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:

Specific Discussion Subjects
Moving From Wikia:

New Ad Policy:

Bookworm Database-Crash:

Server Move:

Relicensing:

Dealing With Vandalism:

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MediaWiki talk:Community Portal/Archive

Minor internet fame

I don't know if everyone saw this, but we made Us Vs Th3m's favourite wiki definition of "human". It's nice to get a bit of recognition :) --Emvee (talk) 03:23, 15 July 2014 (EDT)

Argh, I just realised they linked to the wrong wiki :( --Emvee (talk) 03:27, 15 July 2014 (EDT)
Well technically it's our article.--Carrion (talk) 06:18, 15 July 2014 (EDT)

Transformers: Human Alliance

I noticed the wiki has no article on the recent(ish) arcade shooter, "Transformers: Human Alliance". It's based on the live-action films. I played through the game while I was on vacation a few weeks back. Besides a few strange occurrences(There are a LOT of Ravage and Scorponok, as they're both common enemies in some levels, though a "King Scorponok" appears as a boss. Brawl is misnamed, this time as "Decepticon Brawler"...), it was alright. I was wondering if there should be an article for it? RazorSlash (talk) 22:05, 21 July 2014 (EDT)

Absolutely! --abates (talk) 01:52, 22 July 2014 (EDT)
Alright. Went ahead and created a page for it. First page I've created on this wiki, so feel free to correct any errors I may have made. RazorSlash (talk) 16:48, 22 July 2014 (EDT)

Toys vs. Merchandise

Okay, where the hell is the line meant to fall for these? Some stuff, like Heroes of Cybertron or Kabaya toys, I would definitely put under "Toys" is under "Merchandise". Merchandise is surely stuff like knitting patterns, M&Ms, tents, etc.

By the standards of what often goes under "merchandise", this should be merch, not toy... - SanityOrMadness (talk) 12:02, 18 August 2014 (EDT)

We had a discussion some time ago (Talk:Toy#What specifically is a "Transformers toy"?) but did not come up with any hard guidelines. My personal categorization would put Heroes of Cybertron, Kabaya kits and Dino Sparkers all into merchandise. --Khajidha (talk) 12:30, 18 August 2014 (EDT)
Yeah, this has always been nebulously defined. IMO, 'merchandise' should be reserved for stuff that's not actually a representation of the character (i.e. their face on a lunchbox or something) or where 'playing with it' is clearly not the intended purpose (i.e. a statue). It seems absurd to me that, say, the SDCC Shockwave HISS Tank is listed as 'merchandise' when it's clearly a thing that is a toy, and intended to represent Shockwave in-fiction. Jalaguy (talk) 13:14, 18 August 2014 (EDT)
I'm with Jalaguy on this. There could possibly be a sub-division of "toy" into transforming and non-transforming, or something like that, but the division as it is is (a) inconsistent and (b) insomuch as it is consistent, frequently irrational (HISS Shockwave being a good example of the latter) - SanityOrMadness (talk) 13:50, 18 August 2014 (EDT)

Maintenance

I'm going to take the server down briefly for maintenance in about half an hour. --abates (talk) 04:17, 7 October 2014 (EDT)

Maintenance is done. Please feel free to go about your business. --abates (talk) 04:52, 7 October 2014 (EDT)


Here's a blast from the past: http://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/index.php?title=Lord_Imperious_Delirious&diff=126966&oldid=126965

I know this had been discussed in the past, and people had mentioned some sort of program that was automatically stripping them out. But if there's one left, there are probably more. Anything quick & simple that can be done to scan and purge? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 21:23, 24 October 2014 (EDT)

I thought I had a solution, but the import thingy is being annoyingly uncooperative. --abates (talk) 22:16, 24 October 2014 (EDT)

Third Party Unlicensed

This will probably never be allowed, right? I mean, some of them have pretty accurate depictions of in-fiction characters and machines, shouldn't they at least have a little info about their products on this wiki? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Optimus Prime (Convoy) (talk • contribs).

The existence of unlicensed third party stuff is acknowledged on articles like Knockoff and Customizing, and that's all there needs to be. This is a wiki about official Transformers products and fiction, and unofficial toys are no more within our purview than, say, people's fan-art. Jalaguy (talk) 10:35, 31 October 2014 (EDT)
I know this topic was brought near two months ago but can't we at least make a separate page for 3rd party items? It's an entire subject in and of itelf. The page could be similar in structure to the Knockoff page in not listing everything but at least defining the term, talking about how the market for it expanded or a brief general history, talking about the impact on the fandom, legal analysis, toss in some notable companies or examples, maybe make a small section of their significance today or something, misconceptions including differences from a knockoff. It at least deserves it's own separate page, especially since it's not the same as a knock off and again, there's enough info about it to give it a catchall page.--BlackStarscream (talk) 03:20, 20 December 2014 (EST)

"Order of appearance" and another suggestion

Is there any reason why we do this? It doesn't really seem to convey any important information and is just tedious work for editors, especially on pages with many character appearances. Furthermore, I think Wookieepedia's "appearances" format is a lot better for our uses, since it includes mentioned characters and other stuff like locations and technology. As is, we don't really have a way to collect all of the concepts that appear in a piece of fiction and provide red links for pages that need to be created. Mimi (talk) 15:21, 4 November 2014 (EST)

For stuff like comics, order of appearance helps you identify characters. As in, if I'm wondering who a certain guy is, I can use the numbers to count along and find out. Jalaguy (talk) 15:38, 4 November 2014 (EST)
I know I've found it useful when writing up characters' articles, and have been able to use the appearance order to quickly find them within the episode or comic. - Chris McFeely (talk) 15:49, 4 November 2014 (EST)
I vote for keeping order of appearances. I do like the idea of mentioned characters, locations and technology being neatly listed as well though... --Ascendron (talk) 16:41, 4 November 2014 (EST)
Agree with Ascendron. --Khajidha (talk) 16:59, 4 November 2014 (EST)
I guess I'm alone in disliking the appearance numbers, but what about including lists of other stuff? We'd have to make up new templates and stuff for that, though. Maybe copy Wookieepedia's?. Mimi (talk) 08:46, 5 November 2014 (EST)
I can see the appeal of lists of locations and technology, but I'm somewhat leery of actually doing it. I'm not familiar with Wookieepedia, but over at Memory Beta (Star Trek novels, comics and other non-canon sources) a sample list of "other references" includes "balloon ... bench ... fiesta". Are such things what you are talking about listing? --Khajidha (talk) 10:58, 5 November 2014 (EST)
No. Things we actually make articles for. Null ray, Gorlam Prime, Afterspark, etc. Mimi (talk) 11:02, 5 November 2014 (EST)
Well, we would have to establish some guidelines before we implement this. I don't think listing "Null ray" every time Starscream shows up would be necessary. --Ascendron (talk) 12:42, 5 November 2014 (EST)
"Fusion cannon" might be a better example of how it would be a problem, since Starscream doesn't use the null ray on every appearance, but the fusion cannon is Megatron's primary weapon. --abates (talk) 13:35, 5 November 2014 (EST)
I'm not sure I'm seeing the problem? It counts as an appearance for the fusion cannon and it doesn't take up a whole lot of space on the article. We can implement show/hide options for the whole list if we have to. Isn't the point to note whenever X appears and give readers a convenient link if they want to learn more about X? Mimi (talk) 14:27, 5 November 2014 (EST)
Wouldn't there already be convenient links in the summary? How is this list more useful than what we already have and less silly than the sort of thing I mentioned from Memory Beta?--Khajidha (talk) 14:09, 6 November 2014 (EST)
Special:LonelyPages
And that's just the pages that have no links. Lots more have only one or two when they should have many more. Stuff habitually, systematically goes underlinked or downright unlinked at present. - SanityOrMadness (talk) 14:43, 6 November 2014 (EST)
The vast majority of those links are, like, production crew members. I don't think this problem is solved by the proposed changes. --ItsWalky (talk) 22:50, 6 November 2014 (EST)
@Walky: I know most of the zero-links are, but there's no easy way to get a list of "pages linked very few times", unfortunately, only the downright orphans, so I went with what I had. The fact that there's *any* examples of stuff that would be helped going forward there should be indicative of pages being underlinked in summaries.
(I've personally gone through and linked to pages that were on that list, or whose Special:Whatlinkshere revealed only one or two links, but I won't claim to have done much more than scratch the surface on that matter) - SanityOrMadness (talk) 07:52, 7 November 2014 (EST)

Underlinking

Just in light of the above, here's a few pages that are linked only from the images on the pages themselves and are thus de facto orphans even if they don't show up on Special:Lonelypages (notwithstanding the links below themselves!):

As of last night, there were a total of 731 pages that only had one link to them (including ones like the list above) and 511 that only had two links. (I could post the whole of both lists, but I didn't want to swamp the page) - SanityOrMadness (talk) 11:00, 16 December 2014 (EST)

By the way, how did you find pages that are only linked to in one place in the end? --abates (talk) 15:55, 12 January 2015 (EST)
Not simply. It basically involved comparing the entirety of Special:Mostlinked (shows two links or more when you drill down far enough) to the entirety of Special:AllPages, then taking the stuff from the resulting list and further knocking out the contents of Special:Lonelypages, Category:Disambiguation pages and the first few hundred of Special:Shortpages. Even with AWB, it took a while.
Tell you what, I'll post the lists (technically incomplete, since I purged some unlikely stuff to get the numbers down a bit) on Transformers Wiki:Community Portal/Underlinked in a moment. - SanityOrMadness (talk) 21:48, 12 January 2015 (EST)
Cheers! I'm surprised there's not an extension to add a special page to construct that list. I mean, it'd just be Most Linked Pages backwards, but it seems like it would be sensible. --abates (talk) 00:20, 13 January 2015 (EST)
I agree. (And more than "just" - if MostLinked is set to cached (as Wikimedia and Wikia do), then only the first thousand results come up, so building that list would have been impossible.) - SanityOrMadness (talk) 08:23, 15 January 2015 (EST)

The Almanacs

(Thread started in response to someone asking him if had any regrets on past works, leading to Derrick bringing up "Getting the Almanacs in line" A http://ask.fm/DerrickJWyatt/answer/120967236212

http://ask.fm/DerrickJWyatt/answer/120968889460

I just wanted to note there that conservation with Derrick J Wyatt about the Allpsark Almanacs gives some pertinent insight into their construction.

Now from what I can parse, they’re set in a kind of bizarre “Reverse Alignment” scenario, where despite being published officially, Authorial Intent states that they no not match up with what the actual production team made. Now, I’m not the tfwiki pro some folks here are (I still think IDW being g1 is a load of crud but bygone and bygones…) so I don’t know how best to handle this. A note I suppose? Lush City (talk) 11:52, 5 November 2014 (EST)

There's nothing much to handle. I suppose a note and a link to those answers could be put in somewhere, but it's not really anything special for Transformers to have additions to a franchise/continuity not made by it's original creators not line up with their unrealized intentions. --KilMichaelMcC (talk) 14:10, 5 November 2014 (EST)

I get what you mean, but in this case what gave me pause was that this is less "unrealized" and more "unseen" as opposed to say, the creator's personal vision, in this case it's a gap in oversight. The way he speaks, there is an actual TFA timeline they used in the series and otherwise information, that the Almanac isnt accurate to, in that case, what we have is material that exists as was used as the background of the canon show, but was pre-empted by a canon release that was made in error. Basically, what I'm saying is, by circumstance and accident, a timeline was published in an official release that does not match the one used for the actual canon product. Thus me saying "unseen" rather than "unrealized" given the show itself is the realization of those intentions.Lush City (talk)

"Made in error"? What was the error? If there are contradictions between the Almanacs and the actual show, comics, or other canon materials, those would be errors. If there are contradictions between the Almanacs and things in a production bible or something like it, or concepts and timeline ideas the showrunners had that they never actually put in the show or anywhere else, or just stuff people who worked on the show don't like, those are not errors at all. --KilMichaelMcC (talk) 23:45, 6 November 2014 (EST)
I added a note about Wyatt's criticisms to the bottom of the first Almanac article. But until these other production materials that were used by the show's creators or some other conflicting timeline or storyline elements are released (which may never happen), then there's no reason to overhaul the existing article. A note about creator dissatisfaction seems all that's really necessary at this juncture. --DrSpengler (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2014 (EST)
Besides, like Kil said, this is so common in Transformers stories. Furman's planned timeline for IDW G1 is probably nothing like it at this point, for example. Escargon (talk) 15:58, 5 November 2014 (EST)
Good point. --DrSpengler (talk) 16:33, 5 November 2014 (EST)
The sooner folks disabuse themselves of the idea that Derrick Wyatt's headcanon is the be-all end-all of Animated, the better. Animated isn't some special snowflake to be entirely defined by one or two guys, it's the same as any other TF franchise, free to be interpreted and added to by other creators. - Chris McFeely (talk) 17:55, 5 November 2014 (EST)

True, but the way he spoke (both about possible re editions and the "us") made it seem more like the crew just didnt vet them as well as they could. That and the whole "Mass rewriting of the bios" would lead me to believe a note is in order. Obvious a rehaul is impossible unless we get acesss to the materials, and even then probably wouldn't bear more than a note until the possible pie in the sky Alamanac re issues.

Also, a bit tense on the text aint you Mr. McFeely? Not trying to come at you bro. Lush City (talk) 23:08, 6 November 2014 (EST)

.....did you listen to a single thing he just said? Just because the "us" (I'm presuming the other one in this is Isenberg) didn't agree with some of the bios doesn't mean everything in the book is invalidated. Escargon (talk) 23:21, 6 November 2014 (EST)
If I am being tense on the text, I, likewise, am now trying to come at you. I've just seen this attitude around and it bugs me. - Chris McFeely (talk) 07:02, 7 November 2014 (EST)

What was published was published. That is what the wiki places importance on. We are not unwriting bios to remove canonical information. --ItsWalky (talk) 02:31, 7 November 2014 (EST)

Dude (Lush City), I already added a note, but only commenting on the dissatisfaction of 1 creator which is all this situation really amounts to. The Almanacs were approved by Hasbro. They're canon. They count. They're legit. Whether Wyatt likes them or not. A small note about incongruity with creator intent is about all that's called for (and it's been added). --DrSpengler (talk) 08:57, 7 November 2014 (EST)

Didn't I just say what the four of you did? I don't know why you felt it necessary to get aggressive when I agreed with you that the note was probably all that would be placed until a published contradiction. In any case the note last I saw it was a bit jury rigged, I'll tighten it up a bit. Lush City (talk) 17:17, 8 November 2014 (EST)

Help archiving an old game

Hello. This game Transformers Energon: Battle for Megatron was apparently lost to time. This link where it was hosted is defunct, but now, I found it here [1], on the same site, by digging through the source code of the Google Cache version of the page. I downloaded the file but if I open the local version, the game doesn't start. The file 94.dcr is a Shockwave file made with Adobe/Macromedia Director. This is actually not a Flash game, but a Shockwave game. How can we properly archive this game? Alexvoda (talk) 21:36, 10 November 2014 (EST)

I tried the lmpd.com link, and the game worked for me once I installed the Shockwave plugin. The dcr file wouldn't run off my hard drive, but when I stuck it on a web server it worked fine, so I guess it just doesn't like running locally. --abates (talk) 21:59, 10 November 2014 (EST)

TFWiki.net... pages

Shouldn't all these be in the Transformers Wiki: namespace, rather than the article namespace? - SanityOrMadness (talk) 21:17, 29 November 2014 (EST)

Still purging talk page redirects?

Just in case, I'll leave this here ;) - SanityOrMadness (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2014 (EST)

[Huge list snipped]

And then they were all deleted! --abates (talk) 01:23, 22 December 2014 (EST)

Fight! Superlifeform whatevers...uh I think I have a holy grail or whatever?

I have a special edition of the transformers movie and it comes with a Japanese exclusive bonus episode called Scramble City. There is this clip before the episode that has More than meets the eye Part 1, 2 and 3 together. Is this one of the lost clip shows? --Wavage (talk) 7:38 AM, 13 December 2014

Sorry, no, those are part of Scramble City: Mobilization according to the trivia on that page. --abates (talk) 01:53, 12 December 2014 (EST)

Transformers Asia Page

Should Transformers Asia maybe have it's own page? It's been a venue of a number of releases and it's certainly tied to the brand. Also it would help clear up misconceptions about whether something released through Transformers Asia (or Hasbro Asia as it's popularly called) counts as a Hasbro or Takara release (for instance the upcoming MP11SW which I've seen argued as a Hasbro release and not a TakaraTomy due to being released through HasbroAsia even though there's a TakaraTomy label on it). It'd also be a place to list the various special releases done through them just like we do with some of our store pages such as Toys R Us or Target--BlackStarscream (talk) 03:28, 20 December 2014 (EST)

When I google Transformers Asia, I get what seems to be a fan website. Any article should probably stick to Hasbro Asia to avoid confusion. --abates (talk) 01:26, 22 December 2014 (EST)
I'm fairly certain www.transformersasia.com is the actual site for it; could be wrong but that's the closest thing I can find in googling either name (most news posts end up refering to that site as well) Not sure if Hasbro Asia was ever the official name to begin though--BlackStarscream (talk) 15:18, 22 December 2014 (EST)
Well, their about page says "TransformersAsia.com started with a group of "DIE HARD" Transformers fans, Our mission is to share information related to Transformers such as Asia Exclusive, Promotion, Event which happen here in Asia." which seems to suggest it's a fan site disseminating information rather than an official site through which exclusives are released. --abates (talk) 16:36, 22 December 2014 (EST)

charstubfictions -> Bibliography?

First, major applause for Ascendron for getting all the micro-continuities labeled on all the individual character pages. While working through them, though, I feel like there has to be a better way to reflect some of these. Trying to come up with in-fiction explanations for what characters did in some of these stories is excruciating. There were 62 characters depicted in The Beast Within, but for 52+ of them, all that can be written is "There once was a battle and X was present for it." There are 34 characters for the storybook Battle for Earth, and most can be described as "There was one panel in this book where they appeared." A short write-up for one episode of Sunbow or one issue of Marvel/IDW fades into the crowd, but now we'll have one bold header after another with one line descriptions of all these sticker books, coloring books, etc. Even once its all filled in, I don't think it will look good -- describing the roles most characters had in these books isn't informing or benefiting the visitors.

Instead of the current format, how about compressing some of these micro-continuities into a single Fiction Bibliography, or miscellaneous section, at the bottom of the Fiction section. It could be headed with something like, "(Prowl) also had a minor role in the following stories: *list". --Xaaron (talk) 21:19, 1 January 2015 (EST)

I'd be down for something like this. A subsection for "Fiction" labelled "Minor Appearances" or "Cameos" would be interesting. I just request that the link to the corresponding articles are preserved.
On another note, although I did try to do a pretty thorough job on every character's pages to make sure they were as complete as possible in this regard, I didn't bother to go through western comic book series (IDW, Dreamwave, Marvel comics, etc...) or any television shows, American or Japanese. There's also a few fiction pages that were too incomplete for me to know which characters appeared in them. Not asking anyone to do these for me or anything, just a heads up. --Ascendron (talk) 19:01, 23 January 2015 (EST)

RID Chinese

So I recently found out (slowpoke me) that RID(2015) had several episodes reelased in a Mandarain dub. are there any fan projects, or links within the Chineese TF Community, to where we could get enough informatuion to make pages for them all?

That many episodes means that we basically have a wealth of information to go on, just packaged in a bit of an odd nut to crack

Lush City (talk) 15:48, 27 January 2015 (EST)

I think it's safer to wait for the English screenings. Translations could easily turn out to be wrong and context lost. --abates (talk) 15:56, 27 January 2015 (EST)

20,000 Articles!

Hurrah, right? Big round number? --Emvee (talk) 14:45, 5 February 2015 (EST)

Newbie

Hi, Pzzone here, and I'm new to this site. I was wondering if there's like a guide for editing on the wiki or wiki rules or something, in fact I'm not even sure this is the right place to post questions.

Help:Contents has links to our policy pages and help documents. --abates (talk) 22:49, 10 February 2015 (EST)

Thanks

Question

Is this the right place to put questions, if not where. Also how do I insert captions? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pzzone (talk • contribs).

That depends on what type of question (this page is for discussing the wiki as a whole). Also please note that new sections on talk pages should go at the bottom (if you click on the "+" tab next to the "edit" tab it will do that automatically, and you should sign talk page posts by adding ~~~~ to the end of your comment (the second button from the right on the toolbar immediately over the edit window will insert that for you). --abates (talk) 23:57, 11 February 2015 (EST)

Like this? Could you answer my previous question? Also how do I link a page without directly writing it's name. Eg. Linking God to Primus (I'm not actually going to)

Oh never mind void this, I saw your message. Thx and I apologize for pestering you.

Bass X0 has been adding these to pages lately, but I wonder if we really need them. What added benefit does it give our users? And why THEIR image galleries as opposed to the uncounted legions of other TF photo sites? --Khajidha (talk) 10:42, 12 February 2015 (EST)

...yeah, he was not given permission to make that wide-sweeping change. --ItsWalky (talk) 10:46, 12 February 2015 (EST)

When you open a pic on TFWiki and scroll down, there's a section called "File usage" saying "The following page(s) link(s) to this file". Sometimes these lists are incomplete. (My most recent encounter with this phenomenon is this pic, which only lists Toy Fair 2015 even though i've now linked Viper and insignia to that pic.) How does that "File usage" list get updated? --Rhymus (talk) 02:24, 19 February 2015 (EST)

That list only shows pages the picture is used on. It doesn't show pages that link to it as a text link. You have to click on "What links here" on the left hand menu to see a complete list. --abates (talk) 02:42, 19 February 2015 (EST)
Despite the wording, it counts only pages which EMBED the images. Special:WhatLinksHere/File:TF2015-Legends1.jpg shows the full list of links for that file. (If you really need them to show on the file usage list, perhaps to keep them off Special:UnusedFiles, add [[File:FILENAME.EXT|1x1px]] - replacing FILENAME.EXT with the actual filename, of course! - after your text link.) - SanityOrMadness (talk) 02:44, 19 February 2015 (EST)
Good to know, thanks! --Rhymus (talk) 01:31, 20 February 2015 (EST)

Robots in Disguises

i feel like it's misleading (or at least potentially confusing to new fans) to use the same disambiguation suffix for characters (or ships or whatever else we wind up writing up) from the 2015 Robots in Disguise series as well as the 2001 Car Robots/in Disguise series. URLs and links for Fixit (RID) and Slapper (RID), for example, make it look like the characters are from the same continuity, but they're not. Plus, what will we do if the 2015 series has someone named, say, Prowl, or Ironhide, or Mirage or Rollbar or Scourge? We've already got a Grimlock (RID) who's not RID Grimlock and a Side Swipe (RID) who's not RID Sideswipe. Maybe something like Ironhide (2015) or Mirage (RID 2015) or Scourge (RID'15)? Prowl (CN), Rollbar (CN RID)? --Rhymus (talk) 05:00, 22 February 2015 (EST)

Disambig parentheticals have never been about telling which continuity a character is from. And any confusion shouldn't last long because literally the first sentence on any character article tells you what continuity they're from. If there do wind up being cases where there's one in both franchises, we'd likely use (RID 2001) and (RID 2015), much like we already use (Universe 2003) and (Universe 2008) when necessary. Jalaguy (talk) 08:38, 22 February 2015 (EST)
Disambig parentheticals for characters are by franchise of origin as first choice. That is one piece of information that they are supposed to carry. An RID or Universe disambig fails that test. Those parentheticals, while not strictly wiki-ambiguous are real world ambiguous. Agree to changing the standards to reflect this. --Khajidha (talk) 14:11, 22 February 2015 (EST)
While we're on the subject, i am amused that Help:Franchise_identifiers says BT means Binaltech, but the only page we have that uses (BT) for disambiguation is Carzap (BT), with BT meaning Block Town, not Binaltech. Sorry if my last couple edits are a little odd, i suddenly got really sleepy, but i wanted to finish what i was doing lest i forget. --Rhymus (talk) 06:40, 25 February 2015 (EST)

I'm pretty sure that's it!

In case anyone has missed my massive amounts of edits clogging up the recent changes page (sorry about that), I've been working hard for a little while to make sure that every characters' page has every instance of them showing up in every kind of fiction listed. If anyone notices that I've missed something (and is too busy or whatever to do it themselves) please let me know and I'll try to keep it up to date. --Ascendron (talk) 13:49, 22 February 2015 (EST)


Micro Comic Fun Pack

IDW released these small packages last year(?) containing a sticker, temporary tattoo, micro comic, and mirco poster in a series of 4. Characters focused on were Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Grimlock, and Drift. Someone who has more info regarding this line of products should probably start a new page about said comics, as I do not currently possess said products.

Also BTW how do I link a word to a page? I apologize for my unprofessionalism as I'm new to this wiki, all wikis at that.

Multipath adventures/game books

Shouldn't these be under the "Games" rather than "Fiction" headers? - SanityOrMadness (talk) 19:50, 27 February 2015 (EST)

Hmmm, not sure I'd consider the multipath adventures to be games really. It's just a book with many different possible orders to read the pages in. The game books though, I think I'd agree with those being moved. --Tigerpaw28 (talk) 20:43, 1 March 2015 (EST)
According to Wikipedia:Gamebook, a gamebook is a multipath adventure. What game books are you thinking of, 28? (That's an honest question, not me being snarky.) As for whether to put them under "Games" or "Fiction", it never occurred to me to put them under "Games", but it makes sense. i have no objection to it. i also have no objection to leaving them under "Fiction"... even if each book represents a dozen or more micro-continuities. --Rhymus (talk) 23:58, 7 March 2015 (EST)

Ads

Could someone with the appropriate contacts kindly notify TFSource that they're sending us the wrong ads? Last I checked, we had a "first-party toys only" agreement. Pirateblue (talk) 09:26, 1 March 2015 (EST)

Maintenance (2)

Linode say they need to do updates to the servers, so they've scheduled some downtime. The 7th at 3pm UTC for the caching servers, 11pm UTC the same day for the database server, and 12am UTC on the 8th for the application server, so the wiki will go down at those times. Plan your editing accordingly! --abates (talk) 02:45, 2 March 2015 (EST)

Maintenance is over! --abates (talk) 20:31, 7 March 2015 (EST)

mix-n-match: is this possible? and if so, is it noteworthy?

Can someone confirm that Transformers Hero Mashers and Marvel Super Hero Mashers parts are compatible with each other? i'd be surprised if they're not, but i find the wording of our Hero Mashers article ambiguous on that point.

What about Kre-O, MyClones, Potato Heads, Construct-Bots, etc? Can you replace Super Collection Figure/Heroes of Cybertron Metroflex's limbs with MyClone limbs? Can you attach Built to Rule pieces to Construct-Bots figures? Will Hero Mashers limbs attach to Optimash Prime's body? Do Construct-Bots limbs fit Bumble Spud's body?

--Rhymus (talk) 23:46, 7 March 2015 (EST)

Outdated article names?

Hi, I'm new here, and I'd like to point out (I'm sure it's probably already realized by many) that many character article names are outdated. The Aligned Starscream page is referred to as Starscream (WFC). At the time the page was created, WFC probably encompassed the whole Aligned continuity family. But now we have cartoons, toys and comics where Starscream's personality and appearance are often conflicting and completely different from each other. I think it would be a nice idea to firstly rename the page to something like Starscream (Aligned). This would have saved me a lot of confusion the first couple times I visited the wiki. The same goes for most of the other Aligned character articles, and some other character articles too, such as Megatron (BW) (should be Beast Era), and Starscream (Armada) (should be Unicron Trilogy). What is everyone's opinion on this topic? John3637881 (talk) 18:08, 5 April 2015 (EDT)

Please read Help:Disambiguation. --ItsWalky (talk) 18:31, 5 April 2015 (EDT)

IDW G1 First Cybertronian Civil War

I've seen a few redlinks to the First Cybertronian Civil War of the IDW G1 continuity on the wiki. Would anyone object to me creating a page for the war? It is a highly significant event in the IDW G1 reality, we have multiple sources of information for it, and it has had lasting effects even in the currently ongoing Combiner Wars storyline. S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 20:26, 29 April 2015 (EDT)

Go for it.--Jimsorenson (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

Disambig page visual menus

In the interests of making this wiki more friendly for people NOT well-versed in micro-continuity and canon pedantry...
I'm thinking that for the bigger disambig lists for major characters, your Optimusses and Bumblebees and whatnot, under the main text list we have a "gallery" of the various major iterations of those characters in their most publicly-recognizable form, with the images linking to the relevant pages. So it wouldn't have EVERY Optimus Prime, just say G1, RID, Armada, Animated, movie, Prime/RID (perhaps simple collages for characters who change bodies in sequel series). It'd help counter some of this (WFC) and whatnot since kids would, say, know Grimlock from RID 2015 more than some game from however many years ago.
The "not to be confused with"s can go under that. --M Sipher (talk) 13:52, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

Ooh, yes, that's a good idea. Jalaguy (talk) 14:17, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Thirded.--Jimsorenson (talk) 14:19, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Hell, I'd go so far as to put the image version on the TOP, considering the size of some of the disambig lists. --M Sipher (talk) 14:21, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Gallery goes at the top, nitty-gritty goes at the bottom. --ItsWalky (talk) 14:37, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Like how Marvel Database does it? Saix (talk) 15:10, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
I'd like to think we could come up with something better-looking than that particular bit of Wikia coding, but this seems like a great idea. - Chris McFeely (talk) 16:47, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

I took a simple whack at it with a Gallery setup. Nothing fancy, but I think it gets the point across. The final version would probably mix Prime and RID15 Optimus into a single image.
Also, Optimus's disambig page needs some major cleanup to become readable. Those sub-sections are an eyesore. --M Sipher (talk) 18:18, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

Already looking much more user friendly. Great idea, well executed. My one suggestion is that you'd probably be better off using a movie screen capture for the movie version. Something like this: [2]--Jimsorenson (talk) 19:07, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Well yeah, I wanted to, but I was just using whatever was immediately on-hand for example purposes, and movie OP's page is bizarrely bereft of actual full-body CG renders that'd make decent main images. --M Sipher (talk) 19:12, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
I did a little edit as a suggested way of condensing the sub-sections. - Chris McFeely (talk) 19:29, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

I like this decision, but how do we decide which versions of the character make it to the top? For instance, would Shattered Glass Optimus Prime be considered noteworthy, since he has multiple toys and fictional appearances? Grum (talk) 19:33, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

Pretty much nothing Club-originated would qualify. I say this as someone who produced a lot of fiction for the Club, but I would not call any of that "major" in relation to the six up there now. If it's not major-mass-market, it shouldn't really go up there. --M Sipher (talk) 19:37, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Yeah, I think it's a fairly easy division to make - just do it for the main headliner franchises. G1/BW/BM/RID/UT/Movies/Animated/Prime/RID 2015. For characters of Optimus-level scope, anyway. When it's a disambig page containing only versions of a character from... I dunno, Universe and Timelines, then, sure, whatever. - Chris McFeely (talk) 19:39, 10 May 2015 (EDT)
Well, once you're down that far in the list of importance, not sure we'd bother with a gallery. Though I'm sure there's SOME name that's used often enough to form a long list, but rarely/never in major media to maybe justify Gallery-ing... --M Sipher (talk) 19:49, 10 May 2015 (EDT)

So how many incarnations of a character do there need to be before they get a gallery? BT383 (talk) 06:28, 16 May 2015 (EDT)

I've done a fair few of these now and I think we're down to a few borderline cases - guys like Grindor (UT/ROTF), Hightower (RID/ROTF), maybe Leadfoot (G2/DOTM) or Overload (UT/ROTF) and Sideways (who may or may not be the same guy anyway). Otherwise, I'm pretty sure we've covered all the major players. --Emvee (talk) 09:11, 10 June 2015 (EDT)

Movie pages

I've been looking at the pages for the Movie characters that are in the film. and they are really all over the place in organization. Is there anyway we can organize at least the dudes in the film so it read coherently? I feel like McFeely had some sort of sandbox for it. Escargon (talk) 15:15, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

I think I did at one point. My thought was, if I recall, to essentially ditch the attempt at presenting the pages as a continuous narrative, and make complete , uninterrupted sections out of the Movies, the IDW comics and the Titan comics. - Chris McFeely (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
I certainly wouldn't be opposed to that. The 'chronological order' thing works well enough for Aligned pages where everything does more or less line up in order, but yeah, it's pretty much a lost cause for the film characters. Jalaguy (talk) 16:06, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
And shit, I think I was suggesting that before Dark of the Moon was even a thing! - Chris McFeely (talk) 16:08, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
Yeah, I found the article in question, and ROTF is still saying the to be added when it comes thing. Escargon (talk) 16:18, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
Here is that page. Wow, this was aaages ago. I don't even know where to start with a new one - I mean I think our movie sections are pretty grossly over-written as it is, like, no way does Optimus's role in the first movie take nine paragraphs to sum up. - Chris McFeely (talk) 17:37, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
Gave it a tweaking to just show the section headers - this might be easier than it seemed. I've removed "Prepare for Battle" cause that should probably go with the Ride itself on the games page, otherwise everything slots together fairly neatly. I really hate, for instance, that we don't currently subdivide the Titan section to separate the alt. timeline or letters page stuff. - Chris McFeely (talk) 17:49, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
Looks good to me. --M Sipher (talk) 17:57, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
Agreed. Even just the contents list alone is a billion times more readable than the live article. Jalaguy (talk) 18:12, 12 May 2015 (EDT)
This is a really good iudea. And man, seeing convos like this makes me feel better about where we're headed. I mean, this is a shit-ton of work we're heading into (I'm still mulling some of the disambig deals), but I think this is a good direction overall. --M Sipher (talk) 17:20, 12 May 2015 (EDT)

off-topic: tetris

Long-time lurker here. I was looking to do some work on a Tetris Wiki. I see there are at least three that look very similar in content:

Which wiki should I join?

What would be the best way to go about merging the content of all these wikis?

PS I am asking this question here in order to avoid bias.SixShotSon (talk) 21:08, 26 May 2015 (EDT)

Splitting by species

Yeah, I'm rocking the boat this morning - here's another practise I think we need to stop, in the name of accessibility. I think there was merit early on when it was rare, and I think we'd agree it largely spun out of the absolute need to keep Masterforce versions of characters separate from their American counterparts, but the more times that, say, IDW turns a Nebulan into a Cybertronian, the more the distinction for characters like these becomes pointless. I'm inclinded to think along the same lines as we have to do when we discuss splitting a movieverse character - ROTF Lockdown and AOE Lockdown, for instance, are both iterations of the "factionless trophy-collecting hook-handed bounty hunter" Lockdown "archetype", so it would be dumb to split them. But by that token, say, Tracer and Tracer are both rooted in the same "he's Scoop's yellow gun" basis. Peacemaker and Peaceman are both "Pointblank's little gun dude". Brisko and Brisko are both "the guy who has Fangry's face on his back who hangs out with a guy who looks like Fangry". And when you get down to it, sources like the Ladybird Books and the Young Corgi books have been depicting Nebulans as robots since 1987. Let's talk about this. - Chris McFeely (talk) 05:52, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

I'm having trouble visualising what this involves, so to help organise it I'll add a list underneath of affected pages (please edit and update) --Emvee (talk) 07:45, 28 May 2015 (EDT)
I'll throw in - again - that I think we ought to have a sub-intro template, something that lets us write an intro paragraph for a guy like Fort Max at the top of his IDW or Headmasters cartoon section, calling it out visually that this is an important and somewhat different version of this character. -- Repowers (talk) 16:30, 28 May 2015 (EDT)
I'm for it. --M Sipher (talk) 00:41, 29 May 2015 (EDT)
I hadn't realised it was being split by species. There's a point to splitting up the main Masterforce characters and Nebulans we saw a lot of (like if IDW do a robot Galen) and honestly Serpentor (Wings Serpentor is pretty distinct from regular Serpentor), but most of them what's the point? Yeah, stop the splits. --Charles RB (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2015 (GMT)

Characters split by species

Characters with multiple species on one page

Again, seconded. Plus this phenomenon will likely continue to worsen in the near future.--Jimsorenson (talk) 08:10, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

For whatever it's worth, IDW Zetca, Aquastar, Holepunch, Tracer, and Brisko (and maybe Wilder too) have never been human/Nebulan-sized beings, do not transform into weapons or heads, most likely will never transform into weapons or heads, and mostly do their own stuff apart from the IDW version of their -master partner. Isn't being a non-Cybertronian recruited to joining the (heroic or villainous) alien war a significant part of the character background of their archetype? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 10:58, 28 May 2015 (EDT)
We're not here to impose order where none exists, simply for order's sake. IDW Brisko is the IDW incarnation of Fangry's head-forming dude from G1, derived from the same toy and bio - that's pretty much beyond dispute. Separating them onto two pages... accomplishes what, exactly? Consistency? Which is good because... why? -- Repowers (talk) 14:56, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

Sure. --ItsWalky (talk) 11:04, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

I completely agree with Chris's contention. --M Sipher (talk) 15:29, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

What about Stratotronic Jet and Stratotronic? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 22:09, 31 May 2015 (EDT)
One's a thing, the other's a character. Why are you even posing this question? --M Sipher (talk) 22:25, 31 May 2015 (EDT)

Also on the topic of things that are unnecessarily separate: articles for the Predacons who were in Prime and their original Covenant of Primus counterparts. E.G. Predaking (Prime) and Predaking (COP). --abates (talk) 23:17, 28 May 2015 (EDT)

Eeeehhhhhn. I'm iffy on that, in that the Prime Preds are supposed to be clones in the same timestream. So like, derived from the originals, but NOT the originals. It strikes me as a different thing that "alternate universe incarnation". --M Sipher (talk) 12:43, 29 May 2015 (EDT)
Mmhn, yeah. I mean, I get that they're essentially identical, but they do "co-exist" with their own clones. I'm looking more at cases where okay, that dude's normally a nebulon but he's a robot but, but it doesn't matter because he's still this version's take on that same character. - Chris McFeely (talk) 12:49, 29 May 2015 (EDT)
I think it's clear that clones should get their own pages. e.g. Would we merge Dinobot (BW) and Dinobot II? Or Soundwave (G1), Soundwave (G2), and Soundwave (MW)? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 16:53, 29 May 2015 (EDT)
Just to play devil's advocate, those characters coexist with their clonal progenitor, the Predacons don't. I think abates is meaning that the Predacons could be seen as more reincarnation than duplication. --Khajidha (talk) 00:01, 1 June 2015 (EDT)

Bringing this up again. We doing this, now that we're less distracted by "Ask whoever"? --M Sipher (talk) 18:34, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

I vote for merging. Riptide (talk) 19:04, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

A different kind of cleanup

In the same vein of "making this more accessible"... a skim of Tumblr posts about the wiki has turned up quite a lot of... well, let's politely call it "risque" humor. And I'm thinking we should probably trim that down. Tentacle-hentai jokes, dick jokes, etc. We've cut back in other areas that could cause hurt/offense, so maybe let's keep moving that way? We don't need to remove humor, but do we really need sex jokes? --M Sipher (talk) 22:46, 3 June 2015 (EDT)

Yeah, as I go through articles, I try to remove or replace captions with a certain color, but I'm only one dude, and there are 20,000 pages on this thing. --ItsWalky (talk) 13:04, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Just for reference, is there an upper limit on how risqué things should be? Obviously stuff like racial slurs and homophobia are right out, but what about captions like this? Grum (talk) 13:14, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
That's borderline, in that it's a joke that is not immediately, bluntly "ha ha penis". But removing it would not be a bad move.
As I think of it, we MIGHT want to have a template or something for... well, bluntly, to put at the top of some of some articles that warn about material that's really not suited for kids. It's be mostly Kiss Players articles that fall under this, granted, but still. It just feels like a bit of due diligence. --M Sipher (talk) 15:11, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
I do think it's important to not, like, declare sexuality of any kind as terrible and offlimits, but to keep the sketchier references off. Remove stuff that objectifies rather than stuff that's just in the general neighborhood of "this is related to how new biological organisms are made." --ItsWalky (talk) 15:48, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Oh, sure. I wasn't wanting to scrub the wiki "clean". I mean, Animated had a sex joke in its opening miniseries. But I don't think a warning on top of the KP stuff would be out of order, because... yyyyyyeah. --M Sipher (talk) 16:00, 4 June 2015 (EDT)

GoBots articles

Is there some reason why we're not having full coverage of the GoBots characters' exploits in GoBots fiction? It seems kind of silly to acknowledge their existence in Transformers media and then... not really provide relevant information. It's not really like there's any cohesive GoBots site with all information in one spot, you know? Saix (talk) 03:43, 4 June 2015 (EDT)

There is such a site, and its existence has been cited in the past here as one of multiple valid reasons why adding GoBots to this wiki has never gotten off the ground. http://counter-x.net/gobots/ --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 08:34, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
As good as that site is, it doesn't go into nearly as much detail about its topic as we do about ours. Also, it is maintained by a much more limited set of editors (maybe even just one?). Our larger editor base could bring more eyes and viewpoints to the material. --Khajidha (talk) 09:07, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
It's been discussed in the past with some trepidation, and the idea of a "sister wiki" for GoBots content was floated, but nobody really seemed into the idea and we haven't talked about it since. At this point, though, with more and more GoBots stuff working its way into TF fiction, along with the complete release of the GoBots cartoon on DVD, perhaps it's time to talk about giving the GoBots show and characters their full and proper due on TFWiki again. - Chris McFeely (talk) 05:29, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
I don't actually know all that much about the GoBots *coughthatswhyweneedinformativearticlescough*, but I'd be more than willing to help with article maintenance and setup if we ever decide to go ahead with it. Saix (talk) 05:46, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
As I've said before, when the GoBots wiki was proposed I was told that there were technical issues to be taken care of before it could be opened for editing and that the community would be told when it was ready. The next I heard about it was that it was being shut down as not having attracted interested editors. I am still fully supportive of either option, a sister wiki or integration. --Khajidha (talk) 07:12, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
A sister wiki seems like an weird excuse to overcomplicate things. Is there really any reason to not have all the information in one spot? Saix (talk) 07:26, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
At the risk of overcomplicating things further, since we'd be including Go-Bots because the characters were retroactively made into alternate universe Cybertronians/Transformers, would we also provide complete coverage of Robotix since it was retroactively altered the same way? --DrSpengler (talk) 07:59, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
I'd say no, because we wouldn't be covering GoBots specifically because they were retconned to be alt-universe TFs, we'd be covering them because involvement of their universe and characters has become a recurring thing, and the two franchise have always been paired in some capacity or another. Maybe when Robotix actually does something that matters and isn't just a winky in-joke; otherwise covering them would amount to covering something like Jem or Inhumanoids in full. - Chris McFeely (talk) 08:04, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Oh god please no to Robotix.--Jimsorenson (talk) 09:00, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
For the sake of argument: TFWiki don't have complete coverage of G.I. Joe, despite it's many interactions with Transformers. TFWiki has relevant articles, but not complete coverage. Why do so for GoBots? --Crockalley (talk) 08:10, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Can you REALLY not see a difference between G.I.Joe, Jem, Inhumanoids, etc and GoBots and Robotix? Really? GoBots and Robotix have both been said to be counterparts of the Transformers. Joe, Jem, and the Inhumanoids haven't. Covering GoBots and Robotix fiction IS covering TF fiction, covering Joe, Jem, and Inhumanoids fiction is not. --Khajidha (talk) 08:15, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
For the love of God, NO. We already feature all the GoBots characters and stories that were published under the TF brand label, just like the relevant Avengers and G.I.Joes. We don't pull in all of the everythings that all of their colleagues ever did in unrelated, non-Transformers stories. It will never belong here. Adding 80 characters and 100 hours of programming? No. As someone said in one of the prior iterations of this, if Vector Prime said that Pandora was a transdimensional embodiment of Cybertron and Eywa was its Vector Sigma portal, we wouldn't fill this wiki with every character and animal from Avatar. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 08:26, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Avatar isn't a property owned by Hasbro nor something that's been constantly involved in the Transformers multiverse, so I'm not seeing the comparison. It also has its own dedicated fanbase and resources, which isn't really something you can say for GoBots; its presence in real life almost wholly overlaps Transformers. (It'd be around 26 hours, to be accurate.) Saix (talk) 08:46, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
And, ultimately, why does it matter that much if we make one exception for this? It's not going to result in a full-blown biography of Spider-Man from Earth-616 (which exists elsewhere in plenty of places) or full coverage on G.I. Joe (which has its own fanbase that can make a resource if they want to). We're talking about a small subset of articles that you aren't required to work on. Saix (talk) 08:54, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Why wouldn't it result in a full bio of Spiderman? The distinction between the two offtopic properties is arbitrary and insignificant. If you want to talk about ownership, Hasbro owns Visionaries and we know they canonically exist in the Animated galaxy. Shall we bring in articles on Leoric and Heskidorr and the Pig Imp? If you break down the rule of "TF branded material only," then the only thing keeping all the Inhumanoids out is personal preference and "oh, come on!"-ing. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 09:20, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Logic. Any potential revival of Visionaries is not going to be done under the Transformers brand. Spider-Man does not exist under the Transformers brand, G.I. Joe does not exist under the Transformers brand. GoBots now, for all intents and purposes, does. A full revival being hilariously unlikely, anything Hasbro does with the IP in the future - as well as everything it is currently actually allowing licensees to regularly do with the IP in a capacity beyond "referential nudge-nudge wink wink jokes" - is under the Transformers brand. - Chris McFeely (talk) 09:31, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
On the contrary - the only published Visionaries story material in 29 years was under the TF brand. It is far more likely that like Inhumanoids, the Visionaries will continue only as a hanger-on of Tramsformers fiction Easter eggs forever. And all of the GoBots material that was published under the TF brand, and is in any way related to real TF characters and stories, is already here. Which is all that belongs here. Hasbro owned Battle Beasts from the start and we currently include all the actual TF branded appearances of Battle Beasts / Beastformers. But we give only the most sparse coverage to the American comic book and American Battle Beast characters because it wasn't a real, branded, linked TF story the way the Japanese material was. We have to stick with standards and not just what people might personally find fun. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:40, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
That's why I stipulated a capacity beyond referential in-jokes for fans, which is all the Inhumanoids or Visionaries references amount to. I think where the disagreement lies is in whether or not we think of GoBots as another franchise that is being "referenced" or having "crossovers" with Tranformers - that's what Visionaries is, but my stance is that it is no longer the case with GoBots, but that GoBots is now part of the Transformers franchise and warrants broader treatment than Spider-Man-style articles where we pretend we don't know who Leader-1 is. - Chris McFeely (talk) 10:52, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Also, slippery slope arguments are silly, unless the people involved are idiots with no judgement capacity, computers, or state legislatures. You're concerned about things that no one is advocating or interested in. Regardless, I think everyone gets that you're against the idea.--Jimsorenson (talk) 11:00, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
That's not a slippery slope argument. That's pointing out that putting in Go-Bots would be inconsistent with how we treat other non-Transformers franchises. And, frankly, I think Jim Sorenson should probably recuse himself from this discussion since he's the guy trying to use official means to marry TF and Go-Bots with rubber bands, Elmer's glue, and footnotes. It feels a little disingenuous. --ItsWalky (talk) 12:23, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Fair point. I'll bow out. (Though I'm far from the first or only person to play in this sandbox. In fact, expect more from others in the very near future.)--Jimsorenson (talk) 12:55, 4 June 2015 (EDT)

IF we decided to do this, I think we'd want strict guidelines from the start about what is and is not in scope. Since the toys were mostly licensed from Bandai, a Hasbro competitor, I would say they should NOT be included. Also, ancillary media has been pretty much ignored by TF fiction.

My gut says that The Challenge of the GoBots cartoon (65 episodes, 1 movie) is about the extent of what we'd want to include. No coloring books, no Machine Robo, none of that. It's the easiest bit to do, the most influential, and the bit that Hasbro mostly has claim to.--Jimsorenson (talk) 09:16, 4 June 2015 (EDT)

Hasbro has a claim to the cartoon? Then how come Time Warner sells it, no probs, without any Hasbro logos anywhere? --ItsWalky (talk) 12:08, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
The text on the back of the original mini-series DVD refers to "Hasbro's GoBots". - Chris McFeely (talk) 12:20, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
And the newer ones? --ItsWalky (talk) 12:24, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
They don't mention it, no, but I'm just pointing out that Warner's put it on there. Hasbro don't own the cartoon, we know that. I think we can all at least agree GoBots is a weird case, where Hasbro own the "idea" of the property and the characters and story and such but none of the actual physical assets. It's my contention that those "ideas" are now a part of the Transformers brand, and not guest-stars from another franchise. - Chris McFeely (talk) 12:27, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
As far as I can discern, they own the name, what other trademarks they've maintained, and that's about it. They don't own the character likenesses and they certainly don't own the toys, and it's confirmed they don't own the cartoon, either. We're not going to catalog a non-Transformers cartoon Hasbro doesn't own on this wiki, no matter what Vector Prime says. If you want to cover the "idea" of what they own, that can be accomplished by adding to the already-existing "Gobots" article. Hasbro owning part of a sliver of an idea of GoBots doesn't mean we need a "Scratch" or "Sparky" article. --ItsWalky (talk) 12:35, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Agreed. - Chris McFeely (talk) 09:31, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
I'd still like to see all the other stuff done up, but am willing to leave that for another day if it helps get this moving along. --Khajidha (talk) 09:43, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Same. Saix (talk) 09:50, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
This has been asked about 6 times in the recent past, including after the Gobotron incorporation, and it loses every single time. I think it's insppropriate to seriously discuss going ahead with it after about 2 hours of talk. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:01, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
I'm not sure what you're defining as the "recent past", but the last time I can find was in 2010. We're obviously going to wait for more input before we start pumping out articles. Saix (talk) 10:17, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Here's 2011: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Talk:Cy-Kill_(GoBots)
Here's 2012: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers_Wiki_talk:Community_Portal/GoBots --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:51, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
I am with Thy. This has been argued to death a billion times over, and nothing has changed. We're not about to start cataloguing stuff that isn't Transformers media on our Transformers wiki. That's the opposite of what this wiki is about, and no amount of Vector Prime answers will make some Hanna-Barbara series into a Transformers one. Folks who want to catalog Go-Bots should make their own wiki, and if they can't drum up the interest to do so, and have to piggy-back on ours in order to get it done, maybe that should tell ya something. --ItsWalky (talk) 12:13, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Full agreement with Thy and Walky. And I'd like to point out that I'm one of the bastards who created the lion's share of TF-branded GoBots material. --M Sipher (talk) 15:02, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
If we can't document that time Cy-Kill dressed up as George Washington, what's the point of cataloging any of it at all? --Monzo (talk) 10:27, 4 June 2015 (EDT)
Well, you just made my day.--Jimsorenson (talk) 10:44, 4 June 2015 (EDT)

I understand that we're trying to move towards a less cluttered version of the Movie series character pages, but I sometimes feel it's a shame that a lot of media goes unlisted on these characters' pages, since they are merely adaptations of the more prominent movies. Especially since some of these media contain slight changes to the storyline, albeit ones too insignificant to warrant their own section on the page. I was thinking of maybe including notes such as these after the story summaries for Transformers (film), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (film), etc.

(This character)'s involvement in the preceding events, or events mostly similar, were also chronicled in the following media: Transformers: Beginnings/ Bumblebee Rumble/ Transformers: Movie Adaptation/ Optimus Prime Versus Megatron/ The Quest for the AllSpark/ Sam's New Car/ Transformers (interactive Play-a-Sound Storybook)/ Transformers (novel)/ Transformers: The Junior Novel/ Transformers: The Movie Storybook

Of course, the note would vary depending if the character actually DOES appear in the adaptations. Thoughts? Stupid idea or not? --Ascendron (talk) 23:33, 7 June 2015 (EDT)

I don't think storylinks are meant to be used in notes. It ought to be something like "were also chronicled in the motion comic "Transformers: Beginnings" and the books "Optimus Prime Versus Megatron", "The Quest for the AllSpark"" and so on. --abates (talk) 00:00, 8 June 2015 (EDT)
That's fine by me. --Ascendron (talk) 01:28, 8 June 2015 (EDT)

Proposed solution for Sideways debacle, because this isn't going away any time soon, apparently.

I think one of the major problems with Sideways as a chracter, is that we're trying to treat him as any other character, when he kinda isn't. He's the result of multiple authors' conflicting authorial intent. Just like Primus and Unicron get special treatments for their pages (once they've been established as multiversal singularities, everything get worked together on one page), I propose Sideways gets his own special treatment for his page. But Sideways is a unique case, and so should get a unique treatment. I propose Sideways's disambig page to be made into his main page. There, a short bio can take up the top of the page, explaining his multi-dimensional shenanigans. A follow up note clarifying that, since Sideays ISN'T a multiversal singularity, any of the following Sideways could or could not be the same Sideways, be Sideways other Sideways have interacted with, impersonated, killed, been cloned from, etc. Each Sideways article could also have a note that links back to the disambig page, reiterating the situation. Thoutghs? --Ascendron (talk) 15:17, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

That sounds ideal to me, and a lot more elegant than either merging the pages or what we have at the moment. Riptide (talk) 15:28, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Sounds interesting. Could you mock up what you think the disambig page would look like? --Khajidha (talk) 15:29, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Sure, I'll whip something up. --Ascendron (talk) 15:34, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Now, see, this is the kind of thinking we need more of. Break the rules, fer goshsakes! - Chris McFeely (talk) 15:57, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Here's my mock-up:

User:Ascendron/sandbox: Sideways (disambig) Didn't take the time to look up some dates, and I'm open to suggestions to polish/rework some of the paragraphs, but this is more or less what I have in mind. What do you guys things? --Ascendron (talk) 16:18, 30 June 2015 (EDT)

Much better. We need to be doing more stuff like this, rather than trying to shoehorn shit into things that don't fit. --M Sipher (talk) 16:34, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
I'd say that the pages should be RID, Armada/Cybertron (including Robotmasters), Movie, Animated, and Kre-O. I'd also put the notes about the history of his dimension-hopping-ness on the disambig page, along with a fiction section for stuff like Ask Sideways, which kind of has "a blend of all the Sidewayses" as its selling point. Riptide (talk) 16:54, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
A stunning display of rationality!--Jimsorenson (talk) 16:57, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Sounds good to me. --Ascendron (talk) 17:03, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Looks good, although I wouldn't split the UT Sideways into Armada and Cybertron, mostly since the Hasbro edition of AVP made it clear that Hasbro thought of them as the same character. Escargon (talk) 17:21, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
I'll let you guys make the finishing touches to this page, as I have to go to work and then Celebrate Canada Day. I think this is as much as I can do for this page anyways, as I said earlier, I'm not overly familiar with the bulk of this character's fiction. I am very happy this is getting a lot of positive feedback though! --Ascendron (talk) 17:25, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
Like like like like like. -- Repowers (talk) 22:45, 30 June 2015 (EDT)
I went ahead with the article, as there didn't seem to be any strong oppositions to it. Also, thank you Riptide for your contribution to the page, they were very useful. The whole thing needs some work, with the "individual" Sideways's pages needing work, but I think this is a good start. --Ascendron (talk) 18:28, 1 July 2015 (EDT)
The pages certainly look neater this way. Just curious - what makes Robotmasters Sideways a special case? Is he explicitly stated to be the Armada guy? -- flicky1991 04:07, 2 July 2015 (EDT)

Cloud characters' toys

Now that all the Transformers Cloud Autobots and Decepticons have been moved to their G1 pages, should all the G1 pages' toy sections note when Cloud characters repurposed FoC designs? S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent 47 (talk) 10:19, 2 July 2015 (EDT)

Yes. Saix (talk) 10:43, 2 July 2015 (EDT)

Probably an unpopular thought, but...

Considering the unique overlap, should we be keeping Primax and Viron versions of RID characters on separate pages? Saix (talk) 12:38, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

No. --ItsWalky (talk) 14:12, 6 July 2015 (EDT)
That discussion seems to be about renaming (RID) to (CR) or whatever. I'm asking why Sky-Byte (RID) and Sky-Byte (G2) are separate pages when the former already occupies both continuity families at once. I just think it's a case where trying to adhere to the purity of continuities/universal clusters is resulting in a half-assed and contradictory presentation. And all over a franchise that has only a cartoon and one comic story as fiction. Saix (talk) 15:09, 6 July 2015 (EDT)
I'm trying to think if this affects any other characters besides Sky-Byte, because honestly, if he was the only one, I'd probably be inclined to go for it. - Chris McFeely (talk) 15:15, 6 July 2015 (EDT)
Side Burn (G1), Slapper (G1), Dark Scream (G1), and Wrecker Hook. Wrecker Hook should probably be merged anyway, since all of the CR-to-G1 stuff is kept on Sky-Byte's and Fortress Maximus's pages. Saix (talk) 15:19, 6 July 2015 (EDT)
But Robots in Disguise is a separate continuity family to Generation 1 in the English speaking world, and we've always approached things from a Western mindset where applicable. I don't see why Car Robots being part of Generation 1 should mean we should merge RID characters with their G1 counterparts. --abates (talk) 16:25, 6 July 2015 (EDT)
But the characters still exist in both families regardless, especially as Japan makes more fiction for those characters and we're left with a needlessly patchwork situation where some G1 stuff goes on this page while other G1 stuff goes on other page, both with notes out of the wazoo. I just think merging the pages and expanding the identifier at the top would result in a better presentation. Those G1 guys are functionally "RID guys, but in Wings/IDW", anyway... Saix (talk) 11:36, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
Functionally identical characters existing in two different continuity families is one of those weird corner cases like Sideways and should be approached as such. This is a perfect case for making rule exceptions. Having massive write-ups duplicated except for the names is silly and a waste of everyone's time, so I would suggest using the Notes section to clear up any oddities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Giggidy (talk • contribs).
I fail to see how this merge would be productive. What about Megatron (RID)/Gigatron? It'll be a fine mess trying to merge those two pages. --Ascendron (talk) 14:14, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
Mmn, see, now that I'm seeing it goes beyond Sky-Byte, I'm not in favour of it. Sky-Byte's got that messy bit with the Legends comic on his RID page, where we have "the Sky-Byte who was in the RID cartoon" getting blasted into the Legends Universe, except he's ALSO "the Sky-Byte who originated in the G1 continuity family", so that is a bit messy and a merge or a move or something would help that. But in the case of other characters, no, I don't think it helps anything at all, and in the particular cases of Side Burn and Gigatron, it seems like an especially bad move. - Chris McFeely (talk) 14:17, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
With the recent influx of storylines involving Axiom Nexus and the multiverse, having notes indicating a character is from a specific universe traveling to another is kinda par for the course anyways. I don't see it as that big of a deal. --Ascendron (talk) 14:23, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
That's not what's happening at all. Car Robots Gelshark has JG1 stuff beyond the cartoon and so does other characters from that specific continuity (Wrecker Hook, Black Convoy, and Brave Maximus). He's not travelling to a different continuity family. Saix (talk) 19:46, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
I posted a half-formed thought there. I meant more, if we're really inclined to make the distinction on which Sky-Byte is involved in, say the Transformers Legends pack-in comic, we can put "The Sky-Byte from Primax 43213whatever Delta came to the Legends world. My argument boils down mainly that the concept of Car Robots being part of G1 continuity as far as english-speaking audiences are concerned is little more than a footnote. But I nonetheless see the validity of your argument. It's not a bad point. But this whole merging thing would wound up more complicated an affair than just plopping everything together on one page. Some experimenting with some sandbox pages might be necessary. Ascendron (talk) 20:19, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
Well, the idea of RID being its own continuity family/universal cluster is a footnote to begin with, no? People reading Empire of Stone don't think "this Gigatron guy is a Primax individual who is in-fiction completely distinct from the Viron Megatron who appeared in the RID cartoon". They just think it's RID Megatron in IDW continuity. It's a categorization system that exists for our personal convenience; I keep wondering if we'd be having this discussion if AAII hadn't made Viron a thing and canonized a distinction the wiki made because of reasons. Saix (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2015 (EDT)
A big part of this discussion stems from the fact that Hasbro says one thing (I do remember reading somewhere that they said Robots in Disguise is its own thing before AAII) and Takara saying something else. And here we are trying to maintain that they are both right, even though they are saying things that are incompatible. That being said, RID does hold a unique position as being the first true "reboot" of the Transformers franchise (everything before had been a sequel to G1). Being a separate thing is part of its identity as a franchise in that manner. I kinda see the characters as they are now like rectangles and squares. A square is a kind of rectangle, but a rectangle isn't necessarily a square. The character on Sky-Byte (RID) is both a Viron and (in japan) a Primax character, but Sky-Byte (G2) is a Primax character that's not a Viron character. But I'll admit that this might stem from a personal bias. Maybe a new kind of tag for these pages might be the answer? Or a new format for the page? Ascendron (talk) 21:15, 7 July 2015 (EDT)

I think there's a bigger debate to be had here. Continuity Families made an awful lot of sense a while back in terms of segmenting characters. In fact, I was strongly on the side of the 'disambiguate-by-continuity-family' debate. But I'm starting to think that this system isn't working so well anymore. Many of the friction points come when we've got two ostensibly the same guy in the same continuity family who are nothing alike. Admittedly, that's been a part of the franchise since almost day one, but it seems to be getting worse. On the other side, we're starting to get cases where you have the same guy in two different continuity families (Knockout is a very recent example) who gets two separate articles for no good reasons. This didn't used to happen, it used to be that if we had a new continuity family, then almost everyone in it was more or less brand new, sharing only perhaps an archetype. But now, guys like Gigatron show up and it's recognizably Gigatron. Or Sky-Byte. Or Breakdown. Or Rattrap (who is NOT considered a new character because Beast Wars happened before we decided on continuity families and got sorta grandfathered into G1.) Or Bulkhead. The list grows and will almost certainly continue to grow.

I'm not making any specific proposals here, but I think we should at least consider just going case-by-case and ignoring continuity families WHEN IT MAKES SENSE TO DO SO. (I'm not suggesting in any way, shape, or form that we scrap our existing organizational scheme, because goodness knows we need something and what we have works in maybe 90% of the cases.) We've already, for instance, separated out Marvel Shockwave from Sunbow Shockwave from IDW Shockwave, because they're three very different interpretations. We should at least be willing to consider allowing Knockout (G1) & Knockout (Prime) to live on the same page, because they're the same guy with the same design and the same personality. --Jimsorenson (talk) 21:20, 7 July 2015 (EDT)

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