User talk:Repowers

Rob's Big To-Do List!
An ever-changing list of stuff that needs taking care of. I'll get to it eventually, but if anyone else wants to pitch in, go for it!

General cleanup: - State Games - The Magnificent Six - Prime Bomb? - Chain Gang? - Dreadwing Down? - Trigger Happy - has Megatron and Scoop on Earth, so, no. - The Quest - one of those recap-the-storyline ones. - Destiny of the Dinobots? (Earthforce?) - Ark Duty (future Autobots) - Peace (future Autobots)
 * Universe (comic) issues are still a mess. They should all look like this page when all's said and done.
 * Primeval Dawn needs its own intro page like Matrix Quest has.
 * Finale II needs synopsis.
 * Overview page looks awful.
 * Most issue pages look awful.
 * The caption "The universe is very large place." has not been used. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
 * UK-only issues - reprint notes should be same format as US issues.
 * UK Annual text stories -- which ones fit with the mainline comic?
 * UK Future Autobot stories -- cross-link somehow?
 * Ark Duty!
 * Prime's Rib
 * Peace
 * Armada mini-comics
 * Energon mini-comic pages don't exist at all. WTF, mate?

Toyline pages: Most of these are just straight lists of toys. They need overview writeups: what common elements did the toys have, standard gimmicks, packaging notes, sub-lines, items of special note, reception by fans and general public, images of some sample toys.
 * Generation 1 (toyline) -- Just about perfect.
 * Generation 2 (toyline) -- needs re-writing, and images.
 * Movie (toyline) -- main line has writeup & images. Many sublines have nothing.  Add cross-sells.
 * Beast Machines (toyline) - needs images/cross-sells.
 * Robots in Disguise (toyline) - needs images/cross-sells.
 * Cybertron (toyline) - cleanup, images.
 * Beast Wars (toyline) - cleanup.
 * Machine Wars - needs a few images.
 * Universe (toyline) - completely out of standard. Needs to be broken down by year, faction, and size class.  Could have more write-up, and needs images.  Purple Silverbolt would be ideal.  Or catalog.

Standard format:
 * Armada (Panini comic)

Comic series organization project
MARVEL GENERATION ONE Marvel Comics - publisher page. Short overview of the series, and links to:
 * Generation 1 (Marvel Comics) - Series overview page. Covers the US series and the UK series.  Needs more images -- UK comic covers in particular.
 * Generation 2 (Marvel Comics) - Series overview page.
 * G.I. Joe and the Transformers
 * Headmasters (comic)
 * Transformers Universe (Marvel comic)

Marvel_Comics_continuity - page about the continuity. Still need to link more stuff back to this page. http://transformers.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Marvel_US_issues - not so critical now that everything's got nav boxes.

DREAMWAVE GENERATION ONE Dreamwave - publisher. Lists issues but is mostly about the company. Dreamwave timeline Dreamwave continuity

IDW GENERATION ONE <BR>IDW Publishing - publisher page. Intro to rebooted continuity and list of issues ordered by date of publication. <BR>IDW timeline <BR>IDW continuity

DEVIL'S DUE <BR>Devil's Due - publisher page. Short history, list of miniseries. <BR>Devil's Due timeline - No timeline page at present. <BR>G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers continuity - Continuity overview page. Also lists the four miniseries. They should all link back to it.

G1 CARTOON <BR>Generation 1 (cartoon) <BR>Generation 1 cartoon timeline <BR>Generation 1 cartoon timeline (Japan) <BR>Generation 1 cartoon timeline (Japan)/src <BR>No continuity page at present.

BEAST ERA CARTOONS <BR>Beast Era - short overview page, links to main franchise pages. <BR>Beast Wars (cartoon) <BR>Beast Machines (cartoon) <BR>Beast Era timeline - page doesn't exist yet. <BR>No continuity page at present.

Testing Comics nav template for mini-series
The Transformers: Infiltration is the first in a line of miniseries by IDW Publishing set in a "re-boot" of the Generation 1 continuity, bringing the presence on Earth of the Autobots and Decepticons into the present day and placing the "robots in disguise" concept firmly in the forefront of its narrative. Infiltration is set in the same time period as The Transformers: Stormbringer and both are followed by The Transformers: Escalation.

...man, that doesn't really work, does it. What comes next -- Stormbringer? Escalation? One of the Spotlights?
 * IDW's timeline is epochal, with each successive era marked by it's G1 miniseries. There may be other events that take place between the minis-- even (in the case of Stormbringer) major events but the G1 minis are the 'core' of the brand.  We need a markup that recognizes this. -Derik 11:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that makes sense... so long as they all also link back to a continuity page so the complete picture is available as well. -- Repowers 15:01, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Images
Hi, as the self-appointed pics guy (as I probably upload the most pics here), I'd suggest that you use Photoshop to edit out the backgrounds of the MTMTE scans you upload, so we're left with a nice, white background that matches the default colour of the wiki.

I'd also advise you to use copyright tags when uploading images such as:

for Hasbro/Takara-owned images such as stock toy photos or screencaps.

for comic page scans (which apply for the MTMTE series).

for comic covers.

for general pictures relating to Transformers but not exactly owned by Hasbro, or its a legal grey area. This can be used when you upload toy photos that you didn't take yourself.

A tip for recognising artists - Don Figueroa is VERY prolific in the MTMTE series, and you can tell which works are his by by their big hands with vents on the back of them, which are his trademark. Another trademark of his is cyclindrical piping on the edges of limbs, particularly the thighs. Also, most artists tended to be assigned all the art for a particular subgroup or team.

If in doubt, use and it will be added to the category of art by undetermined artists.

Finally, I would advise caution in using so many pictures from a single source, as it would be hard to argue fair use. -FFN 19:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the tips. I may not have time to follow up on 'em all today but I will soon.  Ish.


 * The toy photos, FYI, are all my own. Isn't there some "I hereby release into public domain blah blah blah" template for that sort of thing? -- Repowers 19:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't believe we do, at least to my knowledge. You can just say something like 'Photos by User:Repowers, released to the public domain.'


 * I've started adding tags to the pictures you've uploaded, but I'll leave the toy pics alone now. --FFN 19:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Slog
Can you scan a picture of Slog's MTMTE robot mode? I prefer to use some kind of uncluttered 'profile' pic if possible for the main article picture, and comic panels for the fiction section (since there isn't anything there in the Marvel section anyway). Assumign the scan of is good quality, I suggest using the magic wand tool in photoshop to cut out the background, leaving a nice, white crisp background behind the character.

I'm going to request the deletion of the beast mode picture because we can't fit it anywhere in the article, and we should only have one picture up at the start.

Formatting tip - when you don't want images to jut into other article sections or mess up the formatting, use instead of a bunch of return key strokes :D --FFN 04:53, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

US/UK Navboxes
Following is the sequence that should be used for the remaining UK stories as their pages are created:

232-235: King Con, Small War, Prime's Rib, Deathbringer

236-239 Wrestling, Way/Savage/Survival

240-242 Back from Dead, Out to Lunch, RAge, Assault

243-245 Resurrection Gambit, Mind Games, Two MEgs, Underworld

246-248 All the Familiar, Demons, Dawn of Darkness, Fallen Star

249-251 Skin Deep, Whose LIfeforce, Greatest Gift, The Void.

252-255 Yesterday's Heroes, Edge of Impact, Shadow of Evil, White Fire

256-261 Perchance, Primal Scream, Starting Over

262-264 Bird of Prey, Two STeps BAck, Break away, Desert Island risks

282-285 Kings of the Wild Frontier, Shut Up, Maneuvers, Assassins, External Forces

286-289 Deadly Obsession ,Lesser Evil, Frontline, INside Story, End of the Road

Older Discussion
I'm bringing this up to you since you seem to be the main person integrating them. It seems unelegant, but at the same time the simplest solution. Could their simply be two navboxes on each (relevant) issue page? One for the US comic, and one for the UK?

It looks like the shared stories are summarized under their US issue numbers, using Deadly Obsession as a single example. It wouldn't be much to edit these pages to make their UK numberings a bit more prominent; a navbox would actually take care of that fine.

It would also require some minor edits to link seperate second-story-only pages to the stories which they share books with. Just something like "UK issue #254 also contained White Fire." I think that could be fit into the UK navbox, or worked in with the initial information block containing the reprint notice is.--Sntint 02:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If possible, putting it in a single navbox would be best allowing for as many listings as needed for the various reprints, as well as a "printed with" below the next and previous links. I don't think anything has been reprinted more than three times in a comic series. --FortMax 02:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh lordy lordy, the whole thing's such a headache I don't wanna think about it just now. But you're right, we do need to address it sooner or later, somehow.  Someone who knows something about setting up nav boxes should probably decide how it's best done, though.
 * There aren't any UK issues with *two* original stories in them, right? -- Repowers 06:16, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I dunno about the Titan comics, but there was only one Marvel UK comic with more than two TF stories period (issue 232, which had a US story, the end of a UK reprint and the start of a new UK story. I've thought it over, and figured it would be best for one navbox per series instead od one with every comic series the story was printed in. That way, there would only be at most two sets of "next" and "previous" links, which could be done by adding some optional parameters to the current template.

The one problem is how to deal with stories printed in the same issue. Few of the B&W UK strips are multi parters, so some US reprints have three or four UK backup strips. Not to mention the Transformers Magazine of the current Titan comics. --FortMax 17:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Got it made up. The real beauty is no change need to be made for issues not reprinted in the same series.

--FortMax 18:24, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hrm. I'm not sure why we even need to worry about the reprinted stories -- they're just straight reprints of previous stories, right?  The chain of links should just run straight through the set of stories once, in the order it was published.  Why not just skip the reprints?   If we want to record the info, it should just go as a note as on the story's page.  -- Repowers 21:03, 17 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I was thinking the same thing. The main Marvel Comic page lists everything as issue numbers, but the actual individual pages are made for stories, not issues.  So we take Story X.  In the UK, Story X is followed by Story Y.  In the US, Story Y wasn't printed and story X is followed by Story W.  A UK Navbox would, from X's page, link "Y" as "Next->", and the US would link W as "Next->".


 * Now, I'm not very familiar with the original printing format, so this may be all hypothetical. Given what I just pointed out about the organization of the pages... standalone backup strips can either be "pooled", set aside, and then inserted into the "navbox stream" after the main story they backed up.  Or, they can (more simply) share story pages with their appropriate main story.  My first solution would allow for shorter, more concise story pages, the second would better preserve the issue sequence of the "<-prev/next->" links.


 * I feel like I might not be communicating my ideas properly, so please tell me if I need to clarify! --Sntint 21:39, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I gotcha. It looks like we've already got a precedent, with (for example) "Perchance to Dream" having its own page.  I don't know what else was in those 6 issues, but presumably it was something that's already covered in the US issues.
 * I suppose someone could come into the list link for, say, UK #259, looking for "Perchance to Dream", only to find "Primal Scream". ("Perchance" ran #255-260; on our list, it's linked from #255-258.)  But anyone with that specific a knowledge of the UK stories will probably be able to figure it out... especially if there's a handy nav box to lead them to the previous and next story.
 * The contents of each UK issue could maybe be summarized along with the "also printed in..." note for the UK, though that's maybe getting a bit unwieldy. Not having a big list of what's in which issue hurts.  Does such a thing exist on the net anywhere?  -- Repowers 21:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If one isn't found by late tonight I'll take a stab at compiling one. I didn't find much on a (very brief) Google search for "transformers uk issue list".  The best possible chance I can think of for finding one would... be on Iggy's old links page, and I wasn't able to pull that up on Internet Archive immediately.  Like I said, though I'll have more time later tonight. --Sntint 22:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Heck, come to think of it? We should just have that list as a wiki page.  Then the story pages can just be story pages, instead of trying to describe what parts of what are in which issue (ie, Perchance is spread across 6 issues.  Are we gonna have 6 notes on the Perchance page?  "#255 had Part 1 of Perchance and the second part of blah blah whichever story".  Sounds messy and to be avoided.)   Not sure how the issues would link back to it... maybe from the Marvel G1 page. -- Repowers 22:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Got your list here --FortMax 00:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

To-do-list
Oh, I thought the to-do list was for yourself. You know, like a list of New Years Resolutions. ...you're not one of THOSE people, are you? --ItsWalky 02:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It is, mostly, yeah. But if anybody wants to pitch in, that'd be nice too.  -- Repowers 03:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC), one of THOSE people.

Good job
Hey nice edits man. You fix grammar too. Also I like the way you always edit things because what you did was impressive.(76.195.186.73 00:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC))

You're doing a heckuva job, Powersy. --ItsWalky 20:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I just went to fix the 1992 Annual entry after realising my mistake, and you've already done it! Quick work. --Specimen-17 20:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Carnivac
The deletion of your paragraph wasn't intentional. This is the third time this has happened to me, twice today alone. I initiate an edit, go through all the text carefully to check for spelling, punctuation, etc., and by the time I'm done, someone else has already made another edit. However, when I submit my edit, I get no "out of date version" warning; it's simply processed as normal. As noted on my Talk page in a discussion with Sipher, the wiki response was very sluggish for me this afternoon, which may or may not have had anything to do with it.--Apcog 00:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay, fair enough. Sorry if I seemed like I was jumping down your throat. :] -- Repowers 03:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No need to apologize; you weren't harsh at all. I'm annoyed with the situation, not the people bringing it to my attention.--Apcog 06:33, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Package art
This'll help with the back-of-package art info! - Chris McFeely 20:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Template names
Hey, Rob -- you might be done creating nav templates now anyway, but just in case you are planning to do more: I recommend using all lowercase letters in the name of any template you create. It looks like there was already a mixture of cases in the nav templates when you started making yours, but, if template names are always all-lowercase, that just makes it easier to remember. Like all wiki pages with initial capital letters, something like Template:Nav-armada can be called with, ignoring the initial capital. But if there's a capital letter in the middle somewhere, you have to match it or the link doesn't work. I'll put it on my todo list to go through all the templates and remove extraneous capital letters... But for future reference, please stick to lowercase. :) --Steve-o 05:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If it comes up again, I'll stick to lower case. I was just following what seemed to be the precedent, but what you say about linking makes a lot of sense. -- Repowers 06:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Screencaps
You've got some fantastic screencaps from the G1 cartoon on your blog. Any chance we could use some for episode/character pages? -- Repowers 19:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Why, thanks. The site is a little obsession of mine. I'd post more pictures on this wiki, but I haven't had the time. Do have some specific ones in mind you want? --Suzyprime 19:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * None in particular at the moment -- I was just skimming. Some of the group shots would be good for the main G1 cartoon page.  Other than that, every episode page ought to have a couple of screencaps; likewise for character pages. -- Repowers 19:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Protoform Toys
Awww...after all I went through to be sure the parallel versions were all accurate, too. Oh well, at least one of my captions survived, and the individual toy pages are fixed.--Apcog 15:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * My sole purpose in life is to torment you thus! BWAAHAHAHA.
 * Seriously... I almost purged the whole section before realizing it is a good idea to at least have some mention of toy incarnations. But IMO it's asking for trouble to have the same info repeated in two places like that.  They'll inevitably drift apart.  Anyways, what with this whole "World Wide Web" thing, we can just link from one location to the other and save ourselves the trouble! -- Repowers 16:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ehn, I wasn't objecting to the deletion on principle or anything, just expressing disappointment that I'd expended some effort for nothing. As noted, the fixes still exist on Prime and Starscream's toy pages, so it's not like all the work was for naught.
 * I kinda miss my revised Starscream caption, but I'll live.--Apcog 16:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Show bible
... came "much, much later"? What, exactly, the hell? --M Sipher 19:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Who on ATT in 1994 had read the show bible? NOBODY, that's who! It was not a consideration until years later.  -- Repowers 19:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

"error" in Prime spotlight
''Bristleback asks a question ("Which is?"), and Birdbrain starts to answer it ("SMASH our way in..."). However, in the following panel, Bristleback is shown finishing Birdbrain's sentence ("...and kill WHOEVER and WHATEVER we find inside!")''


 * Not an error, here's why... In the panel before, one of them (not pictured) says "It it him?" [referring to Omega].  Then someone says "Only one way to find out."  Then, as above, Bristleback says "Which is?" [referring to how they would find out].  Birdbrain says "Smash our way in" and Bristleback finishes the sentence, "...and kill WHOEVER and WHATEVER we find inside!"  In other words, Birdbrain started to answer the question and Bristleback decided to add his 2 cents in.
 * I really don't think it's an error, it makes sense to me. --MistaTee 17:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * So Bristleback doesn't know what they're going to do, and asks, and after three words from Birdbrain he suddenly answers his own question? Given IDW's propensity for screwing up their speech balloons, combined with the obscurity of the individual Pretender Monsters, I think it's an honest error. -- Repowers 18:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * No biggie. However, they didn't correct it in the TPB. --MistaTee 22:53, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Y'know, I was thinking that'd be a good litmus test, actually. In light of that, I'm gonna re-write the note in a more neutral tone.  I still think it could be an error, again owing to the obscurity of the characters, but the lack of a correction makes it a less solid case than I thought it was. -- Repowers 01:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
 * seems fair. cheers! --MistaTee 04:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Boxart copyright
If the boxart belongs to either Hasbro or Takara (as boxart generally does), then we normally use the tag, since it mentions the fair use provision of United States copyright law. But I guess the fair use tag is fine, too :) --FFN 02:53, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks for the heads-up. I wasn't aware of the difference.  Will adjust accordingly! -- Repowers 02:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)