Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal/Archive 07

Spoiler template 'expiration' length
Is there a length to how long a spoiler template stays up on a page? Til the end of the miniseries, til it comes out on DVD, 'Til all are one? Or is it situational? -- SFH 23:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally, I'd almost like the creation of a new category like Category:Articles with spoilers to allow us to track which articles are using the template at a glance. It'd make removing the template once the spoilers become common knowledge much easier to police.--Rosicrucian 23:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That could be easily and automatically done by altering the spoiler template to add the category. However, it's not really necessary, because you can also visit Template:Spoiler and use the "what links here" link in the toolbox on the left to get a list of every page which includes it.  --Steve-o 01:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd previously suggested an edit to the comingsoon template so that if you put it in as   (5 ~'s = a timestamp) it would say "This subject will be free for adding on..." (A date 30 days hence, or whatever we decide is a default spoiler time.)  If you fail to supply a timestamp it'd just show the general 'don't put up yet' with no time mentioned.
 * We could do the same to the template that would (I think) cause it to vanish after that date had past....  -Derik 23:24, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Spotlight image
Okay. So, check this out... I'm guessing what they do is grab the Main Page image and just use that... which means that if we want all three Optimusses in there... we need to change THAT image to be more of a square. I'd done this to go up in the Spotlight at a smaller size, but it looks like they just kipe the main image. Thoughts on using this as the main image so Primal is still there, the "proper" name for the wiki is there, etc? --M Sipher 18:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * That might be risky, depending on how they crop it. It's hard to tell where the top half of their letterboxing ends.  If the new image is too tall, then the edges of the words will get chopped off.  Might be worth asking the admins about - if they can give you the ratio they use, then we can do it safely.  (I'm looking at the "Pushing Daisies Wiki" spotlight right now, and the non-letterboxed area is definitely wider than it is tall.)
 * Also, we need to be sure that the new design will actually be readable and decent-looking when shrunk down that far. One thing to keep in mind is that if the caption already says "Transformers Wiki," then there's no need to repeat that in the image.  If the pic just said "Teletraan I" and nothing more, then that'd help prevent the design from getting too crowded.
 * - Jackpot 20:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've already accounted for all of that. Not every Spotlight image has that hideous textbar on it; the "Symbolism Wiki", for example, is nothing BUT an image. They only apparently use textbars if "______ wiki" is not in the image itself, or hard to read, or not sufficiently square, or whatever. I noted the size of the box in pixels when making the image; the shrunk-down-to-actual-size version is already uploaded here;
 * [[Image:Tel1-SpotlightBox.jpg]]. --M Sipher 21:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well then. Sounds good to me! - Jackpot 21:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course, it could be just our luck and they'll take the lovingly-resized image and re-crop it and add redundant text...--Rosicrucian 21:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Messagebox placement
Here is what UT Jetfire's article now looks like in my browser:

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb234/sstoneb/misc/boxes.png

I understand that people are more prone to notice and be guilted into fixing things if the messagebox notices are at the top, but I feel that the presentation of the articles shouldn't be made to suffer for it. I consider it unacceptable for two-thirds of the first screen to be taken up by boxes. There's going to be some variation depending on readers' screen resolutions and window sizes, but still, I can't be the only one who finds that excessive. --Steve-o 06:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I consider it motivation to fix the problem, myself. Interrobang 07:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I run my monitor on a fairly high resolution so I forget it would be huge on lower resolutions. I'll move the stub back down, but the point still stands - having an annoying stub messagebox there compels one to finish off the damn article to get rid of it. --FFN 12:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to horizontally compress the stub/picsneeded messageboxes and make it so they will line up vertically? Taking up only one "line" and minimizing blank space? --M Sipher 16:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia seems to only use image messageboxes when it's a pressing or immediate need. Other messageboxes are all-text, short, and designed to take up as little space as possible.  (They're also designed to stack neatly with no whitespace in-between.)
 * Under such a modern- a template like Cleanup or Deletion might remain a pic box, bot other general-maintenance templates like 'pics needed' would become (ironically) pic-less. -Derik 19:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

How will we cover VHS and DVD releases?
How are we going to cover the various VHS and DVD releases of the cartoons? Are we going to limit those to the pages of the companies who released them or have pages covering each series with dections for the release market? We definently need something to list what is different on various releases, especially that the recent Madman release of G1 uses Mavrick's transfer for at least Season 1 (which in turn uses the original broadcast video with Rhino's 5.1 audio) --FortMax 19:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd say that The Transformers: The Movie (1986) is a decent example of a good way to do it, as is the Scramble City page. For the individual animated series, release details can be covered on their specific series page. So things like Armada (cartoon), Beast Wars (cartoon) etc. Seems to me to be the most logical place to look for that release information and any key differences in transfers/dubbing/wombat placement.--Rosicrucian 19:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Animated Continuity Confusion
So, throughout this wiki we refer to the Sunbow cartoon as the "Animated continuity". Given that the upcoming cartoon is specifically titled "Transformers Animated", and that we're using "Animated" as the franchise marker for it, this has the potential for causing confusion. So, I'd like to recommend that we change all extant headers that read "Animated continuity" to "Sunbow cartoon continuity" or similar. Opinions? JW 15:20, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, IIRC, the term "Animated continuity" which is now in use by this Wiki refers to "G1 animated continuities", including "Sunbow cartoon continuity" and "Toei animation continuity (Japanese animation continuity)". TX55 15:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Since Sunbow doesn't have a page, I'm personally a little unclear on what their role in the creation of the G1 cartoon was. However, regardless of what we call it, I still think we need a change from "Animated continuity" to another term.  JW 15:54, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * How 'bout "G1 cartoon( or animation ) continuity"? And it should be clearly defined. But if the original term "Animated continuity" really changed into a new term, wow, I would be a big reconstruction, though. --TX55 16:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, we'd have a bot do it, I assume. Turning every occurence of " ===Animated continuity=== " into something else would be trivial for a bot, and 99% accurate. JW 16:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It strikes me as needless, as characters with fiction in the Sunbow cartoon are unlikely to also have continuity in the new cartoon. We are for these purposes treating the new cartoon's characters as new characters in their own right, just as Optimus Prime is a different character in the RiD and UT settings.--Rosicrucian 16:12, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Oops, I can't believe I forgot. (my God...). --TX55 16:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It strikes me as needless While in any page that is clearly within a given continuity, there will only be a minor chance for confusion, there will be much greater change of confusion on the many pages that cover cross-continuity topics.  (Or, for example, if someone on a G1 page wants to refer to Transfomrers Animated for whatever reason.)  Simply put: Since we've chosen "Animated" as the marker for Transformers Animated, this means that the term "Animated continuity" should probably only be used refer to the Transformers Animated continuity.  (Or, maybe we shouldn't use "Animated" as the marker for Transformers Animated, but it might be too late for that.)  JW 16:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Similar discussion on this issue has been had before on this Wiki, though I can't seem to find where. Just to point it out, we don't use "animated continuity" just to refer to the G1 cartoon. It's used on UT character pages as well. I am thinking it may be wise to go ahead and just have that phrase replaced with "cartoon continuity." --KilMichaelMcC 20:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent point. Yah, "Cartoon continuity" would do the trick.  (Until the day there's a TV series called Transformers: The Cartoon, at least.)  JW 20:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * 'Cartoon' was also the conclusion we reached last round of this discussion.
 * So do we want to make it aa formal request for the 'bot to change all instances of '==Animated continuity==' to 'Cartoon continuity'? (Except probably with regular expressions.) -Derik 20:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Let's give this thread a chance to attract more comments (say, until tomorrow afternoon), and then request it. JW 20:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm in favor of "Cartoon continuity." The only objection I recall seeing was Walky pointing out that "cartoon" has multiple meanings besides animation.  But I think the common usage in TFdom is strong enough that it'll do fine.  The only alternative I can think of is something like "Televised continuity," but that's an unnatural term. - Jackpot 20:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Comic Issues Naming Convention
Okay, so MistaTee and I have gone back and forth on this, so I'm putting it out in the open. He's lobbying for the format to be "Comic Name (issue number)" with the issue number only being there if it's a multi-part story. Personally, I don't care what the spotted heck we use as long as we use the same format for all the comic issues. Thus to get this noticed and foster discussion, here it is. Ideally once we decide something, it'd be great if we could get Walky or Suki to bot-edit everything so we're over and done with that.--Rosicrucian 00:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * My reasoning is this: The title of the issue is not "Escalation, part 1", it's merely the first part of the title "Escalation".  Also I don't care is we use "Escalation (part 1)", "Escalation (issue 1)" or "Escalation (#1)" as long as we're consistent.  Please see my talk page for the conversation with Rosicrucian. --MistaTee 00:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm a little reluctant to make a universal rule on this sort of thing. Contrary to MistaTee's statement, sometimes the title of a story really is  "Blah blah, Part 1".  However, in cases where there is no known title (like most of the IDW issues), I think "Series Name issue #" would be best, much like what we already have for the Dreamwave Armada series (except that, of course, normally the publisher's name wouldn't be in the title, it's only there for Armada to differentiate from the Panini series).  It doesn't feel right to me to have a comma or a set of parentheses.  That's the model I would prefer for the IDW minis.  In cases of a multi-part story which has a known title and takes place in a series of a different title, but the individual parts do not have titles, we can't use the word "issue".  So... then I guess either "Story Name, part #" or "Story Name (part #)" is cool with me.  I guess I have a slight preference for the comma approach, since it mirrors the way multi-part stories are titled when they are actually given titles.  I agree with MistaTee that decapitalizing "part" in those cases is more correct, although it's not an issue that engenders any passion within me.  --Steve-o 18:25, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That actually makes a fair amount of sense to me. If we consider that we're treating these as multi-part stories similar to the way they are in the animated series episode summaries, it does follow that it would be "Infiltration, part 1" and so forth in absence of specific issue titles. It works for the miniseries issues, at the least.--Rosicrucian 15:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've sorta grown a fondness toward "issue", since each individual comic IS an issue of a larger title or miniseries. I also favor the parentheses since the word "issue" is not part of the title.  When the TPB is released for Escalation, for example, it is not separated by "issue" or "part", etc, it's a free flowing story.  Therefore it's simply "Escalation (issue 1)".  Now if the issue itself actually uses the word "part" or whatever (as in the UK strips for example) then I have no problem using it. --MistaTee 16:31, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think a an article title like "Escalation issue 3" causes any confusion -- the word issue and numeral 3 are clearly not part of the comic's title. It's just saying that the article is about the third issue of Escalation: "{Name of a comic series} issue {issue number}".  Parentheticals in article titles, to me, are meant to differentiate between multiple entities that have the same name.  The various issues of Escaltion do not have the same name -- they have no names at all.  "Escalation issue 3" then is a purely descriptive article title which doesn't imply anything about the title of that issue.  "Escalation, part 3" avoids my parantheses concern and would be acceptable to me (it is of the form "{Name of a multipart story}, part {part number}"), but I'd rather we explicitly refer to issues as issues when possible.  In self-analysis I can't think of a reason for that preference, so it may be arbitrary.  --Steve-o 21:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Comic Art from unknown issues
Just wondering if we need a new template/category like "issues?" and "Category:Images from unknown issue" to present some comic arts from unknown issues, like the way we use "artist?" --TX55 03:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. I'd suggest also making a discussion page on the images in question so we can ask... but questions here tend to go unanswered in my experience. --FFN 10:55, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I've created Template:Unknown source to satisfy this request. I made it applicable to all images, not just comic scans.  Please feel free to make use of it.  --Steve-o 18:39, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow! Thanks a lot, appreciate that. :D --TX55 02:25, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Accessory listing?
Nautilator's toy-entry... Just an idle thought I had. Bullet-pointing the ID numbers seems like a good idea, and I've been thinking it can't hurt to have a simple rundown of the stuff the toy came with, using the "proper" names for the weapons whenever available, with links when necessary, like for special weapons of which there are more than one (Blaster's not the only one packing an electro-scrambler, right?). Most of the G1 instructions for that kind of this can be found on Botch's site... thoughts? --M Sipher 05:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. BTW, what are your thoughts on the comic book naming convention (2 comments up). --MistaTee 10:38, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't have one, not really my field. --M Sipher 16:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Accessory listings would be a good thing to have. TFU.info and Cobra Island Toys are about the only places that have the weapon names in text. We should probably include the entire list as according to the instructions, including the robot. The only snags I can think of is when different markets had different accessories (Headstrong and Tantrum had only one gun in Japan), when there is no mention of an accessory in any of the printed material (Megatron's chrome gun), or when reissues came with additional parts (Ricochet, TFC Megatron and Prime). --FortMax 17:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, unnamed accessories can be unquoted, decapitalized short descriptors (chromed handgun, for example). International accessory variants can simply be another bullet point (Accessories (US) vs Accessories (Japan)). As for reissues... shouldn't those be listed separately from the originals ANYWAY? --M Sipher 20:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not going to split the entry for Prime's first toy into the umpteen reissues it's had. Why must Takara insist on another reissue every few years? --FortMax 22:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Lead/Led
There are two different words pronounced "lehd": All over this wiki, editors are using "lead" where they mean "led". Please keep an eye open for this mistake. JW 14:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * "led", the past tense of "to lead", as in, "Yesterday, Optimus led his troops to victory."
 * "lead", a heavy gray metal. (Well, it's blue-white when not exposed to oxygen, but that's neither here nor there.)


 * Another common mistake I see a lot is capitalizing "The" when talking about the Ark, the Matrix, etc. And speaking of the Ark, spaceships, like seagoing ships, should be italicized, unless of course it is a living Transformer like Astrotrain or Seaspray. --MistaTee 14:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)


 * What about the Astrotrain? :P -- Repowers 14:34, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * One of the great mysteries of HoS is whether Astrotrain is a Transformer or just a high-tech train. I decided to assume he's a Transformer (i.e., a person), and omitted the "the" wherever possible.  If we go with that assumption, no italics for him.  JW 14:43, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Unrelated, but it reminds me of how I keep trying to decide if the TFs in Hearts of Steel are actually adopting some of the technology level of the world they find themselves in. You got Scourge with a gasbag, Bumblebee being fired by coal, Ravage taken out by an exploding gas stove... it seems similar to the TF/Joe book where WWII robots have all these random loose wires dangling around and Rumble can be taken out with a grenade. -- Repowers 14:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Mini-Series main page format
Okay, so I've been poking around, looking at the main page for Stormbringer, Infiltration, Escalation, Hearts of Steel, and many others. Every single one has a different format. I mean it -- like, no two are alike! These things need a common format and a general clean-up campaign. Stormbringer's probably closest to what the format "should" be, though the summary breaks the 4th wall and having two bolded lines in succession looks kinda funny to me. -- Repowers 14:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed, these do need a common format and cleanup. Let's get one right and work from there.  Since Stormbringer seems to be the closest, let's work with that one.  I removed the one-liner, as it didn't really seem necessary, and added some headers to separate things out.  Also added the picsneeded template, as we definitely need need the TPB cover.  Perhaps the manga cover can be added in the collections section and maybe a pic from the bonus art can be added somewhere.  An "Items of note" section would be helpful as well.
 * --MistaTee 19:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * That looks pretty good. The Creative Team section should be kept really small, just writer and pencils I think, if even that, since each individual issue's going to have full credits.  And I suppose the Overview section is a good place for the sort of outside-looking-in perspective on the fiction, ie "Headmasters follows the adventures of a new group of Transformers on Cybertron, whose toys were being introduced to the market blah blah." -- Repowers 20:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)


 * "mini-series main pages should link to the continuity main page (if it exists), the publisher, and any previous/following minis."
 * Just wanted to add that here for the record. -- Repowers 16:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Question about mass-produced "fan" toys
Hi there, transfolkerinos.

Just a little thing that I though might prove vaguely controversial, so I thought I'd raise it here before unilaterally adding it and getting into a tiresome edit war with anyone.

Topic is: mass-produced non-Hasbro/Takara "Fan" toys, ala Unicron.Com's Golden Disc sets, Vector Sigma key (and other Beast Machines accessories) and ImpossibleToys' products such as the Diaclone-scale Sparkplug & Spike, Energon Cubes and the marvellous "Quint-01" Quintesson Judge Figure.

What I want to know is if I can add info on these products on the relevant pages, or if that's gonna disrupt some rule over official-ness. Before anyone gets too excited, I'll just say right off the bat that I'm proposing in each case to CLEARLY denote that they are non-official products, and they probably should even be listed separately in the "Triva" sections of each relevant page, to further distance them from listings of official products (although, in most cases, there aren't official versions. Which is kinda the point...).

The only argument against listing them that I can imagine is simply that, obviously, they're not official HasTak products and therefore, in a wacky kind of sense, "not canon". However, my argument for including them is threefold:

1] Unlike kitbashing or other customs, these items are mass-produced with high quality control, akin to an official product. (Yes, I know that unlicensed repros/knock-offs are mass-produced too, but the distinction here is that items like the Quintesson are original creations/moulds rather than substitutes for a previously-released product).

2] These products are all designed to represent accessories or characters from the fictions that had (hitherto) never been given official representations, thus filling a gap.

3] Perhaps most importantly, this stuff has been sold openly at BotCon in recent years, so even though the Collector's Club isn't personally hawking it, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that Hasbro is aware of this product and tacitly permits its sale and manufacture, when it could just as easily sue their asses for copyright infringement if they wanted to. The fact that they haven't and have actually let these companies sell their stuff at their official Con seems to me to be the rather meaningful turning of a rather large, not-so-blind eye. It also would rather seem to indicate that they have no immediate plans of their own to make official versions of this stuff (apart from Vector Sigma, years after Unicron.com did it), and are happy to let these well-set up little companies do their thing and keep the fans happy.

Anywayz, I just thought I'd float this here before adding to any of the pages myself. Let me know what y'all think.

Cheers, PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.


 * No. No, no, and no. --M Sipher 03:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Um, okaaay. Care to elaborate? I reiterate my suggestion that these items be clearly marked as non-official, and that the descriptions be placed only in Trivia sections. May I ask what's the harm? PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.
 * Part of the problem with including unofficial "bootleg" toys is that it opens the door for, well, all bootlegs. And that'd just be ridiculous.  Ever been to a Big Lots?  --ItsWalky 04:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * No, can't say I have. I take it that's some North American chain?
 * Anyway, I do take your point. It would be ridiculous to include bootleg toys, I agree. But the very fact that we already have an article on Knockoffs (not to mention all manner of "ridiculous" minutiae of fan-lifesyle. Seafood Louis anyone? Blastification? All very amusing, but hardly "official") suggests to me that we should be capable of some restrained mention of prominent fan-manufactured items.
 * And again, can't we draw some distinction between knock-offs of existing official products and completely original works based on major fiction-only characters & objects? I really don't see the harm in discreet mentions of clearly-acknowledged-as-unofficial products when they've been mass-marketed at Habsro's own offical Con. Surely you'd concede that there's a GULF of difference between that and this "Big Lots" place...?
 * PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.
 * Yes, but those articles are confined to their respective pages. You were proposing listing unofficial merchandise on the relevant pages.  (Under the Quintesson page, etc.)
 * We'd probably still resist adding an 'unofficial toys' page because it'd quickly degenerate into "what qualifies as...", but I bet you'd have more luck proposing that.
 * (We should have a page where we can stick the Action Master Breakdown, WST Dinobots and the Star Saber Minicon recolors... we've just kida avoided it because it seems like a collosal headache waiting to happen.) Reemember- if you start such a page pick a clear standard about what's mass-produced 'enough' to qualify. -Derik 07:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's a compromise position I was going to fall back on, yes.

Would it really be such a crapfest, though? I dunno, maybe I'm a little more ignorant of this topic than I thought, but what sort of "ridiculous" stuff do you think people are going to want to include? In terms of mass-produced, wholly original fan-made products (as opposed to knockoffs of existing HasTak prods), is there really all that much out there other than Unicron.com, ImpossibleToys and JustIToys? For all I know, there is. Please, in all seriousness; fill me in.

I think if we could agree on an adequately-defined page name & definition, we should be okay. How about something like: "Fan-manufactured toys" with a clear intro stating something along the lines of:

"As distinct from Knockoffs of existing products or one-off/made-to-order kitbashes, Fan-manufactured toys are mass-produced, high quality toys which feature completely original tooling/sculpts, intended to fill gaps in the official Hasbro/Takara product line, such as major characters like Spike Witwicky and the Quintessons, as well as significant accessores, such as The Key to Vector Sigma, hitherto appearing only in fiction. Although explicitly unofficial and in some cases sold under copyright-skirting product names, these toys are carried by major online distributors of Transformers product like BigBadToystore.com and are prominently sold at BotCon, Hasbro's official Transformers convention, seemingly indicating a degree of tacit approval."

I agree there would be bit of definitional wrangling over something like WST Dinobots... yeah. But, again, is there really all that much out there, and is there really that much of a grey area between blatant knockoffs and these lovingly-designed, original creations for the fan-market? Surely work of this nature deserves a place on a wiki that has so many articles about its own fandom...?

I'd be keen to hear a few more opinions. I don't want to sound snarky, but it seems that whenever I raise things around here I'm always talking to the same 4 or 5 chaps. Not that I wish to malign their opinions in any way, I'd just really appreciate hearing from the wider editorial community. Cheers, PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.


 * Sorry, I'm a pattern-finder so I tend to track policy issues and form interpretations of the principles, ideals, morals, conflicts and opinions that underly a wide variety unrelated decisions, and then freely project where new issues fall within that gestalt. (The head of the theology department was heartbroken I didn't want to make it my major.)
 * I just don't think we have a lot of users interested/comfortable discussing abstract or hypothetical metapolicy. We tend to 'discover' our policies via precedent (people not liking something when it's done) not the Socratic method, which is wasteful-- but very American. -Derik 10:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair enough! :-)
 * So, in other words, are you saying that there's in fact very little point in me "doing the right thing" by raising this topic for discussion here, and that'd I'd do better to simply blunder ahead unilaterally, create the page and potentially invite a catfight, since that's the only way to get most users' attention?
 * Also; what's your opinion of the proposed article title and definition/lead-off from my last post, though?
 * PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.
 * No. Some of these things are nice, but unless they're stamped by Hasbro or Takara, I say no go.  It's not a big jump from the Golden Disks to the WST Dinobots (which, as I understand it, Aaron Archer has been trying to get shut down) to the Jizaitoys Cyclonus and Wheelie to fucking Zobovor's repaints of RID toys into G1 dudes for his friend's basement-con.  -hx 11:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay. So, you reckon even an isolated page is not kosher? I'm sorry, but I just don't see the harm. I mean, if we were all formality nazis like at Wookieepeia I could understand, but when we have articles on Seafood Louis...! I just don't get it. Why is this such a no-go? PacifistPrime. 25th October 2007.
 * I presume it is because when we come to things like Transformers products and fiction, we deal strictly with official stuff. --FFN 14:28, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree. Only deal with the official licensed products or we will get too many unrelated things. TX55 15:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Once again, Seafood Louis is an isolated, self-contained  JOKE  page. This wiki has comedy in it. That is one of the comedy bits.
 * Even then, Seafood Louis was served at an official convention, so it's STILL more "real transformers" than the WST Dinorobots. -hx 17:52, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * The harm is in opening the door for every fan-repaint and fan-character ever to be plastered across the wiki and mistaken for official. There's a TF fanon wiki for that crap to go into. I've raised the same objections to including unofficial conventions and publications, even when I really really liked some of them, such as the Cybertronian Guides and Iacon One. If an unoffical con gets a special exclusive third-party licensee item like a special comic cover or bust redeco, then yes, we should note that on the relevant comic/character page and name the convention, but that doesn't mean the convention deserves a page... unless we're going to start making pages for every store that's ever carried official TF product. TF material is already labrynthian and confusing enough without muddying the waters by dumping in the metric fuckton of unofficial products. The clearest and simplest way to determine "what comes in" as far as characters and products go is the official stamp. Anything else is a slippery slope.
 * But there are a lot of things concerning official TFdom that no official stamp can ever be applied to... like redecoes, retools, animation errors, gang-molding, safety reasons, etc etc etc. They're aspects of the fandom/franchise that are important and should be addressed, and aspects like knock-offs, fanon, personal canon, etc, should be addressed as well, but since they lean heavily into "made up stuff not approved by the franchise owners", we shouldn't go into extensive lists or anything.
 * And at the very, very least, there's still way too much official stuff yet undocumented here to spend on unofficial stuff... but even after we've got all that in (hah, right), I still say no-go to unofficial product. (About the only exception I would say is that AM Breakdown SHOULD be mentioned on the character's page, in Trivia, saying THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL and that's about it, simply because there is a VERY high chance of that being mistaken for official, what with the "BotCon exclusive", even though it was an unofficial convention.) --M Sipher 16:14, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hear y'all's reasoning, and I'll concede it has a certain logic to it, but I still find it wholly unconvincing, and quite irreconcilable with the spirit of the all the many "fandom"-category pages. With all due respect to -hx, the idea that a joke page (and yes, I know it's a joke page! I'm not thick) about a menu item served at a Con can nevertheless be considered "more official" than a fan-manufactured product that was sold at the same official Cons is spurious reasoning at best. But it's certainly looking like we're going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

Okay, down to brass tacks: the "consensus" is clearly against my position, but as usual it's the same usual small handful of editors. I'm not saying anything bad about you guys, I promise. But following Derik's reasoning that the majority of editors (the "real" consensus, if you will) aren't going to make their feelings known on this matter unless it's already been "done" instead of just discussed, I hereby propose creating the "Fan-manufactured toys" page as floated a few posts back and see what the reaction is. However, I don't want to do this and start being accused of "violating a consensus" and getting banned and all that malarky. I think my record of contributions shows that I'm a genuine participant in trying to improve this wiki and not a troublemaker, so I really don't want to incite any bad feeling here.

So, if I do this is everyone going to freak out, or shall we wait and see what the reaction is in the wider community?

All the best, PacifistPrime. 26th October 2007.


 * Even if the page were created, most editors would not bother to comment on it because most editors don't have strong opinions about that sort of thing. The idea of a dedicated page for this concept seems bad to me, but personally I would be willing to humor you if you want to give it a try.  You are totally welcome to create test pages that are contained under your userpage: User:PacifistPrime/Fan-produced toys, for example.  Write as much as you want, and when you think it's ready, ask for opinions.  Other people who like the idea might even help you build it there.  But even if you make it, we still might say, "Sorry, we don't want that in the main wiki."  And for what it's worth, I dislike the idea for similar reasons as the other guys.  I am wary about deciding what "counts" as a fan-produced toy (the lovely "CybCon" exclusives that Hooper_X referred to derisively are an example) instead of just a set of kitbashes.  To me, covering fan-made toys has more in common with covering fanfic (as in talking about specific fanfics, not the concept in general) than it does with covering guidebooks or conventions, and I don't like that.  --Steve-o 23:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Does the image server have the hiccups again or is it just me?
Is anyone else unable to get any images to load? The main Wikia page seems to be down as well. --FortMax 17:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikia, unlike Wikipedia, is not redundant, so it does hickup regularly. (It also only has one redundant backup-- which is not offsite.  This is why some of our users dl backups on occasion.) -Derik 22:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Process for additional admins
Do we have some sort of process for adding additional admins? I'm not trying to become one myself (already one at Wookieepedia and the Stargate wiki) but I have noticed that this community could potentially grow, and that there could come the presence of certain...individuals who may need to be delt with. The backlog of things needing to be deleted is evidence of this. We only have two admins so far, and there could be room for additions. -- SFH 20:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I for one would find this wiki more entertaining by a factor of ten if Derik were an admin.--Rosicrucian 20:48, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That would be pretty hilarious, but even Derik might say it's a bad idea to make Derik an admin; he's previously admitted that sometimes he does stuff that he knows he shouldn't. :)  Anyway, I guess I'd be open to becoming an admin.  In some ways it would be convenient since I live with User:ItsWalky, but it would also make sense to pick somebody in a different time zone or something so we're more likely to get blocks in on troublemakers before they do too much damage.  --Steve-o 23:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Derik would most definately say it's a bad idea to make him an admin. He'd have to be all responsible 'an shit.  Besides- you don't get proper arguments out of people if they're cowed by disagreeing with an admin, and I believe in the combative process of decision-making; it's what American law and jurisprudence is based on after all.  -Derik 16:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Then for a more serious nomination Chris McFeely seems to be a logical choice for a European admin.--Rosicrucian 23:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that's reasonable. I mean, he's not clearly evil.--Zodberg 23:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I've adminnededed Chris and Steve. --ItsWalky 01:41, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Dude. I'm so going to make it my business to screw with stuff. :D - Chris McFeely 15:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd back both choices. Steve-o's been acting as an impartial arbiter for months, and McFeely is knowledgeable, levelheaded-- and several timezones removed from everyone else (hopefully narrowing the '6-8 hour window where trolls can run amok without being blocked' we currently have when our admins are sleeping.) -Derik 16:03, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Congratulations guys! :D Yeah, trolls generally seem to pop up when most of the North American members aren't online. --FFN 16:54, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe both they will be good adimins. ;D --TX55 02:19, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
 * May death come quickly to their enemies--Zodberg 02:46, 29 October 2007 (UTC)