover credits to other issues might also be in need of correction? Cheers! --Ryan Frost (talk) 14:20, 18 November 2013 (EST)

Even worse, while we credit the cover to Mark Texeira on the image page, the actual issue page credits it to Michael Golden. I think most of the Marvel cover credits really need to be double-checked against a reliable source, but I'm not sure where to find one. The Titan reprints had an intro which often named the cover artists, ISTR, but not always. --abates (talk) 03:30, 21 November 2013 (EST)

Bing

I've noticed that tfwiki doesnt show up in bing searches. Rather you'll get the wikia site even if you type in "tfwiki." Has this been dealt with?

--Lush City 20:47, 29 November 2013 (EST)

I think it's one of the crawlers that got blocked for hammering the site. --abates (talk) 22:13, 29 November 2013 (EST)
It was. I've re-enabled it now that I've got the wherewithal to deal with things using a method other than the banhammer of rage. Give it a few days. --McFly (talk) 17:15, 11 December 2013 (EST)

Optimus Prime (Covenant of Primus)

Given what the COP book has put out, we know that the Thirteenth Prime is Optimus Prime. Which brings up some questions that Hasbro has saw fit to tease us with for a whikle. Now, that said, we still need to compile the information. I suggest, since we dont know HOW exactly that is supposed to work, we treat it like Sideways after the Second Allspark Almanac. We make a new page Optimus Prime (COP) detailing the history outlined in the Covenant , and then place in his and Optimus Prime (WFC)'s note pages that they may or may not be the same person, or reincarnations or whatever.

Thoughts? Lush City (talk) 16:54, 14 December 2013 (EST)

Well, as far as I understand, the Covenant is all stuff that had been planned from the very conception of the Aligned universe. It's not a retcon; Aligned Optimus has been one of the Thirteen all along, so I don't see that it necessitates a new article. Jalaguy (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2013 (EST)

They way it's presented, we dont know if it's LITERALLY the same Optimus, or some kind of G1 Optimus/ Optimus Primal thing or what. The book calls him Thirteen the whole time , and then on the last page or so goes (oh yeah, he's OPTIMUS PRIME) so I dont think we can be certain if he's the same character or if the name is just the same (Like Megatronus and Megatron). Thus the idea of a separate linked page until we get confirmation on how it all sussses out. Lush City (talk) 14:19, 15 December 2013 (EST)

Otherwise I'm just going to edit COP stuff into Optimus Prime (WFC) main page.

What's with the completely different formats?

I noticed it at the beginning of this month, maybe it's been around longer than that. Some pages randomly seem to be in a completely different format than the one I've been used to seeing for years. It looks like it might be a mobile format or something but there's nothing different in the address that would indicate that it's the case. I don't really know the technical side of this wiki or what kind of decisions are officially made, so instead of trying to explain it I'll just use screenshots.

http://i.imgur.com/lF4KWnA.png Dark Cybertron 3 page looks like this

http://i.imgur.com/rXR7cIo.png but clicking to the next issue looks like this

I hope this isn't some kind of new official format that's slowly being rolled out because I find it less user-friendly overall. And if it isn't a new format you've decided on, then what is it, a mistake being caused by the wiki software itself? As far as I can tell from this discussion page, no one else has mentioned it, but I can't be the only one who's seeing it can I? Arborday (talk) 11:52, 24 December 2013 (EST)

It's the mobile skin, WPtouch. Clearly, something's gone screwy if you're getting it randomly... - SanityOrMadness (talk) 11:57, 24 December 2013 (EST)
Yeah, I don't even own a smart phone, I browse everything from a desktop. Usually I can tell if something is a mobile page, like if someone using a phone links something on facebook, I'll see a ".m" in the address, but I'm not seeing anything different about the address when I see these pages on this wiki. Not sure why I'd be the only one having this problem, but if other people are seeing it too then it must be a problem on the tech end right? Arborday (talk) 12:03, 24 December 2013 (EST)
The mobile skin is no more special than any other skin, so there's no difference in the URL. You might as well post up what browser you're using, since that'll no doubt be helpful information for the wiki's techy people. Jalaguy (talk) 12:10, 24 December 2013 (EST)
The wiki autodetects from the user agent when you're on a mobile device and gives you the appropriate skin. I thought it might have been squid causing the problem, but I conducted a test just now (I visited a page on my phone, and then on my PC from a logged-out browser) and it worked fine. It could be that Arborday's ISP is using a proxy which is caching the pages and so he's getting random pages with the mobile skin simply because someone on his ISP visited them with a mobile device previously. --abates (talk) 16:23, 24 December 2013 (EST)
I'm on Firefox, I dunno anything about proxies and the format changing seems to be just totally random. I can be viewing one page normally, click a link and it takes me to a mobile page, and then click another link and I'm on a normal page again. It doesn't make any sense to me and I guess it could be because of what you're saying with the ISP, but I don't really understand that stuff. Arborday (talk) 01:50, 25 December 2013 (EST)
The issue may have been fixed since the last time I posted, pages that were previously on the mobile skin are now back to normal. Now I'm having an issue where some pages will show 4 "GO" images at the same time, but this isn't nearly as much of an inconvenience as the mobile issue. Arborday (talk) 01:53, 25 December 2013 (EST)
You're possibly seeing it as fixed because you're logged in. --abates (talk) 02:32, 25 December 2013 (EST)
I seem to have suddenly lost the mobile site design from my iPhone. I actually preferred it to the standard version; how can I get it back? Logging in / out has no effect, nor does shutting down / running out of power. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 22:09, 21 January 2014 (EST)
The auto-detection was turned off because squid was caching the mobile version and serving it to desktop browsers (We're looking at better ways to do it). The skin is still installed though, so you can set it as your site skin in preferences, though it has the drawback that you'll always see the mobile skin even if you're on a desktop or laptop. --abates (talk) 22:34, 21 January 2014 (EST)

GoBox glitches?

At least a couple of times in the past few days, instead of getting a single GoBox image, my monitor will display a whole bunch of them, sometimes instead of the Search box. Is this a site issue, or is my computer/karma to blame? --Rhymus (talk) 19:36, 22 November 2013 (EST)

--Template_talk:Goicons#GoBox_glitches.3F

It's happened to me maybe a dozen times since then.

--Rhymus (talk) 06:51, 30 December 2013 (EST)

Just noticed Arborday seems to mention the same or similar problem in what's currently the second-to-last comment in What's with the completely different formats? --Rhymus (talk) 07:40, 30 December 2013 (EST)
It's caused by the part of the skin not loading properly. I've been trying to track down why it's happening for a while now. I guess I could tweak the skin to fail better when it happens at least. --abates (talk) 16:45, 30 December 2013 (EST)

--Deceptibot-5795479|talk 19:15 6 February 2012 (EST) How come the GoBox doesn't come up on the side of the anymore? Under the "help" button (where it usually is) it isn't there.

Is there a reason why, for example, [ [ Optimus Prime (disambiguation) | Optimus Prime ] ] is preferable to [ [ Optimus Prime (disambiguation) ] ] or [ [ Optimus Prime ] ] ? The consensus seems to be for the first option, and i'm curious why. Does linking to a redirect increase wear and tear on computers or something? [ [ Optimus Prime ] ] is easier to type than [ [ Optimus Prime (disambiguation) | Optimus Prime ] ] and seems to yield the same results, while [ [ Optimus Prime (disambiguation) ] ] is in between as far as difficulty to type but comes out ahead in terms of informing the user where the link will go. --Rhymus (talk) 06:54, 30 December 2013 (EST)

I tend to prefer pointing links to the final destination for a number of reasons: redirects can change what they're pointing at. If at some point in the future, we decided that "Optimus Prime" should link to Generation 1 Optimus Prime instead of the disambiguation page because G1 Prime is the most prominent, lasting incarnation of the character, then all the links that used the redirect to point to the disambiguation page would be pointing somewhere the original author didn't intend and which may not make sense.
Another reason I prefer linking to the final article is that because of the way MediaWiki works, if you use the Optimus Prime link, you end up at the url tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime instead of tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_(disambiguation). If someone makes a link to their own page by copying from the address bar, they're linking to a redirect which may change to point to a different place. Search engines can also have trouble because it appears to them as though they're looking at two pages instead of one, though granted most search engines are smart enough these days to figure it out. --abates (talk) 16:13, 30 December 2013 (EST)

When to / When not to mention nonfiction namesakes?

YES!

NO!

i know i'm forgetting a bunch more examples--more edits i've made that other users have reverted (with some of those edits somehow getting removed from my contributions page afterward?), and more pages that i haven't edited but make references similar to the ones i've had undone. So i'm curious if there's an official policy, with official exceptions, or something?

--Rhymus (talk) 07:34, 30 December 2013 (EST)

Most of those examples you've cited under "no" are not equivalent to the ones you've cited under "yes". To give a few quick explanations:
  • We don't disambig or create redirects based on foreign names because there are so many. Disambiguation pages are created if there are three or more articles with matching English names. Fireshot is listed on the Vortex disambiguation page because there were already three or more (English-named) Vortexes, though it should probably be listed separately at the bottom like Perceptor on Cliffjumper (disambiguation). I've just moved it there.
  • The Magnificent Six! page has a note about it being a reference to The Magnificent Seven. To be consistent, the note for Magnificent Seven should probably go on Prime Directive issue 1, I guess.
  • I'm not sure about adding Wikipedia links to disambiguation pages like the Orion one, because they're disambiguation pages for articles on TFWiki. If we know a particular Orion was named after the spaceship, it should be on the relevant page anyway. --abates (talk) 17:43, 2 January 2014 (EST)
And I'm in favour of removing the Facebook link from the Optimus Prime disambig page if it no longer works. --abates (talk) 17:43, 2 January 2014 (EST)

End of 2013 toys

I've been trying to correctly post the late 2013 and upcoming 2014 toys but it's sort of confusing what's been released. Has Swerve and Cosmos actually made it to retail or just to a select few? What about Rhinox/Doubledealer? The latter is available at online retailers, but does that count? Thanks. --MistaTee (talk) 16:46, 31 December 2013 (EST)

Swerve and Cosmos are only out in Asia, I think. --abates (talk) 18:15, 2 January 2014 (EST)

tfwiki.info vs tfwiki.net

Not an objection, but a genuine curiosity: What's the point of the second url? On my computer, tfwiki.info automatically redirects to tfwiki.net ,so it's not like we're lightening the traffic on tfwiki.net or anything.

--Rhymus (talk) 23:17, 1 January 2014 (EST)

Branding. McFly (talk) 13:20, 7 January 2014 (EST)
Thanks for answering, but i still don't get it. But i guess i'm not too worried about it, either. --Rhymus (talk) 16:58, 29 January 2014 (EST)
It prevents anyone else from establishing a competing site at the .info location. Basically, we want to associate the term "tfwiki" with this particular wiki about Transformers. --Khajidha (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2014 (EST)
Ah! That makes sense... but begs the question of why not tfwiki.com or tfwiki.org or whatever else? --Rhymus (talk) 07:19, 1 February 2014 (EST)

faction symbols above character articles?

i feel like they've been disappearing. Is that deliberate? They aren't completely absent, so i'm not sure if adding them is the work-in-progress, or deleting them is the work-in-progress. (The Combaticon (G1) article still shows the symbols i'm talking about--in the Combaticons' case, the symbols of the G1 Decepticons, G2 Decepticons, G1 Autobots, and Cybertron Elite Guard.) --Rhymus (talk) 16:54, 29 January 2014 (EST)

Do you have any examples of articles they've disappeared from? --abates (talk) 18:05, 29 January 2014 (EST)
(This must be how a Human feels when "I know I put that music player right here just a second ago!") ...No, i don't know of any articles currently lacking the faction symbols. i'm pretty sure Rack'n'Ruin was where i first noticed the problem, but now that article does have the symbols. As i recall, i recently learned that IDW depicted those two as Decepticons, so i specifically looked up their article looking for the Decepticon insignia at the top of their page, and was surprised not to see any faction symbols, so i checked a bunch of other randomly selected character articles and saw the symbols gone from those articles, too, so i assumed TFWiki got rid of them all. i couldn't find any character articles WITH the symbols... now i can't find any WITHOUT them. So, maybe the problem fixed itself? --Rhymus (talk) 07:15, 1 February 2014 (EST)

Well that's just (Prime) (WFC) (FOC) (Generations) (RB) (Aligned)

Has there been any discussion of using a disambiguation suffix like (Aligned) instead of all those others? i was just on Talk:Ruination_(FOC) and saw some debate about which parenthetical to use, but that's certainly not the only article where the thought has crossed my mind that we might save a lot of hassle if we "Aligned" their disambiguations. Is the problem that "Aligned" is not a canon term?

--Rhymus (talk) 07:49, 1 February 2014 (EST)

The problem is that disambiguation suffixes are by franchise of operation. Several people vehemently insist that WFC and FOC are franchises distinct from Prime while others consider such a distinction to be highly artificial. --Khajidha (talk) 15:23, 3 February 2014 (EST)
Thanks. By the way, is Thrilling 30 considered part of Generations, CHUG, Aligned, and/or the Generation 1 continuity family? --Rhymus (talk) 02:29, 4 February 2014 (EST)
Thrilling 30 is the name of Hasbro's anniversary marketing campaign, and is the current branding for Generations (replacing Fall of Cybertron). It's more like Generations is part of Thrilling 30, not vice versa. And it's not tied to any particular continuity family - it's a celebration of the brand's entire history. Jalaguy (talk) 08:48, 5 February 2014 (EST)
I feel compelled to point out that Rhymus could have worked this out himself by looking at the Thrilling 30 page and seeing that the names were linked to characters from different franchises. Or by reading the text on it that says the toys are characters from different franchises. --abates (talk) 15:44, 5 February 2014 (EST)
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