Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal

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Citing sources
I've lost track of the various places this has come up, but some of us have previously discussed how we can cite sources of information without interrupting the flow of an article's text. Derik has even experimented with some templates that could be used. Well, apparently the Wikimedia software has a built-in footnote mechanism, which I noticed somebody else using when I got back from my vacation. (But of course I've forgotten who it was and where they used it.) But anyway, here is the Wikipedia footnotes mechanism. It inserts subscripts in the text that link down to a list of references at the end of the article. I think this is probably unobtrusive enough for those of you who didn't like the idea of "breaking the fourth wall" by making citations in the article text. I recommend that we encourage use of this mechanism. Opinions? --Steve-o 18:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Frequently when reading this wiki, I ask myself, where did that info come from? Often, I'd like to go to the source and find out more info (i.e. curiosity). But I can't because there is no source listed, and I end up asking a question in the discussion page and getting ItsWalky mad at me. For example: Noble/Savage's article says that Silverbolt was to be the traitor, and Megatron would absorb his wolf parts. I am 1) interested in learning more about that, and 2) wondering if this information is even true. Without citing sources, crazy claims like that are left to faith. I don't know how anyone could possibly know that information. Is this information that can be looked up and verified, or is this something the author heard three years ago and decided to write down? How accurate can that be? A footnote system, as is used in the Wikipedia, would go along way to solving these problems. AND, it's not like it's hard to do, Insert a couple pieces of code, and say where you got that information from!!  --Crockalley 11:25, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Site name change?
We never actually went ahead and changed the site's name to the proper spelling: "Teletraan I". ...are we going to do that? I kinda think we should. Aurax hasn't made an edit in a long time, but I'm sure he can be contacted through his website to send somebody like Walky the PSD he used for the logo graphic so we can update it too. --Steve-o 21:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Fixed! Shift-refresh yer browsers. --ItsWalky 00:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. No, I haven't edited much (too busy with the rest of life), but I do check in from time to time. Sorry I missed the request for this. Walky, Steve-O... if either of you want the original PSD and the fonts used, let me know and I'll fire them off to you. Aurax 17:25, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I've looked through the various things I can change, and the site title does not appear to be one of them; as was noted by Sannse in the first archive of this page, it seems that the Wikia tech guys have to do that themselves. It shouldn't be very hard to figure out who should be contacted for that. --Suki Brits 02:27, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Fandom articles
I was kinda hoping that despite Category:Fandom, we'd manage to avoid articles on fandom-related things in favour of more useful content until a decent standard got figured out. Or at least only get the really important stuff done. But I guess not. So right now there isn't really any standard as to what counts as notable enough for an article on a fandom-related topic, and maybe this is just me, but I'm not really sure that things that somebody said once on a.t.t. are significant enough to be worth noting here.

If it's just me, I'll shut up. Anyone else have any thoughts? --Suki Brits 22:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the chewed caramel article should go. EI/AD I'm kinda borderline on. It was a pretty well established term within the internet fandom at one time, but, it's almost entirely unknown now and certainly not relevant to the contemporary fandom. It could arguably be included as a sort of "historical" thing, but, I dunno. Like I said, I'm not sure. --Steve-o 23:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Brits and Steve on this. There's a lot more important things to be done... like, say, various unnamed actual canonical characters, on up to yes, BotCon and episode/comic articles. --M Sipher 01:00, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Troo. And as I discovered, one person's 'popular in fandom' is another's 'strange and obscure', so I think if nothing else it's the sort of category we want to really consider before putting an article to. --Ratbat 01:17, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * By a similar argument, I kind of think the neon article isn't really called for, but on the other hand I personally find it amusing and don't mind it being there. Trukk not munky probably is notable, however.  --Steve-o 05:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Count me in as not seeing the need for anything beyond the most major of fandom notions, especially since some of these really didn't make it outside of ATT by much, if at all ("chewed caramels" and the "woobers" note on faceplate come to mind). Even TRUKK NOT MUNKY and GEEWUNNER might be skirting it a bit, although those two in particular might see a resurgence post-TF2007 movie.  Neon seems to be more of a pet peeve than an actual reference point, but it's laughable enough to make it worthwhile.--MCRG 08:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Television series vs Cartoon
At some point we will need to disambiguate the Scramble City OVA from the "toyline"/subline/toy category Scramble City. When we do, what suffix are we going to give that article? It's not a television series. We could just use (OVA), admittedly, but this is a good excuse for me to bring up something that's been bugging me for a while -- I think the suffix should be (cartoon), and I think all the "(television series)" articles should also be (cartoon). Cartoon is more succinct and more inclusive and is more parallel with "comic" (not "comic series"). It's also a lot easier to remember. I have noticed in the changelogs that I'm not the only person who can't remember "television series" as opposed to "animated series" or other similar constructions. We started out with cartoon, but then in Singularity's initial burst of doing things, before he left and came back, he moved a bunch of them to television series, and I never got around to moving them back, and now there is some inertia to the television series scheme. But I still prefer "cartoon". Anybody have an opinion one way or the other? --Steve-o 02:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I prefer cartoon for the same reason. It's shorter and easier to remember, and there just isn't any advantage to using the longer one. --Suki Brits 05:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thirded. --M Sipher 05:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * (Television series) "feels" right to me. As would (animated series), I think. (Cartoon), though of course accurate and having the advantage of being a single word, wouldn't. --KilMichaelMcC 06:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * To add a bit more, I think it's because (television series) or (animated series) seem more... encyclopedish... to me. --KilMichaelMcC 06:04, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I moved the articles to "television series" as that was what Wikipedia used. I don't particularly care about it now. Interrobang 06:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't like "cartoon." Cartoons can be anything, from comic books to doodles to animated series.  To some folks, the Marvel Comics are cartoons.  I mean, heck,  I'm a cartoonist, that's my job, but I sure as hell don't animate anything.  That's why I prefer "animated series" or "television series," just to be precise.  --ItsWalky 11:42, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess I kind of forgot we had this conversation going. I favor cartoon because "cartoon" is the way every single English-speaking fan always refers to the cartoons.  You're never going to see, in a random discussion on Allspark or ATT or whatever, people talking about the "television series", nor will you hear people saying that in face to face conversation.  "Cartoon" and "comic" are the words used absolutely universally by fans when talking about these different media.  I see no reason for us to use a longer term that nobody else uses when the short one isn't incorrect.  --Steve-o 17:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Toy Bio/Citiation
Moved from Talk: Optimus Minor

I know I introduced a new concept with putting toy bio sections under fiction, but frequently, toy bio info contradicts other fictions, and therefore doesn't belong in the introductory paragraph. For axample, Minor's toy bio discribes him as having trouble controlling his savage animal side, but this is not displayed in the IDW comics, AND in IDW he is not a product of Megatron's cloning experiments. Is there an inherent incompatibility between a Toy Bio section and this wiki? Why is it bad to have a toy bio section? --Crockalley 15:05, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with Crockalley: in the event where a character has a bio that doesn't match-up with his cartoon/comic portrayal, I think it is entirely appropriate to have separate section to cover that under the fiction heading. --KilMichaelMcC 17:26, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Seconded. It makes sense when necessary. Also, sometimes bios have events that dont' belong int he bio proper.  (Optimus Prime's battle int he Mirtonian constellation, for sinstance, does not belong in his main bio.) -Derik 17:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thirded. Also, can we be more aggressive about source-citing in the intro paragraph?  Whenever an intro is longer than a sentence or two, I start to doubt its relevance.  For instance, I'll see a bunch of suspiciously-highly-detailed info about some Nebulan's personality and history, and I'll wonder:  Did this come from a Marvel TFU profile, a DW profile, an actual story, a tech-spec bio, what?  As a rule, I think that ANY piece of info that only exists in one place should be confined to its continuity of origin.  But, if that's too extreme a policy, then there should be citations of some sort within the intro. - Jackpot 18:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. I often find myself wondering where a lot of this information comes from. If it's not under a heading in the fiction section, there's often no clues as to the information's origin. --Crockalley 19:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think that, unless we have another contradictory source, the assumption is that information is universal, which feels right to me. But getting more strict about inclusing a 'sources cited' section might not be bad.  (Not necessarily footnoted, in most case that level fo distinction is unnecessary.) -Derik 19:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * And my assumption regarding TF fiction is that if something is stated in only one continuity, then it's not necessarily applicable to the others. It can be, but presenting it as though it's universal limits the possibilities of all the other continuities.  For instance, Soundwave.  His intro-paragraph presents the backstabbing-opportunist-who-everybody-hates-and-distrusts aspect of his tech-spec bio as though it applies universally.  Yet there's little to no sign of that in his cartoon portrayal.  He MIGHT be blackmailing other 'Cons "off-camera," but he could also be as straightforward as he seems.  In fact, the "Animated continuity" section has to specifically mention he "only infrequently exhibit[ed] any traits that could be consider[ed] to be in line with his tech spec."  So if it wasn't universal, why was it in the intro?  I think tech-spec bios should get their own "Fiction" subsection, and for that matter, comic profiles should be separately called out within their continuities. - Jackpot 20:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * In reply to you, Derik: If the info is under the heading "Marvel Comics", that's self explanatory. But there's a lot of info that's not under a heading, and in those cases, I think it would be appropriate to indicate a source. --Crockalley 20:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the best approach is this: If there is only one real portrayle of a character (say Bumblebee) that goes at the begining. If there are different portrayles given fairly equal establishment (say Blaster, Comic vrs. Toon) then there should just be a note up top and appropriate character profiles under the respective fiction sections. If (as with OP Minor here) there's one Major fictive portrayle (IDW where there's an actual story) but then one minor that disagrees (a few techspec lines) the Major should go at the top, and then in the fiction section should be a seperate Toy Bio entry with the differnt persona. Would that make sense? ZacWilliam 23:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree fully with this. A one-sentence opening for a character page just... looks bad if there's anything that could actually fill it. Besides, it'd hardly be the first time fiction and bio didn't line up completely. --M Sipher 23:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed --Crockalley 00:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It sounds like we have a fundamental difference in taste. Not only does a short opening not look bad to me, but like I said above, the longer it is, the less I trust it.  I quickly begin to suspect that it's either paraphrased from a comic profile (which seem in most cases apocryphal to the actual stories) or cobbled together from multiple continuities into a whole that doesn't really exist in any (see Soundwave again).  As for OpMinor in particular:  Since he gets actual characterization in only one continuity, I don't think he needs an intro at ALL.  Just weave his personality traits into his "IDW Comics" bio.  The only reason I can think of for an intro to even exist is if the story-bio section is too long or complicated to expect an average Wiki-surfer to read.  But that's certainly not the case here, and in the places where it is the case (such as, say, Optimus Prime), there are enough universal elements supported by all continuities to construct an unobjectionable, relevant intro. - Jackpot 03:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I see where you're coming from, you want to avoid character bios that have ca jumbled continuity. That works fine for most characters, but a character with multiple incarnations... how the hell do you write a bio without mixing continuities?
 * Look at Springer. He's a wise-cracking Han Solo type who thinks of hismelf a a modern knight in the cartoon, an angsty self-doubting Wrecker in the Marvel Uk comics, and a confident but non-joking team leader in Dreamwave.  In the cartoon he frequently uses a sword or lance, in the Marvel comic he's a gun-wielder, in Dreamwave he actually uses the jumping abilities his bios talked about but he never used.
 * Where does the truth of thie character lie? The bio here tries to be as broad as possible, mentioning all hsi abilities, and putting his different characterizations into a context that makes them not seem like total contradictions, but just two sides of the same coin.
 * I argue that the entire point of the top bios is the give that at-a-glance no-particular-continuity view of a character. If a reader wants to knwo all the introcacies, they can read the entire entry.  The point of the introduction is to introduce.  And further- whu should the introduction choose one continuity to favor aboce others?  "Well, there's a wide degree of variation, but this is the RIGHT one."


 * Also? Soundwave WAS a traitorous backstabber in almost every continuity except the sunbow cartoon and the Kids Stuff storybooks.  You can argue tyhat the cartoon was so priminent that maybe the backstabber aspect of his personality shouldn't be given such a front-and-center highlighting in the introduction, I might even agree with you, but it's only a 'glaring inaccuracy' if you hold the cartoon up above all other continuities.  In the UK, Soudnwave became leader of the Decepticons for a time based entirely on his worst examnple of backstabbery.  That part of his personality deserves highlighting just as much as his 'loyal spearcarrier' side. -Derik 05:59, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Certainly I don't think the intros should favor one continuity over the others. Like I said, the only information that I think properly belongs in an intro is that which can be supported universally.  For instance, "Shockwave is a cold, unemotional, high-ranking Decepticon who never took on a Terran alt-mode."  Those statements are all evidenced by his portrayals across continuities.  Since I'm in favor of keeping the intros as brief as possible, I'm happy to stop there.  But if more is really called for, then I think distinctions have to be made.  "Across continuities, he has been portrayed in distinctly different ways:  As hyper-logical and obsessed with attaining leadership of the Earth-bound Decepticons; as steadfastly loyal to Megatron and content to maintain stewardship over Cybertron for him; or as a seemingly benevolent but iron-fisted dictator who ruled a peaceful Cybertron for ages and considered the still-battling Earth-bound TFs barbaric."  This goes hand-in-hand with my earlier call for better citation.  That text could easily be accompanied with footnotes or sidenotes.  Or even be rewritten to include mentions of which continuities the various portrayals came from. - Jackpot 06:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, Shockwave took a Terran alt-mode in Hearts of Steel. And probably the DW Joe crossover, too.  So we're down to "Shockwave is a cold, unemotional, high-ranking Decepticon."  Except sometimes he's called Shockblast.  And I bet you could make the point that the cartoon didn't really convey the "cold and unemotional" aspect very well, and to state it in the top could be considered kind of misleading, so we're really down to only "Shock*."  Which is really ridiculous.  Are we going to be pairing down everyone's bios as new continuities are established which don't touch on every single point of a character's personality?  IDW's given Dogfight lines, but they haven't shown that he's quick to anger yet.  Should we dump half his profile section until they get to that part? --ItsWalky 13:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I understand where you're coming from, wanting it to be absolutely clear where a character's personality info is from, but at the same time I REALLY dislike the idea of doing away with the characterization paragraph intro. I think it's probably most likely that folks will look up a character to find out what they were like, that first techspec bio style paragraph, as much as what they did (their fiction biography). It's certainly why I'd look up an obscure character. If you hide that info or obfuscate it by diffusing it throughout the fiction's chronicle of events you make the wiki a lot less useful and helpful in many situations.


 * Really characters with multiple conflicting portrayles are still BY FAR a minority across the huge spectrum of TF fiction. I see no problem in treating them as what they are: Special Cases, giving them a note to that effect, and seperate characterization profiles at the start of each fiction section. This way, the ones it is an issue for are delt with and the majority, for whom it poses no problem, maintain the more attractive and useful profile first style. ZacWilliam 10:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a few comments to add to this discussion: --Steve-o 02:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This conversation probably should have been moved to the community portal's talk page because it concerns site-wide policies. I only randomly decided to look at it because I'm bored and it seemed like a lot of people had been posting to it.  It it were posted to the portal, though, I would have known it was important.
 * Toy bio information should absolutely be allowed under "Fiction".
 * I wish nearly everything on the Wiki were cited, but that would be a lot of work, and also most of the editors aside from me don't like the idea of "breaking the fourth wall" by giving citations.
 * I like that our character pages have an intro, and I like that it is a continuity-nonspecific overview of the character's personality. As Walky describes, we can't really limit the intro to things which we know are correct in all continuities, because there's always going to be some "minor" universe where it isn't true and you end up with nothing to say at all.
 * On the other hand, if some portrayals are vastly different than others, then (as the discussion seems to be settling on) I think there should be some sort of statement of that before the table of contents. I don't know how to do that without breaking the fourth wall.  I also don't care.  But some of you do.
 * Like Jackpot, I don't like it when the intros get long, although my threshold is higher than his. A three paragraph "overview" is excessive except for especially notable characters (Optimus Primal and Megatron (BW) both have long, but appropriate introductions).  I don't mind an intro which is only two sentences.  If that's all there is that can really be said without pushing into inaccurate continuity-melding, then so be it.  The intro for Omega Supreme (G1), for example, seems quite sufficient to me.
 * There's no reason that a "Fiction" subsection can't start with a personality overview instead of diving right into a list of events in those cases where a separate overview is needed.

Currency
How do people feel about requiring that any instances of price listings include a clarifier of which currency is being used? In practice, all this would mean is changing the instances of $ to US$, just to distinguish between all of those other countries that also use dollars. Also, by giving a clear point of reference, it mean we avoid the cumbersome silliness of potentially listing any prices in every major currency. Triganic Pu, anyone? --Sofaman 08:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds reasonable to me. --Steve-o 16:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah. --ItsWalky 17:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * That's good then - does this proposal get added to the Style Guide, or what happens? --Sofaman 00:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * To clarify (well, add) - for the majority of toys the above is fine, but we should probably also have a Yen standard for Japan-only toys, and perhaps Pounds Sterling for Euro-only releases (since that's pretty much the only late G1/G2-era European currency still in existence)? --Sofaman 07:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

One thing I awlays wanted to incorporate into the toy entires, though I have yet to figure out a good way HOW, is the original prices for the toys. While from the BW (and posisbly G2) era on this is not so difficult, but early G1 espeically, prices were all over the fucking map on even a single piece. I have a big list of them (even bigger if Karl ever sends me the images from their collection, thankfully they took photos of EVERYTHING), but how to incorporate them... whoo. --M Sipher 21:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * We could just list whatever the Recommended Retail Price was, couldn't we? --Sofaman 00:12, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Retailers made up MSRPs all the damn time. Unreliable and inaccurate. --M Sipher 02:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Didn't Hasbro issue its own RRPs though? I seem to recall they did here in Australia - was that practice different in other countries?  I don't dispute that having all sorts of different pricing makes it more confusing, but if there is a fairly standard RRP, that at least would give a 'ball park' for each figure. --Sofaman 07:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * We could use the KayBee 'original prices'! -Derik 10:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Why not? The discussion just seems to be about finding the least-inaccurate or most-agreeable 'standard' for base G1 pricing. (Help me out if I've missed a joke, BTW - we don't have KayBee in Australia)  --Sofaman 11:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The problem is, in the days before Wal-mart, there was no real standard. Prices varied wildly from store to store, moment to moment.  Places made up their own MSRPs.  --ItsWalky 14:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

"Characters" categories
Recently some characters have had their category changed from simply their franchise/continuity of origin to a special characters category. For example, most if not all the G1 characters have been removed from Category:Generation 1 and put into Category:Generation 1 characters. This is discussed briefly in Category talk: Beast Wars characters.

I think this is probably a good idea because otherwise the parent categories (in this case) will become bloated with both character and non-character articles all mixed together. It also helps to sort the "character" categories, making it easier to find a particular character. The only drawback I can see is that if somebody were looking for a particular character, but didn't know what line they were from, a list of all "character" articles might be easier to look through than a sorted list. In that case though, that user would be better off doing a search instead of browsing... so... I'm not too concerned.

I think we should probably make this change for all our character pages. However, there is one question about how we do it: should character pages be categorized based on continuity, or on franchise of origin? This brings us back to our old question as discussed under "franchise designations". Sorting by continuity family would leave some categories far too bloated to be useful. Sorting by franchise would mean that the UT Characters category -- which is just getting started -- should be split up. Walky's suggestion of a "Beast Era characters" (as seen on the above-linked talk page) wouldn't fit in either scheme. However... I kind of like it.

My ideal scheme would be G1, Beast Era, RID, and UT, which is neither continuity- nor franchise-based. Also it's not totally clear where G2 or Machine Wars would go under that scheme. But if feels sensible to me... I guess that is the way I generally categorize TF stuff in my mind, even though it isn't an easily-justified scheme.

I think we should have some discussion on this matter and try to reach a consensus before we do too much more grunt work in changing categories. Please post your thoughts and preferences.

--Steve-o 17:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I propose this hierarchy:
 * Generation 1 characters (G1, G2, MW, RM, KP, etc)
 * Beast Era characters (BW, BM, BWII, BWN, TFU)
 * Robots in Disguise characters (duh)
 * Unicron Trilogy characters (A, E, C)

Timelines characters would get tossed into whichever of the above groups they fall into best. Flareup would go into G1. Unit 1 would go into BW. Skyfall would go into UT.

Of course, that probably means Ravage should be in both G1 and Beast Era categories. Which seems a bit odd, but I can't see leaving him out of either. --ItsWalky 17:58, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * And Laserbeak. And Buzzsaw, Divebomb, and Razorclaw. G1 Megatron and Optimus Prime could count if you include their whole "Hi, we're back from J'nwan for a couple of panels in a convention comic" thing. I'm good with the proposed hierarchy. We could also make "Maximals" a subcategory of "Beast Era characters", so we don't have to add the category to those guys. The same can't be done for Predacon, though, cuz it bleeds into RiD. Interrobang 18:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)