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THE FUNNY STAYS. -The Management

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Movie Nav Box

The navigation box we have for Movie pages really needs an overhaul. Especially now that we have four Online games (not counting the Sector 7 Hungry Dragon thing) and the nav box points to Battle for the Allspark as THE online game. What should we do with it? --Rotty 00:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article for July

What should we start polishing up to be next month's Featured Article? It needs to be something relevant for people finding this site after seeing the movie? How about Bumblebee (G1), as it covers the history behind the film's most prominent robot? --Rotty 21:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, works for me. We've got our work cut out for us, though! --ItsWalky 21:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Is no one up to filling out Bumblebee's Dreamwave, Legends anthology, Dreamwave Transformers/GI Joe, Devil's Due, or Hearts of Steel sections? I'm poking around to see who would be relevant as a featured article for while the movie's out if we're not up to completing Bumblebee... -Rotty 05:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

We could always just go with G1 Prime or Megatron. Both of those more than qualify, I think. - Dark T Zeratul 07:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Megatron's pretty close. I think we just need some filling out of his cartoon exploits. --ItsWalky 02:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

He needs TF/G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe vs. TF, and Hearts of Steel filled out too. -Rotty 02:52, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Hearts of Steel writeup: "There was art of him in the supplemental materials!" --ItsWalky 03:04, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

...Two designs for a guy who didn't even show... Dang it.--MCRG 08:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Movie Launch

Hey Guys, Was wondering if you were going to put anything on the home page about the movie launching tonight? I was going to put this wiki in the spotlight starting Friday to promote it, but I think its needs a more recognizable logo so people will click on it. angies (talk) 19:25, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I've put something on the front page now. I had wanted to get this done last week, but I never had the time, and then most of the staff were at the Transformers convention for four or five days. It needs work, but it's there, at least. It would be great if we could have a spotlight! --Steve-o 16:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The Funny

Maybe if the stuff you said was funny, no one would have a problem with it, but most of the jokes on here are pretty lame, it's not about transformers fans being serious, it's about your jokes being bad. When other people try to put there humor in it, you erase it. Sooooo make the jokes funny and you wont have to worry about it. Besides the Real Wikipedia has more information on transformers than the one dedicated to transformers have, what gives. Maybe before you work on your lame jokes you can fill out the information on the article. Sorry just what I think about it, don't take to much offence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.140.110.210 (talk • contribs).

Humor is subjective. Pesonally, I consider most of the jokes on this site to be neutral. They are clearly trying to be silly, but neither funny nor painful. They merely lighten the tone. Users who show up here and do nothing but change jokes into different jokes are clearly not accomplishing anything. The new jokes are never any better -- they are merely different, and often worse. That is a waste of everybody's time. I haven't spent a lot of time browsing Transformers material on Wikipedia, but I highly doubt that their information is better, even if there might be a larger quantity of it. What little I've seen there has been disorganized, mixes fan assertions with canon, and is at times not even reliable. If they have more information than we do, it is only because people have been adding TF info there for at least twice as long as this specialized wiki has existed. --Steve-o 15:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, this wiki is a far more reliable source of information for Transformers than the Wikipedia shall ever be. I've corrected some of their base assumptions and half-truths upon occassion. If we lack information for something, then feel free to contribute to our wiki or wait for one of us to get around to it. Really, what the Wikipedia offers is rather generalised information and (as steve-o points out) fan-assumed fanon and downright false information. Besides, we provide the Transformers info that the users on the wikipedia either don't know or won't bother with, such as info on the toys, their designers, toy construction materials, obscure series and/or characters and so on.

And yes, we think captioning a picture of say, Megatron with 'Art of Megatron' or some such is really patronising. --FFN 17:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I, as a fellow Transformer fan, agree that "the funny" is lame.

One time I tried to change Nautilator's bio; stating that he carries a powerful weapon, transforms INTO a powerful weapon, and is an undersea version of Constructicon Scavager. But none of that went through.

I'm sensing "the bias" here.

Tyrenol

I, as a fellow Transformer fan, agree that "the funny" is lame.

Some of it is certainly very very lame. If you would like to raise the level of humor here, then A) become a regular and respected contributor of useful non-funny stuff, then B) improve the funny. What we most strongly object to is newcomers who contribute nothing except changes to the humor. Changing the funny is an earned privilege. JW 19:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Tyrenol: Your Nautilator bio was, as far as I can tell, at best fanon or at worst fan fiction. Steve-o (an admin) points out that your edit had nothing to do with the established Hasbro toy bio. Despite our humour and over-the-top references to a character's foibles, we base what we write on official material approved by Hasbro/Takara.

That's not 'bias', that's the rules.

Okay, then. Here's another idea: How about you guys use the exact wording from the bios as oppose to just sticking stuff in and thinking that everyone else will agree with its hilariousness.

Besides; I have two problems with anything Wiki. 1) Things don't stay changed when they get changed. Annoyances like needed citations and reliable sources that have a problem staying reliable. 2) I have a life to live, a job to pay for where I live, and I really don't have the time to watch everything on the web like a cold-stare hawk.

My apologies for being new. My apologies for calling your jokes lame. But what is everybody doing on the web when they can't take the sharp, cold knife in the back that's called "criticism?" The same rules apply for me. Tyrenol

We have a specific policy AGAINST cut-and-pasting from bios, one of many reasons being that those are a) copyrighted and b) not always applicable. After all, Shockwave sure wasn't anything like his toy bio in the cartoon. Character overviews on this resource are "all-encompassing", in order to reflect changes and evolutions in the character. And what do you do when a character -like, say, Optimus Prime- has several dozen bios over the course of 20 years?

Maybe you should apologize for playing the "I have a life" card that screams "I have no actual argument so I'll imply you all are losers". And don't confuse "whinging" with "criticism", or "disagreeing with" as "can't take it". This argument has come up with many an anon IP who is more interested in fighting a long-established precedent for this wiki which has garnered far more positive attention than negative than they are in contributing, and if they didn't change thing one about it, neither will you. --M Sipher

As for humour being lame, let me ask you a question: Do you wander onto privately-run Tranformers fan sites and message boards, see something you don't like (that isn't necessarily offensive) and proceed to tell off the admins for how they run their website? Much of the reason the wiki is the way it is is because the people who run this wiki and the majority of regular contributors have a sense of humour. I find it odd that newcomers will question our policies as if they claim some sort of ownership over the wiki, yet have contributed little to it. --FFN 02:24, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm a newcomer, but I have to admit that the policies regarding jokes prevent unfair bias, if anything. Additionally, it helps newcomers achieve a sense of ownership. Maybe we don't all get the lame obscure reference on whatever page, but whoever put it there probably thinks it's hilarious! Thanks to the established policies he/she doesn't need to worry about someone replacing it with another, equally-lame obscure reference. --Starcrunch 19:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Make jokes and be merry. My message to any readers is if you get offended by jokes, then you take Transformers way too seriously :-D --FFN 03:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

haha... Transformers too seriously?! Only five of my nine open browser tabs are occupied with something Transformers related right now. If that's not moderation, then I don't know what is! ...but yes, if your reason for being put-off is a bent sense of humor, then you're probably in in the wrong place! --Starcrunch 18:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought the Ladiesman217 article was funny. Needed some fixing for the caption with the police car. It's not funny.

Logos for 'By series' column

I was uploading some logos for the franchise pages, and it got me thinking - the By series column on the main page is basically a bunch of text, and for either visual-minded people or those who aren't as familiar with TF, it can be confusing. How about we get brand/franchise logos for all the series so far and put them into the column? The logos would be easier to see and recognisable.

I made this - the logos there are at 250px, but I later reduced that to 150px and they still seem fine (unless you've a super-high resolution on a less than super-large monitor). Its quite rough there, series logos are missing (and I've not actually changed the page itself), but what do you guys think? --FFN 18:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea. I think the execution needs xome more work of course but having the logos there definately makes the page nicer looking.--ZacWilliam 19:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The logos need to be much, much smaller. That looks not so visually appealing. --ItsWalky 21:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If the logos were reduced a little more, I think it would be alright to remove the text and go with just logos. (And giving them TITLE/ALT attributes, of course.) --Steve-o 03:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

They need to not have backgrounds, and it's going to be a real hassle to get rid of the Classics one. I think the idea could be doable, although the mockup does not look good at all. It could potentially be very ugly and I think we need to be careful. --Suki Brits 03:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

So we're doing this for every series title? Awesome! And it's gonna have no text? Awesome! And what are we doing for Japanese series?

(I saw this done with all the Japanese titles on Cyberbon a few years back. Turns out that bereft of some visual cue to tell you what series you're talking about- every TF logo after Masterforce looks the same.) -Derik 03:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that may not be a problem, given that we do not actually have any Japanese titles on the main page. --Suki Brits 03:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I'll need your help, anyway since I am shithouse at photoshop now and I can't get rid of the backgrounds myself. Also we're still missing logos for Beast Machines, RID and king of hard to track down, G2. We have so few images on the first page that I think, if done right, this could look very nice. --FFN 08:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Logos so far, and I guess they'll all need to be converted, except for the movie logo:

You might have my help... if I thought it was a good idea. Remember you need to do Headmasters, Masterforce, Victory, Zone, Battlestars, Return of Convoy, JG2, BW2, BWN, Robotmasters, Binaltech, Kiss-Player, etc. And they somehow have to communicate what series they refer to despite lacking any English text.

Also-also, I assuem that clicking on these logos is supposed to take you to their respective franchise pages? Clicking on an image takes you to the info page for that image. It's a wikipedia fundamental. You need to find a way around that. Have fun!-Derik 08:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Don't all those Japanese series fall under the umbrella of G1 or BW anyway? And, as it has been so repeatedly stated, this predominantly an American TF wiki, so I don't think we need to list EVERY TF cartoon ever made, for even with just text links it would be very, very long. --FFN 08:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're just linking to the continuity-families, you shouldn't have 3 images for the UT then. Clearly that threw me off. Of course, if this is by Continuity family, we don't need Classics either- it's part of G1.

Franchise or continuity family, pick a standard. (and if i'm coming off as Difficult, it's because I think this is a bad idea- but like a lot of bad ideas I'm over-ruled on, if it's goign to be done I'd like to see it done well, or at least consistently.) -Derik 09:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There's no logo for UT, unless we make one up, which would be fanart. And those three series are far more well known and arguably more important to American Transformers than the entire Japanese TF continuity. But, if you can come up with the brand/franchise logos for Headmasters, Masterforce, Victory, Zone, Battlestars, BW The Second, BW Neo and on, then we'll do it your way. Not sure how big the 'By series' list will end up being, however. We may have to end up redesigning the main page. --FFN 09:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

No love for the BM "clawed-winged gear" logo? --Thylacine 2000 14:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find an appropriate image to use, and I didn't have time to edit one out of something. --FFN 16:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking at that tall list of images leaves me highly skeptical. This list is going to be huge. It's going to completely dominate the main page and throw everything off entirely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not particularly fond of the way the main page is laid out right now, it was very much something thrown together in twenty minutes; but without an actual redesign (or even with one, it takes up a whole screen on my computer), I don't see that huge-ass list working out. --Suki Brits 14:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, now that I see the images on top of each other, I also think this isn't a great idea anymore. --Steve-o 15:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

And that's without Machine Wars, Beast Machines, Dinobots and Timelines. And then throw in Animorphs, SWTF and Titanium (not to mention the new Universe and other future lines). That column would be taller than almost all monitors can display. --FortMax 16:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I get it. Which is why I only wanted to do it for the series we have at the moment. I wonder, why are you guys suggesting, all of a sudden, series that weren't even there before? If they weren't important enough for inclusion in the column in the first place, why bother to list every TF series ever made now, if only to use them as a means to derail my (evidently) poorly thought out idea? --FFN 16:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, less appealing than I thought it might be. I DO definately believe the Main page could use some redesign and more pictures/visual interest. This just may not be the best way to add that.--ZacWilliam 15:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I made them smaller, but I see FFN has failed! :O Is there any way to allow the images to link to the articles in question? It would free up clutter if we had the American logos and do away with the text saying what it is. As for placement, I think IF the By series column were to have logos, it would work better if we swapped its location with the 'Top level categories' column. --FFN 16:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It could work... if we reformatted the main page so instead of the vertical list there was a box, with the logos filling up rows and columns. G1 at the top-left and then so on. Just a thought. If it eats up the whole screen, nevermind. --209.101.152.114 17:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a look at the image placement markup later. I don't THINK you can make clicking on them take you someplace else... but maybe it'll surprise me. -Derik 20:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I checked, it can't be done. Sorry. I think you can make the pic info page re-direct you... but there are several well-founded reasons why you wouldn't want to do that. -Derik 21:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

The funny is awesome.Learn to laugh.

featured wiki

go vote for us, bitches. (if not for us, for the spanking art wiki, 'cause seriously. spanking art.) -hx 19:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

New Prime Image

I have replaced the crappy and blurred Prime image on the main page with a much better version. Hope there are no objections. OptimusPrime 18:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly object. That image is huge and it completely breaks the layout of the front page. --Suki Brits 18:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right. But I still suggest that the image be replaced or removed entirely. Many images exist on the site that are far better, and could be put to use in its place. Also, the presence of the image on the page causes the Welcome sign to be askew, and makes it look like a bit of a botch job. OptimusPrime 18:08, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean, askew? It's not *supposed* to be in the center of the page... is that all you mean? --Steve-o 18:18, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

How about a size-reduced pic of that close up of Prime's head from the international posters? --FFN 18:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I dislike the current main image, a blurry (imo) close-up of Movie Prime's face. I suggest this image from Takara's Tf site instead. -Derik 01:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That's gonna look pretty awful when small, since that image is gonna go in that little feature-box on the right-hand side of the screen. Any way to get a pic from the bit just before that with those three in close-up without the "WORLD OF TRANSFORMERS" on it? That should shrink down way better while still being legible. --M Sipher 01:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

That's actually 3 seperate pieces of close-up art. I can scrape those and re-create it though. Do you want the starfield behind it, or a transparent background? -Derik 01:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Yyyyyeah, starfield, I think. --M Sipher 01:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Okie, Starfield is up at the previously-linked location. Transparent is here, and I think it looks better. (Thought his gamma might be too agressive.) If we made it the main image it'd probably be nice to round and fade the edges a bit. -Derik 01:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It's seriously not a good picture. (The only reason I objected to the first guy's replacement was because it was like a whole screen tall.) I was really wondering when someone was going to replace it with something better. --Suki Brits 01:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

How about that close up of Prime's movie CG head from the international movie posters? --FFN 03:39, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I love that image and I'd be pissed if someone took it off...SO DO NOT DO IT!!!!! -Rodimusman22

Teletraan 1 has been recomended on Dunepedia

Hi there, sice I thought your site was sogreat, I decided to add a linkto it on my website home page. It's a wiki about Dune, and your site has been added in the Other Recommended Spin-Off Encyclopedias section. The site can be found here: Dunepedia the Dune Encyclopedia

Popular Culture?

Maybe it's just me, but I think it might be a good idea to include a page that features the various references made to the Transformers franchise in different forms of media and popular culture, i.e. Optimus Prime's cameo in The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy; Prime and Soundwave on Family Guy; the "Rad Rad Robotank" that's appeared every once in a while in Homestar Runner, etc. Anyone else think so?

Hell yeah, seconded! One of my favorite bits of Wookieepedia is checking out all the different star wars references they catch and list. Seeing a list of real-world transformer references, cameos and sightings would be sweet. Hell, I think it would be fascinating just to see TF sightings. "Oh, so the toy that kid was playing with in this obscure movie was just a <insert TF here> that the prop department repainted. Neat."

I am... a bit wary of such a thing. A centralized list of pop culture refs would be enormous and very hard to manage, and probably boring. I could see maybe having shorter lists in relevant individual articles -- like, on G1 Soundwave's page, a list of refs to him in particular -- but that would remove some of the usefulness of listing them in the first place, because there wouldn't be an easy way to find them all. How does Wookiepedia do it? --Steve-o 19:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm also wary for the same reasons I don't want us to handle unofficial stuff like fan-conventions and books... at what point does something become not noteworthy enough to mention? Are we going to list every last damn insignificant webcomic or unfunny comedian who says HEY REMEMBER TRANSFORMERS?! --M Sipher 21:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

We see this sort of thing pop up often enough in forums. And frankly, the Wookieepedia's listing of SW references in pop culture is (and I apologise to the people who compiled them) rather boring. And personally, I never want to see Family Guy referenced on this wiki. --FFN 03:59, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm torn. I agree in principle with everything the naysayers have naysaid. And yet, I want somewhere I can document that Spaceballs: The Lunchbox was a TF lunchbox with the Spaceballs logo slapped on it, and there was an Insecticon among the pile of toys the kid in Flight of the Navigator gets. - Jackpot 05:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I never want to see Family Guy referenced on this wiki

I just feel this bears repeating. --M Sipher 08:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like you have some caption-editing to do then. -Derik 16:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

COULD IT BE? Somebody on the internet who doesn't like Family Guy? *shocked* I could swear I was the only one! --FFN 05:08, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I told you guys, I NEVER WANT TO SEE FAMILY GUY REFERENCED ON THIS WIKI. I hate that show and the fact that if you're our age you 'have' to be a fan of it and its limited sense of humour. I think we should discourage people from adding more references beyond the ones we have right now, and just delete ones made by random, unregistered users. We don't reference every time Transformers have appeared on television that isn't a Transformers show so we don't have to reference every instance time they appear on Family Guy. *SHAKES FIST* --FFN 05:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Okaaaaay...-- SFH 06:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't force me to resort to fisticuffs! --FFN 06:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I think, in the interest of fairness and with awareness of the "slippery-slope", that pop-culture references should generally be stricken outside of certain special circumstances where there's some kind of "official" link... like, say, the Megatron/Jetfire cameo in the old Marvel G.I. Joe comic. Thanks to the web and eighty billion cable channels, allowing any "unofficial" pop-culture would mean we'd be looking at a very Wikipedia-esque "notability" (read: "well, I'VE never heard of it!") kind of judgment call being taken every time someone puts up a vanity link because they made a Transformers joke in their little flash animation on Newgrounds.
I'm not adverse to having an article ON the fact that TFs is now a popular callback for the nostalgia remoras out there, noting the timing of the "surges" of things transforming into robots as a reference/parody/imitation... but not some list of 'em all. It's the same stance we should have on any other unofficial work, yes? --M Sipher 06:59, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Some of our articles reference or link Walky's Shortpacked and Don Murphy's article uses a panel from the old 'Don Murphy knees Ethan in the chest' comic as its main pic. Should those be edited in line with this policy? --FFN 07:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say yes. --M Sipher 07:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say, "it depends". It shoundn't be linked to just for the hell of it, but if a case arises where a Shortpacked! strip -- like any other external page -- provides a cogent illustration of something, I think it should be fine to link to that. --Steve-o 21:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Some anonymous, nameless editor at the top raises a good question; how does Wookieepedia deal with this? I mean, I'm guessing that they have to deal with a whole friggin' lot more than we do, so if they handle it well, they might have an already established set of standards we can modify.

I don't like the idea of having a giant, unmaintainable mess of pointless cruft and I don't think I would ever be interested in any modern pop culture appearances of Transformers; but that doesn't mean that there aren't other people who would be interested in a list like that.

(There was also someone else, elsewhere, who raised a good point: what about references to Transformers that aren't from the last few years? I mean, I don't give a damn about Soundwave on Family Guy and I don't think anyone else here does, either, but what about the more obscure references from Beast Wars and earlier? Those are interesting just because they can potentially illustrate Transformers in pop culture in earlier periods of time, to contrast with now; which certainly seems to ME like it has value.) --Suki Brits 07:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd mentioned stuff along that line in #wiigii!... I do think, say, that Razorbeast was on Fresh Prince of Bel Aire (which I never cared for in all honesty, and I had Fresh Prince albums on steady play growing up) or that The Powerpuff Girls had an extended CGI tribute/parody of Beast Machines are WAYYYYY more significant than any TF reference made in the past five years because the HEY LOOK THING YOU REMEMBER wasn't a popular comedy substitute then. At that point, who gave a fuck about Transformers... or about the Eighties, for that matter? Aside from VH1? But it's the ol' slippery-slope again if it goes outside of a "centralized" article that mentions such occurrences within the context of time and doens't try to be a comprehensive list of references. --M Sipher 07:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wookipedia lists EVERYTHING oh my GOD the pages are huge. They divide it by medium. Every single refence, from American Dad to Webcomics. It's... it's a giant monument to how you don't want to spend your time.

Yep, like I said, the wookipedia's list is really, really huge, and really, really boring, no offense to the people who took the time to compile it. --FFN 08:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Lord, and I can barely work up the drive to make articles on actual official TF episodes. And my career, which I enjoy a lot, is basically "make giant lists of boring minutae". The idea that we'd have a complete list of every unfunny TF gag puked out by Adult Swim shows but not, say, a completed series of Beast Wars episode articles is fucking depressing. --M Sipher 09:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Still, it would keep that crap out of the articles proper, and it might be a nice harmless magnet for the people who want to come in and just write one or two lines, aside from just changing captions. Being so unimportant, it's not the sort of thing you'd feel COMPELLED to work on. --Anonymous Prime 09:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I've come to think that the centralized list of refs is the best solution. That way we don't have to worry about lists of totally stupid stuff interfering with the articles we care about. (Well, except for that highly-annoying list of quotes from Transformers (2007).) It also means we don't have to make any decisions about a notability policy because the pop culture refs page is obviously going to be an unsaveable ghetto anyway, so why bother. For the record, I want to emphasize that I doubt it's possible to like Family Guy less than I do. I simply couldn't bear to the see the Family Guy mentions exacerbated by being written badly. --Steve-o 21:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say you should take a look at the "Sightings" section at HRWiki.org. They do a pretty good job of organizing their stuff. (Though I don't think we really need a section for webcomics and the like) Cyberlink420 03:56, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Image upload

I assume this is a wiki software thing, but does anybody know why the upload button you can use when you edit something no longer allows you to fill out details on the file being uploaded? I've trained myself to keep an open 'Upload File' page, but its abit annoying. --FFN 16:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. I still see the same ol' page! --ItsWalky 05:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

When I click the upload popup button (not the Upload file link on the side of the page), in the popup the appears, there's only File: (Browse button) and the "All images uploaded are subject to Wikia's GNU Free Documentation License. Do not upload copyrighted images." warning among some minor things. No space for one to type out file details.

It has been this way since Wikia updated its software a few weeks back, so to fill out details by editing the image's page afterwards. Before the software upgrade, the upload popup also allowed you to fill out file details, just like the Upload file page. This is part of the reason why lately there have been quite a number of images uploaded with no information whatsoever - most non-registered users or newcomers use the upload button instead of the Upload file link on the side of the page. I believe Zodberg has mentioned this when somebody here asked him to fill out image details. --FFN 05:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Animated GIFs

If there isn't already, can we put a ban on these things? -- Hunter-113 00:42, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

There are a couple that I sort of like, as on Spark and Oracle (G1). Those ones are, IMO, considerably less obnoxious than the movie GIFs that people keep uploading. They are smaller in terms of pixels, and file size, and are far less flashy. So... I wouldn't go for a straight ban, but, certainly we could discourage them unless they are tasteful. --Steve-o 01:47, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd be sad if we deleted the Ramjet one. Interrobang 02:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, those three should stay. -- SFH 03:00, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The one on Ginrai would be a damned shame to lose.--Rosicrucian 03:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I never think outright bans are the correct response when what you really want is for people to exercise restraint.

(Of course, I made 3 of the 4 examples people cited of animated gifs that don't suck, so I'm biased.) -Derik 04:14, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

You know what we should do? Make an animated gif warning people against using them!

Seriously, what confuses is that Chosen40k uploading not only an animated gif, but a *redundant* animated gif. I mean, my collage of screencaps for that very scene is right there... I blame the Wikipedia. --FFN 05:03, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Red Links on Main Page

So, we have two red links on the main page, "TV and movies" and "Toys". Were those links always red, or did something get moved? JW 20:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The pages were deleted for being lists. I've added redirects to prevent these broken links. You can view the old content in the page history. Angela (talk) 23:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed LocalSettings change

Tweaking the e-Hobby page this morning got me thinking about iPods. Specifically Wikipedia's iPod article which, as you can see, has a lowercase first character. (That's new BTW, it didn't until a few months ago.)

The iPod page uses a magic word called {{DISPLAYTITLE}} to let you change how the page title displays. (You can't go nuts and call it 'Greg,' you can just set an alternate capitalization. You can't break anything with it.) But enabling DisplayTitle is a LocalSettings change (requires a wiki tech to do it) so before making a request I did a quick check for any other Hot-and-Sexy LocalSettings options we might wan to consider. Out of ~200 settables, here's my short list:

wgAllowDisplayTitle

enable the aforementioned {{DISPLAYTITLE}} flag

wgFileExtensions

Allowed file types on "Upload file." (I haven't noticed anyone grousing about not being able to upload X, but I thought I'd throw it out in case someone had a really good idea.)

wgRateLimits

Limit to number of page edits allowed in a time period. e.g. 4 edits per minute, or 50 edits in 20 minutes... etc. (I'd probably be against this one because of linkfixes, and because we haven't had to deal with mass-edit-spam yet... and you shouldn't restrict users without a pressing need.)

wgLocaltimezone

Set the local timezone (used in the recent edits page, among others) to something other than UTC. It bugs me to see the wiki's time off by 5 hours, and it's unamerican, where's our english bias when we need it most?

wgBlockAllowsUTEdit

Allow blocked users to edit their own user talk page. I strongly favor this one, letting the condemned have his say keeps us from coming off as totalitarian jackboots. On a purely functional level- now in order to protest/request clarification/bitch about being banned, a blocked user must first figure out how to evade our ban. Given a choice between disgruntled users venting by howling on their own talk pages and disgruntled users evading bans to (feeling silenced) howl on other pages, I'd prefer the former.

(There's lots of other setables- but most of them just aren't useful for a wiki at our level of traffic.) I'm in favor of DisplayTitle, BannedUserTalk and maybe Timezone (Set to Portland Oregon? Rhode Island?)

I'd need to hear what others think- I'm not going to pursue a tech request unless there's favoring consensus. -Derik 07:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Also, you should have posted this to the community portal instead of the main page. --Steve-o 14:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The Community portal never discusses this kind of thing...

Oh, you meant the CP talk page. Duly noted for the future. -Derik 20:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I'll throw in my vote. -- Dark T Zeratul 19:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought blocked users could ALREADY edit their own talk pages. Did they change the settings at some point? Regardless, I definitely agree with you there on pretty much every count. And changing the time zone to SOMETHING in North America sounds good to me, too, just because it gets weird when the day breaks like five hours off of when it actually should. The actual time zone doesn't even matter that much. --Suki Brits 19:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Really? MediaWiki says its false by default. (I guess Wikia might have set it true as default) I don't remember being able to edit my talk page when I was banned... but perhaps I just never needed to. Let's test! Ban me!

Um... you will have to un-ban me after the test though. ;)-Derik 20:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Our most recent Irate-Jerk-Who-Was-Banned was indeed able to post endlessly to her own talk page after she was banned. --ItsWalky 00:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Which one? Registered user? IP user? -Derik 01:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Semi-Protection

It seems to me it would be in our best interests to semi-protect the main page against anonymous IP edits. Because, y'know, it's the frigging main page, and it's not going to have much editing done on it by anonymous users other than to replace it with "LOL UR GAY." --Rosicrucian 16:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely. It's done. --Suki Brits 18:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Military Personality

Through the timeline the Autobots and Decepticons had been featured military personality. IG Sir Yes Sir. Roger That. Affirmative.

Usually commanders stay behind at HQ and let their fucking lackies do the fighting. Not lead a team into battle. IG Optimus and Megatron lead their armies to battle each other and they fight in battle. In Transformers Armada the 2 leaders are supposed to stay at their HQs and let their fucking troops do battle and get the fucking mini-cons. Not make personal appearences.(76.247.222.101 00:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC))

What does that have to do with the Main Page...or anything regarding this wiki? -- SFH 00:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I meant whats happening during the series. Have you notice military commanders are supposed to stay behind while their troops are doing their work? The Big army thing had been featured in Armada.

There are no less than ten separate series detailed on this wiki, and it's not really relevant to this page to discuss any of them directly as this talkpage is about the layout and formatting of the main page of this wiki. It is not a general discussion board about Transformers.--Rosicrucian 01:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article for October

So...are we ever going to change the featured article? It's been Megatron for, like, two months now. Cyberlink420 03:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what the management thinks is complete enough in terms of length and content. I think Movie Prime's article should be given a go since October will be the month of the DVD release in the US and the article is more or less complete. --FFN 04:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

How about something other than a character page?--Zodberg 12:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I nominate Sector Seven, because the article is fairly thorough, references a lot of material, and will be useful to the fans directed here who liked the movie but haven't read all the minor, wacky background material. That article is still listed as a "Stub," though as with a great many "stubs" on this wiki I kind of don't see why. It could be made longer, like all of them, but it's not like it's missing anything critical or is just a halfassed paragraph. --Thylacine 2000 14:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we should make articles for Rebecca Howard and Alexander Powers before we feature it, since they're pretty important to the ARG storyline, which, as you said, is the wacky background material 99% of people would never seen or heard of. Plus they're linked right at the start of the article. --FFN 14:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

By the way when it comes doing the most wanted page list means I will do it but someone must back me up when I go do yardwork.(Spearhead 08:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC))

Sweet zombie Jesus, the Featured Article changed!!! I think I may faint! ...But one request: Please don't change it back to Megatron in November! --Starcrunch 15:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The Wanted pages Section

Can someone add Popular Cybertronian vehicle alternate modes to the Wanted Pages section? If the Earth and Beast gets to have alternate modes so does Cybertron. Besides most Transformers in the Unicron Trilogy and Animated series are mostly futuristic Cybertronian vehicles. There is no talk page in the Most Wanted Page section so thats why I put words here.(Soldier 79 11:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC))

God, will you shut up about it? That page will NEVER exist, because there are no "popular Cybertronian vehicle alternate modes"! None AT ALL! So shut up already! --Detour 11:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

While I do agree with Detour that you can hardly deem any Cybertronian alt-mode as "Popular," I say if you feel that there is a need for this page, you should just go ahead and make the page yourself instead of sitting around waiting for someone else to do the work! --Starcrunch 17:57, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. While many folks on this wiki might feel that a page isn't warranted, a really well-done article treatment can often change their minds.

Whining that the page does not exist does the exact opposite of this.--Rosicrucian 18:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

When you do make that page, don't forget to include "Space-Age Lamp Post." --Starcrunch 19:04, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

And when you make the page, expect for it to be deleted quickly, because there is no need for that page. The "popular altmode" pages are for specific models of vehicles or breeds of animals, not just "jet" and "car". That quickly becomes pointless.

Not that this clot is ever goign to make the page. He's been here under a dozen different (banned) nicks pulling the same idiotic shit every time, and somehow the facts that nobody wants him here and he contributes nothing to the site fails to sink into his skull. --M Sipher 19:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

About the Wanted Pages section. Can someone do those pages? I will not do the Wanted pages section due to I can't do style guide because of no reason.(159.83.4.149 23:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC))

SWEET MOTHER MARY... NO!!! NOBODY is physically capable of making that page b/c the material just doesn't exist. Seriously, I swear to whatever deity you like that I will eat my own shoe if you or anyone can compile a list of at least five "popular" Cybertronian altmodes. --Starcrunch 17:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you're talking about mental capabilities.- Rodimusman22 1:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Halloween colors?

Any chance of getting some Halloween orange in a few places to spruce up the Halloween look? I think it'd really set off the Zombie pics nice and draw more attention to them. Obviously if such a thing is a hassle it's not worth it, but if its as easy as a line of text might increase the holiday vibe some.

Logos for 'By series' column Mark II

I've worked a little something out using a template taken from Wikia. What do you think? User:FortMax/Sandbox --FortMax 02:45, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I still think it looks messy and prefer plain text. --ItsWalky 02:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Just for the sake of adding another opinion to the vote, I don't think the visuals are THAT messy. But I do think they're at times unreadable (RID), misleading (Classics), or anti-informative (Movie). In fact, I like having that sandbox page up just so it's clear why this topic should never come up again. - Jackpot 02:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Stubs

What up with stubs? Isn't there someone out there who can contribute information? i mean just today I wrote a new Defensor article and I need a ton of help with the info since there is so little to give.-Rodimusman22

Stubs are a reminder that the article isn't complete and a plea for contributions. No offense, but you might want to consider following our style guide when creating articles and to be careful with your spelling, or you will just create more work for other people afterwards. --FFN 06:09, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's the first article I've ever written. And besides its not annoying to me because I like to help out however I can.-Rodimusman22

"By series" column is missing...

"Comics" for Beast Wars.--Nevermore 13:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a little question...

Is there anywhere I can find a NON parody wiki? - Anonymous

Right here? --M Sipher 19:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia--Carrion 19:33, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

But their TF pages suck. So dry and boring and light on content and all Mignashy. --M Sipher 19:35, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Mostly the Mignashy part. —Interrobang 20:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Transformers stuff is full on content! It's just all made up. --ItsWalky 20:59, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you understand the meaning of "parody", Mister Anonymous. "It has humor in it" is not what parody entails. —Interrobang 20:48, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, plus beneath our bad captions and jokes there's a wealth of information you will not likely find anywhere else, at least not all in one place. I think people are too used to the "[insert franchise] is Serious Business" natures of the large, dry wikis like Memory Alpha and the Star Wars Wiki. That or they are unable to laugh at Transformers because they take it too seriously. Or they think this entire wiki is written solely by Walky, and since they hate Walky, they hate the wiki. Those last people suck. --FFN 20:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Introducing ME: Gigatronalmighty!

Terrorize! i am Gigatronalmighty the ruler of many worlds!

AHEM! i DO appologize, anyway if you havent noticed My name, IS Gigatronalmighty (realy i should stop pretending to be Gigatron i'll do that now) i come to join you and assist, I have rather usefull infomation on Transformers, i know quite alot about it, almost everything its possible to know, i think you might find me... usefull. So, want my help? Then set me off on a few articles that need editing. Gigatronalmighty 10:52, 28 January 2008 (UTC)