The TF Wiki

[TheDirtyDigger]

The TF Wiki here! (http://www.tfwiki.net/)


Just thought I'd get the ball rolling properly on an ongoing discussion about one of my favourite TF resources. Personally I do find it informative and amusing.

Some simple questions for starters...

-Who uses it?
-How user friendly do you find it to be?
-Do you think it has enough information?
-It runs like other Wiki's where users may contribute to the masses of information contained. Someone like Gok (who has by my experience exhibited far and wide the most knowledgable and in-depth understanding of the often complex Transformer franchise) could contribute greatly to this vault of information. My question...who here does contribute/edit the TF Wiki when they have a free moment?


Thank you for sharing! :)

[Firecracker]

Where's FFN? He's our resident TF Wiki dude...

I'm always visiting to cross check things, kill time or to just have a laugh, some of the contributors humour is cracking. :D

[Paulbot]

I find it amusing and also useful for finding some of the more obscure things.

I also make some edits and was planning over summer on adding some pages on the TF fiction not already covered in it.

[Pulse]

The only times I use it are when there's something-TF on my mind & on 9 occasions out of 10, my questions get answered there :).




reminds me of someone else who outright refused to use it... ;) :D

[King Atlas]

I find the site informative and the captions hilarious hehe

[blackie]

usefull for most things


I find the site informative and the captions hilarious hehe

uncyclopedia still wins in my books

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay, I'm just gonna get this off my chest - here's what I dislike about TFwiki...

(i) The attempted humour is just not necessary. This is supposed to be a fan-maintained encyclopedia - it ought to be informative and factual, which it does achieve to some degree, but it's not meant to try and be entertaining. It's almost like TFwiki is trying to be the class clown all the time. I would much prefer it if it stuck to the facts and the captions were actually descriptive of what was being displayed in the images. And this is what you tend to get on a regular/normal wikia and other resource sites. I don't expect to look up a Dugong on wikipedia and see a caption mocking its reputation as the "ugliest animal in the world." All the try-hard humour just makes TFwiki look horrifically unprofessional. I can't take a wikia seriously when it doesn't seem to take itself seriously. It's like a teacher coming to class in a freakin' clown suit. (-_-) What is this, Patch Adams?

(ii) Many pages in TF wiki are loaded with personal opinionated bias. A true informative resource should be neutral/impartial and devoid of bias. The KISS Play page is a good example of this - it raves on about how KISS play is for pedophiles and how it's sexually perverted etc., then the page about the artist for KISS Play suggests that he's a pervert etc. (which is kinda like public defamation too). I'm not saying that KISS Play is or isn't perverted - that's a matter of personal opinion/perception... a kind of opinion which doesn't belong on TFwiki. And this is just one of many, many examples of personal bias.

(iii) There's a lot of information of TFwiki which is either incorrect or not entirely accurate and just missing. Afaik there's no TFwiki entry on Ono Kojin (Ōno Kōjin), who is the Takara toy designer who designed most G1 and G2 Transformers. All those G1 TFs you loved as a kid... he designed most of those.

(iv) "Why don't you edit it?" - yeah, I tried doing that when TFwiki first came out, but I found that most of my edits got re-edited so that the things I tried to change were unchanged (e.g.: trying to remove bias, forced humour, information accuracy etc). After that I just plain gave up all hope on TFwiki.

I only refer to TFwiki for things I cannot find anywhere else... which fortunately for me at least isn't much since I store lots of TF knowledge in my noggin' (the joys of being a walking TF encyclopedia :p) ;)

[kup]

(iv) "Why don't you edit it?" - yeah, I tried doing that when TFwiki first came out, but I found that most of my edits got re-edited so that the things I tried to change were unchanged (e.g.: trying to remove bias, forced humour, information accuracy etc). After that I just plain gave up all hope on TFwiki.

I only refer to TFwiki for things I cannot find anywhere else... which fortunately for me at least isn't much since I store lots of TF knowledge in my noggin' (the joys of being a walking TF encyclopedia :p) ;)

I can relate to that strongly. I tried to get involved in the spirit of contribution about a year ago but it seems that the 'owners' of the wiki articles do not like others adding to their pages. No reason given to why additions were removed, it just seemed that they didn't want to let others play without permission negating the whole point of the wiki.

Every change not made by the circle of 'frequent contributors' is either automatically deleted or the casual author has to 'fight' for the changes or additions he/she makes. It doesn't matter if the addition adds constructively to the page or not, it is automatically deleted without explanation.

Due to this I have found the wiki only good for finding stuff about fictional information such as Marvel comics/character stories. Anything else that is based in the real world such as toy lines, product history, etc I take it with a grain of salt.

At the end I have found it to be a resource of sorts but not one I can trust to be correct/unbiased.

[TheDirtyDigger]

Okay, I'm just gonna get this off my chest - here's what I dislike about TFwiki...

(i) The attempted humour is just not necessary. This is supposed to be a fan-maintained encyclopedia - it ought to be informative and factual, which it does achieve to some degree, but it's not meant to try and be entertaining. It's almost like TFwiki is trying to be the class clown all the time. I would much prefer it if it stuck to the facts and the captions were actually descriptive of what was being displayed in the images. And this is what you tend to get on a regular/normal wikia and other resource sites. I don't expect to look up a Dugong on wikipedia and see a caption mocking its reputation as the "ugliest animal in the world." All the try-hard humour just makes TFwiki look horrifically unprofessional. I can't take a wikia seriously when it doesn't seem to take itself seriously. It's like a teacher coming to class in a freakin' clown suit. (-_-) What is this, Patch Adams?

I can understand the point you're making there but I would say (and this is totally an estimation) that they are catering to the majority of folk who enjoy the humour. I personally find myself smiling or even giggling girlishly to some of the caption comments and I see most anything that makes me happy as a positive thing. That said, I'm not someone who takes the TF canon too seriously.



(ii) Many pages in TF wiki are loaded with personal opinionated bias. A true informative resource should be neutral/impartial and devoid of bias. The KISS Play page is a good example of this - it raves on about how KISS play is for pedophiles and how it's sexually perverted etc., then the page about the artist for KISS Play suggests that he's a pervert etc. (which is kinda like public defamation too). I'm not saying that KISS Play is or isn't perverted - that's a matter of personal opinion/perception... a kind of opinion which doesn't belong on TFwiki. And this is just one of many, many examples of personal bias.

I agree totally with 'A true informative resource should be neutral/impartial and devoid of bias' but it is more rare than common that we see this anywhere. Newspapers and journalism are filled with bias as are the standard articles in the Wikipedia, albeit much more subtly.




(iii) There's a lot of information of TFwiki which is either incorrect or not entirely accurate and just missing. Afaik there's no TFwiki entry on Ono Kojin (Ōno Kōjin), who is the Takara toy designer who designed most G1 and G2 Transformers. All those G1 TFs you loved as a kid... he designed most of those.

(iv) "Why don't you edit it?" - yeah, I tried doing that when TFwiki first came out, but I found that most of my edits got re-edited so that the things I tried to change were unchanged (e.g.: trying to remove bias, forced humour, information accuracy etc). After that I just plain gave up all hope on TFwiki.

I can relate to that strongly. I tried to get involved in the spirit of contribution about a year ago but it seems that the 'owners' of the wiki articles do not like others adding to their pages. No reason given to why additions were removed, it just seemed that they didn't want to let others play without permission negating the whole point of the wiki.

Every change not made by the circle of 'frequent contributors' is either automatically deleted or the casual author has to 'fight' for the changes or additions he/she makes. It doesn't matter if the addition adds constructively to the page or not, it is automatically deleted without explanation.

Kup...can we ask FFN why this is so? Hang on...I'll do it.

FFN...can you elaborate on this point for our benefit please?

Gok...If you produced an entry on Ono Kojin would they delete it?
As for editing the TFwiki I saw a couple of Shortpacked comics on two guys who keep re-editing each others entries. With such a strongly loved franchise with so many obsessive fanatics, fights over who's right or not are sure to crop up often.
Who has final say over what goes in or out?
How do we become this all powerful figure?




I only refer to TFwiki for things I cannot find anywhere else... which fortunately for me at least isn't much since I store lots of TF knowledge in my noggin' (the joys of being a walking TF encyclopedia :p) ;)

Aha...if only I had a Gokbot with your knowledge firmly imprinted on it's hard drive next to me every time I had a TF related query. Sadly I don't so I'll have to rely on TFwiki and our forums for such. :)

[GoktimusPrime]

I can understand the point you're making there but I would say (and this is totally an estimation) that they are catering to the majority of folk who enjoy the humour. I personally find myself smiling or even giggling girlishly to some of the caption comments and I see most anything that makes me happy as a positive thing. That said, I'm not someone who takes the TF canon too seriously.
I like some of the humorous captions too... but just because it's funny doesn't mean that it's appropriate. Imagine if a news reporter were to describe Corey Delaney as a <Richard>-head. I would find it both funny and I would agree with the sentiment... but at the same time it would be grossly inappropriate to say something like that in a news report when you're supposed to be just presenting facts. It's not an issue of "is it funny?" but an issue of appropriateness. There's a time and place for humour and making a so-called Transformers encyclopedia just isn't one of them. It's almost as if TFwiki is trying to be both a TF wikipedia and uncyclopedia at the same time (which mixes as well as oil and water).


I agree totally with 'A true informative resource should be neutral/impartial and devoid of bias' but it is more rare than common that we see this anywhere. Newspapers and journalism are filled with bias as are the standard articles in the Wikipedia, albeit much more subtly.
That is true, but ten wrongs don't make a right. As I've mentioned on other threads, I dislike Wikipedia in general due to its open source nature - the fact that any schmuck can come and edit them. It's totally different from an actual encyclopedia or proper resource book/site where they are published by qualified experts. And as you've said, the bias is a lot more subtle on other wikis. TF wiki is by far the worst wikia I have ever come across in terms of blatant open bias and inappropriate use of humour. You look at any other wikia - Star Wars, Harry Potter, Dr. Who, G.I. Joe etc. (and of course, wikipedia), none of them have the kind of open bias and try-hard humour that TF wiki has.


Gok...If you produced an entry on Ono Kojin would they delete it?
Don't really know or care tbh... like I said, I've long given up hope on wikis, and especially Transformers wiki. There's an article on Ono Kojin on Wikipedia (here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Cno_K%C5%8Djin)) which has basic information about his work on Microman, Diaclone and Transformers G1 (though nothing about his post-TF work). There's also a link to my English translation of the Transformers Generations interview with Ono.

I often tell my students to beware of Wikipedia and wikis and that if they are going to use a wiki as a source of information, to make sure that it can be backed up by at least two other separate sources. I would only recommend TFwiki as a final resort - i.e. if you cannot find the information anywhere else, and I will admit that TFwiki does contain some information which cannot be easily found anywhere else and it's good for that. But overall I am very unimpressed with it as a TF resource.

[kup]

I often tell my students to beware of Wikipedia and wikis and that if they are going to use a wiki as a source of information, to make sure that it can be backed up by at least two other separate sources. I would only recommend TFwiki as a final resort - i.e. if you cannot find the information anywhere else, and I will admit that TFwiki does contain some information which cannot be easily found anywhere else and it's good for that. But overall I am very unimpressed with it as a TF resource.

That is good advice and not just for the TF wiki but wikis in general. They are afterall public edited articles and as a result each has their own quirks, attitudes and culture just like any other community. I have found that wikis are only good for absolute 'Black or white' facts such as 'When was such a toy released' or 'What date did WWII end', stuff like that. Anything that requires opinion or observation of sorts I cross reference unless they have included a concrete third party source stated in the article.

[Paulbot]

I've never gone back and checked changes I've made are still there.

I can understand people reverting edits if you're taking our their jokes etc and spoiling their fun, but if you're adding valid updates and they are still being removed that's really bad form.

[GoktimusPrime]

I find the use of jokes etc. to be bad form too in the context of a wikia. Could you imagine looking up Dugong on Encyclopedia Britannica and seeing an image with the caption "@$$face"? Sure, that would be funny but terribly inappropriate in that context/situation. Not even Star Wars Wikia refers to Ponda Baba (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ponda_Baba) or any other Aqualish in that way... as hilarious as it may be.

Bumfaces ftw
http://greenpeace.or.jp/dugong/dugong/image/dugong.jpghttp://popshifter.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ponda-baba.jpg

[i_amtrunks]

I use it here and there, mostly to check up on info from the Marvel comics and what not, it's a good back-up resource if I cannot find the information elsewhere. Some of the links they have in their articles are pretty cool as well.


I do like the wikia though, and I think if it is used as a casual reference, and not as an encyclopaedia of sorts, it does it's job very well (and I must admit I do like most of the humour).

[GoktimusPrime]

I do like the wikia though, and I think if it is used as a casual reference, and not as an encyclopaedia of sorts, it does it's job very well (and I must admit I do like most of the humour).
Yeah, but the problem is that wikias are (in theory/principle) supposed to be open-source encyclopaedias. Therefore it ought to read more like an encylopaedia and in doing so, carry an 'academically' informative tone that is devoid of things like bias (and the use of humour often enforces biases too).

[kup]

I've never gone back and checked changes I've made are still there.

I can understand people reverting edits if you're taking our their jokes etc and spoiling their fun, but if you're adding valid updates and they are still being removed that's really bad form.

I don't have as much of an issue with the jokes. My issue is when I try to add (as in not changing) to an article and my addition is deleted without any explanation whatsoever. My only successful contribution to the wiki was a single line that I had to fight for, I don't mind discussion and someone making comments on the validity of my addition but someone just coming along and deleting stuff without explanation is what I am complaining about. I only got feedback on why my line was deleted after I demanded one and even so the response was "I never heard of this so it must be wrong". At the end I managed to maintain my wiki addition but the attitude I encountered while doing so was something I did not appreciate. The attitude read as someone who is either over protective and defensive of the existing content or doesn't allow anyone else but 'the trusted circle' to edit it.

If there is disagreement about a change or addition, that is cool and fine, deleting without any explanation is not.

I am not really all that concerned with the wiki, I gave up on it ages ago as a fan wide community project, I just wanted to voice my concerns. After all, in these sorts of projects, criticism should be welcomed not rejected.

[Kyle]

What's wrong with the wiki now?

Ok, since this was asked in an earlier discussion...

I find myself agreeing with Gok. Many times I found there's maybe a little too much humour. Now, I'm not a humourless person and I do laugh at a lot of the humour. But some of the captions have gone maybe a little far into bad taste territory without restraint. Good for long time fans who would get these jokes, but I can also see how off-putting it can be to potential fans who expect to learn more by reading these pages. Suggestion: maybe have 2 versions of each page. The search function can first take a visitor to a page with the humour. After reading through it, if the visitor decides he/she'd like the same page with just the facts and not the humour, they can click on a link at the the top or bottom of the page which takes them to such a page. This way maybe everybody will be happy?


(ii) Many pages in TF wiki are loaded with personal opinionated bias. A true informative resource should be neutral/impartial and devoid of bias. The KISS Play page is a good example of this - it raves on about how KISS play is for pedophiles and how it's sexually perverted etc., then the page about the artist for KISS Play suggests that he's a pervert etc. (which is kinda like public defamation too). I'm not saying that KISS Play is or isn't perverted - that's a matter of personal opinion/perception... a kind of opinion which doesn't belong on TFwiki. And this is just one of many, many examples of personal bias.

I read the KISS Play pages without much prior knowledge of the series, and after reading them I found myself confused about which parts are facts and which parts are made up by the wiki writers. Now, if someone asks me about KISS Play, I'll still point them to the wiki pages (and I have, just a few days ago on this forum). However, I cannot take the information presented on these pages seriously, when obviously "some" of the wiki writers don't take themselves seriously. And I don't consider these pages as a "reliable" source.

At the end of the day, it is entirely up to the wiki team to decide:
- what they want TF Wiki to be and what they're trying to achieve
- how seriously they want people to take them and how reliable a source they want to be
- what type of audience they want (and what audience they are leaving out)
- if they honestly want to encourage fans to contribute to these pages.

If the wiki team finds that there's no need to change anything, and they're comfortable with what they want to be, it'll be fine by me though. :) We all know a lot of work, labour and love :D have been put into TF Wiki. I will still see it as a valuable source of information (with some flaws). I guess none of us can be perfect. :p

[dirge]

I agree about the tone of the articles, and I do think the snappy captions really set a poor tone - many pages read more as a blog or review than a dedicated reference.

I also find some of the pictures could really use a caption explaining what they are (eg in the broad article on G1 Sideswipe we might see a IDW panel of Sideswipe, with no explanation of where it came from at all), and because of the snappy caption, the image is just sitting there, unexplained.

[griffin]

I feel that since the tfwiki.net was started up by a certain group of fans, they should have the right to administrate it how ever they wish (even if they *claim* to be accurate or welcome submissions), because they at least went to the trouble of creating such an extensive project. They have no obligation to maintain any level of accuracy or seriousness. If it was unreliable, fans would go to a TFs wiki that is reliable, or create one themselves - there doesn't have to be just one. But to keep the passion towards creating and maintaining the most comprehensive TFs wiki on the net, the people behind it need to make it fun to do. Transformers is just too huge a universe now to expect a small group of fans committed to a wiki project to be like mindless automatons in the ongoing construction of it. And if they refuse to accept help from verified corrections, then it is their loss. They are the 'owners' (administrators) of the site, which means they can adopt any content agenda they want.

I do think they probably should have obvious disclaimers on the site, to make sure people don't take something serious that is just humour. But complaining about someone else's project because they have their own agenda (which is their right), is just wasting time and frustration.

And starting up a topic just to bait a known critic of the tfwiki.net isn't a good idea either. We know it exists, and why people use it, and it gets talked about enough times in existing topics - we didn't need a whole new topic to encourage more debate on the issue.

[TheDirtyDigger]

And starting up a topic just to bait a known critic of the tfwiki.net isn't a good idea either. We know it exists, and why people use it, and it gets talked about enough times in existing topics - we didn't need a whole new topic to encourage more debate on the issue.

Sorry Griff but that wasn't my intent at all. A lot of things have been alluded to in the past and even discouraged from being discussed. Instead of having people sniping at each other in random comments in various threads I felt it would be a lot better to discuss it openly as mature adults should do.
For my own benefit I now understand Gok's and others valid criticisms of it and I think that others that administrate it can take these on board or ignore them but at least it has been articulated clearly and openly.

[Gutsman Heavy]

I'm all for the jokes in the captions, especially in the toys sections, when it is talking about Powermaster Prime I don't need the picture next to the body of text to say "Powermaster Optimus Prime" it seems fairly obvious what it is. If it wasn't funny I would hit random page half as often as I do, if I want boring and sterile I can go to Wikipedias various TF entries.

[Pulse]

IMO, the TF Wiki is not the be-all-&-end-all encyclopedia for all things transformers. Isn't it trying to answer our TF-questions? So what if it's not always serious in its tone? A bit of light-hearted humour never hurt anyone... :)

[griffin]

Sorry Griff but that wasn't my intent at all. A lot of things have been alluded to in the past and even discouraged from being discussed. Instead of having people sniping at each other in random comments in various threads I felt it would be a lot better to discuss it openly as mature adults should do.
For my own benefit I now understand Gok's and others valid criticisms of it and I think that others that administrate it can take these on board or ignore them but at least it has been articulated clearly and openly.

I do think it is a good idea to *rationally* detail the flaws or failings of a fan project if it claims to be accurate or open to corrections, but the timing of this topic isn't the best, with several discussions on the issue in a number of other topics somewhat degenerating.
But since it is too late to change that now, this topic, while it remains calm and rational (thankyou :) ), can continue if it has the potential of improving the wiki in question.
If the admin/staff at the tfwiki.net are keen to improve their site and open to suggestions, then anything valid said here can be brought to their attention by our own resident wiki contributor/editor(?) FFN.

[jaydisc]

I feel that since the tfwiki.net was started up by a certain group of fans, they should have the right to administrate it how ever they wish (even if they *claim* to be accurate or welcome submissions), because they at least went to the trouble of creating such an extensive project. They have no obligation to maintain any level of accuracy or seriousness. If it was unreliable, fans would go to a TFs wiki that is reliable, or create one themselves - there doesn't have to be just one. But to keep the passion towards creating and maintaining the most comprehensive TFs wiki on the net, the people behind it need to make it fun to do. Transformers is just too huge a universe now to expect a small group of fans committed to a wiki project to be like mindless automatons in the ongoing construction of it. And if they refuse to accept help from verified corrections, then it is their loss. They are the 'owners' (administrators) of the site, which means they can adopt any content agenda they want.

I agree with this completely. After all, it's not the only avenue and it's certainly not the official avenue. I actually personally plan to compete with it myself one day (although only one component of it). And when and if that day comes, I will of course do it the way that I want to do it.

[GoktimusPrime]

I'm all for the jokes in the captions, especially in the toys sections, when it is talking about Powermaster Prime I don't need the picture next to the body of text to say "Powermaster Optimus Prime" it seems fairly obvious what it is.
Not to a total noob. And when writing informative articles one should assume that the audience is totally ignorant in order to engage them. TFwiki seems to be written just for Transfans rather than for anyone who can walk in and access it. Compare this with other wikias.


If it wasn't funny I would hit random page half as often as I do, if I want boring and sterile I can go to Wikipedias various TF entries.
As a result I find the Wikipedia TF entries to be often more accurate and better presented than those on TFwiki.

It seems that a lot of people are thinking, "well it amuses me therefore it's okay" as justification for the humour - which is a biased response. As I said, I find some of the jokes pretty funny too, but removing my personal bias and looking at it objectively I feel that the humour is not appropriate. As dirge said, it reads more like someone's blog rather than a purpose-written informative article that you would find on an encyclopaedia/wikia.


IMO, the TF Wiki is not the be-all-&-end-all encyclopedia for all things transformers. Isn't it trying to answer our TF-questions?
According to wikipedia's definition of a wikipedia... "Wikipedia...is a free, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia" and also describes it as "an encyclopedic reference" (1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia), 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki), 3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikia)).


So what if it's not always serious in its tone? A bit of light-hearted humour never hurt anyone...
As Kyle pointed out, it can be very confusing to people who are not familiar with the subject that the TFwiki article is talking about - which is bad form for a resource article.

Now sure - the TFwiki people don't have to lift their standards to that of other wikis, it's their baby and entirely their decision. But I cannot respect their work as a reliable source of TF information if they're going to write with such questionable writing standards.

Anyway, I think I've made my reasons for disliking TFwiki rather clear. I don't mean to tell people not to use it (although I wouldn't necessarily encourage it either) - but as others have said, if you're going to use TFwiki then be careful and try to make sure that their information can be verified with other independent sources.

And this is just common practice whenever anyone does any kind of research - it doesn't just apply to wikis. Even if you were researching information from a proper encyclopaedia you wouldn't rely on that one source alone, you would be required to use other separate sources too. You don't read academic papers or books that only have one source listed in its bibliography!

If you're just quickly looking something up, TFwiki can be okay. But if you want to know something that you're not familiar with then I would recommend using TFwiki with caution (and all wikis should be treated that way due to their open source nature).

[jaydisc]

Just a reminder to everyone that we are talking about toys, not medical dissertations. Gosh knows I need to remind myself at times ;)

[FFN]

On the subject of tone, I don't think Transformers is not really a topic deserving of scholarly study and contemplation. It's a toyline for kids and cartoons and comics to promote the toys or the brand, and we treat it as such. Thus we then have fun with our hobby and not take it too seriously.

For bias and tone, I think Pablo Hidalgo, content manager Lucasfilm's websites, said it best:

There are plenty of reasons as a TransFan to dig it, but what I particularly like is its absolute disregard to neutral voice. It never pretends to be anything officials and in fact, gets a bit bawdy in some of its language - especially its often-hilarious captions ... It's got the perfect mix of retentive detail and irreverence.

As for 'lifting our standards' to be like other wikis, we don't want to emulate the Wikipedia or be like other wikis. In my opinion, that's what makes us stand out and makes us unique.


I question the accusations of us refusing to accept edits that are more factually accurate than what we already have (so long as it doesn't conflict with our tone and our style guide). Give us proof and whatever edits you contribute will be left alone or reworked to fit our articles.

As for captions not being Wikipedia-style captions or not being descriptive of what is occurring, well, click on the image itself and there should be a description along with (hopefully) credits for the artists and writers involved if it's a comic panel.

[Bartrim]

I'd just like to state that I am a fan of tfwiki.

[GoktimusPrime]

As for 'lifting our standards' to be like other wikis, we don't want to emulate the Wikipedia or be like other wikis. In my opinion, that's what makes us stand out and makes us unique.
It certainly does make TFwiki stand out and unique... but not in a good way IMHO.


I question the accusations of us refusing to accept edits that are more factually accurate than what we already have (so long as it doesn't conflict with our tone and our style guide). Give us proof and whatever edits you contribute will be left alone or reworked to fit our articles.
Ah, so much to choose from. I'll just use one example - the first time I once edited the page on KISS Play to remove all the bias and suggestions of it being perverted etc. I also removed another section which lacked citation (I think it was the controversy part - note that there is no controversy over KISS Play with Transfans in Japan). I left a message explaining that I was just removing the bias out of the article. My edits were quickly undone with a message telling me not to vandalise the page.

IMO my edit was valid and justified. KISS Play being perverted is a matter of personal opinion, not fact. I'm not saying that I necessarily agree or disagree with that sentiment... that's not the issue. It is really the lack of neutral voice, and in this case, painting KISS Play to be something that it is arguably not (and as Kyle said, is just downright confusing). Forget irreverant, the tone of that page is downright insulting IMO.

Another example, Titanium Series. I editted the page more than once to include Metric specifications alongside the USC measures, e.g.: 6-inch (15cm). I did not delete the USC measurements at all - I left them in tact but I just also included metric specifications for the sake of non-Americans. Each time I did this they were deleted. I also included metric conversions for other measures, like the height and dimensions of movie Optimus Prime and Megatron... again, I did not delete the USC measures, I merely included the metric conversion. Again, the metric conversions were deleted. In wikipedia measures always appear in both USC and Metric. I have no idea why TFwiki staff are opposed to this. I thought this was the world wide web (and metric is the international standard for weights and measures). Again, this was a factual edit which was undone (why can't we state Optimus Prime's height in feet and metres or his volume in cubic feet and cubic metres?).

But to the TFwiki staff's credit there has been some edits I've done which haven't been undone - and that's mostly where I've corrected "European" to "European & Australasian" when it comes to so-called European Transformers in G1. Under the entry for European Transformers I also editted it to include Australia and New Zealand and I think that's been untouched too. But there are more pages in TFwiki - individual entries on many European/Australasian Transformers which only state that they are "European".

I've given up on editting TFwiki so I'm not going through correcting them all. (-_-)


As for captions not being Wikipedia-style captions or not being descriptive of what is occurring, well, click on the image itself and there should be a description along with (hopefully) credits for the artists and writers involved if it's a comic panel.
That doesn't change the fact that the captions themselves are not descriptive. People who are browsing through the page want information to be immediately accessible - they shouldn't have to click on the images to find out what they are. Also, I haven't noticed any text telling people that they need to click on images to read their descriptions... so unless people are psychic, they're not going to access those descriptions unless they incidentally click on the image to view it at higher resolution.

It should be the other way around - the pages should have descriptions of the images and the humorous comments should appear when you click on it.

[springah]

totally agree with Gok. it used to confuse me. too many in-jokes. also un-funny ones.

eg, http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Golden_Disk_(disambiguation)

"Don't leave them alone together. They multiply."

... what?

[dirge]

On the subject of tone, I don't think Transformers is not really a topic deserving of scholarly study and contemplation. It's a toyline for kids and cartoons and comics to promote the toys or the brand, and we treat it as such. Thus we then have fun with our hobby and not take it too seriously.

If the "powers that be" who run the TF wikia decide to go that way, that's up to them. I do think it's a little _too_ lighthearted, but I'm not worried about it. I personally rarely visit the wikia, because I find the lightheartedness gets in the way of actual information (which is what I'd visit for).

For me - and probably others - the tone devalues it as a source of information. I have no interest in the wikia as a result, but for those such as yourself who do, it might be something worse considering. Which is I guess the point of this thread - allowing you to better understand the reasons why some transfans disregard the project, and possibly tweaking some aspects to reach a wider audience :)

[STL]

Just a reminder to everyone that we are talking about toys, not medical dissertations. Gosh knows I need to remind myself at times ;)

I'm performing surgery tonight on my Hasbro Powerglide :o I take my surgical duties very seriously.


As for Wiki, I rarely if ever visit it. I don't really care either way b/c as the point has been more eloquently made, this isn't a topic that needs to be recorded in a scholarly manner. It's TFs and as much as I love them, I don't need feel the crying urge to be a completely and utterly informed about them to be a true fan.

The disdain of the Wiki is unwarranted imo. They as others have pointed out have committed time and effort to building this. Time and effort that none of us would otherwise have put in. So to sit there smug and say its all in my head or its just not good enough is self indulgent. If these guys were getting paid to do it or making a profession out of it, I'd be more harsh but they aren't so they are perfectly entitled to do whatever they want. They'll be judged on it by the fandom.

The one concern I do have that others has raised is where edits have been made but not accepted and often ignored by the editors w/out any justification. I would hope that that's not the case b/c I think it's vital to something like Wiki to accept the contributions of all and to be able to justify why it goes one way and not another. Freedom of speech is a vital pillar in any aspect of life - especially where one professes to be an authoritative repository of knowledge.

[FFN]

I should point out Wikia and the TF Wiki are two seperate entities. The majority of the contributors (99% of the content writers) left Wikia to form TF Wiki, and we brought all of the content along with us in protest to Wikia's decision to put advertisements inside the articles and other disagreements.

Our fight with Wikia was reported in The Guardian in the UK :eek:


On the subject of tone, I don't think Transformers is not really a topic deserving of scholarly study and contemplation. Erm, I think I put that "not" there by accident, but you all seem to get the gist.


Ah, so much to choose from. I'll just use one example - the first time I once edited the page on KISS Play to remove all the bias and suggestions of it being perverted etc. I also removed another section which lacked citation (I think it was the controversy part - note that there is no controversy over KISS Play with Transfans in Japan). I left a message explaining that I was just removing the bias out of the article. My edits were quickly undone with a message telling me not to vandalise the page.

IMO my edit was valid and justified. KISS Play being perverted is a matter of personal opinion, not fact. I'm not saying that I necessarily agree or disagree with that sentiment... that's not the issue. It is really the lack of neutral voice, and in this case, painting KISS Play to be something that it is arguably not (and as Kyle said, is just downright confusing). Forget irreverant, the tone of that page is downright insulting IMO. You're right, the tone of Kiss Players' articles are biased and opinionated, but as I said above, we don't really care about a neutral voice, nor do we purport to represent ourselves as anything vaguely official. We are a fan site, and for Kiss Players, that's what the majority of contributors thinks of it.


Another example, Titanium Series. I editted the page more than once to include Metric specifications alongside the USC measures, e.g.: 6-inch (15cm). I did not delete the USC measurements at all - I left them in tact but I just also included metric specifications for the sake of non-Americans. Each time I did this they were deleted. I also included metric conversions for other measures, like the height and dimensions of movie Optimus Prime and Megatron... again, I did not delete the USC measures, I merely included the metric conversion. Again, the metric conversions were deleted. In wikipedia measures always appear in both USC and Metric. I have no idea why TFwiki staff are opposed to this. I thought this was the world wide web (and metric is the international standard for weights and measures). Again, this was a factual edit which was undone (why can't we state Optimus Prime's height in feet and metres or his volume in cubic feet and cubic metres?). I assume it comes down to the fact that since it's an American wiki and Hasbro usually refer to the toys in American imperial measurements, we go by that system only for better reference to official materials. You could have remarked on a Discussion page somewhere, possibly community discussion, about making such additions.


But to the TFwiki staff's credit there has been some edits I've done which haven't been undone - and that's mostly where I've corrected "European" to "European & Australasian" when it comes to so-called European Transformers in G1. Under the entry for European Transformers I also editted it to include Australia and New Zealand and I think that's been untouched too. But there are more pages in TFwiki - individual entries on many European/Australasian Transformers which only state that they are "European".

I've given up on editting TFwiki so I'm not going through correcting them all. (-_-) Euro for easy reference due to it being the largest market for those specific toys. As I recall, Hasbro Australia was under the dominion of Hasbro UK back then.


That doesn't change the fact that the captions themselves are not descriptive. People who are browsing through the page want information to be immediately accessible - they shouldn't have to click on the images to find out what they are. Also, I haven't noticed any text telling people that they need to click on images to read their descriptions... so unless people are psychic, they're not going to access those descriptions unless they incidentally click on the image to view it at higher resolution.

It should be the other way around - the pages should have descriptions of the images and the humorous comments should appear when you click on it. Caption jokes are indeed polarising and can indeed be only funny to us (and sometimes not even all of us), but it's the right of the image uploader to make the caption, unless it's rude or a really bad joke. I myself rarely do captions myself.

In my experience, the most visitors find them amusing and can spur them to click on the image to see clearly what the joke was referring to.


totally agree with Gok. it used to confuse me. too many in-jokes. also un-funny ones.

eg, http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Golden_Disk_(disambiguation)

"Don't leave them alone together. They multiply."

... what? A joke, and a fairly obvious one if you read the disambiguation page's contents.

Originally there were only two Golden Disks in Beast Wars. But then Dreamwave started crapping out other Golden Disks to jump on the bandwagon of golden-disk shaped macguffins, except those disks, in contrast to Beast Wars, had no real meaning and no real function other than "HEY, HOMAGE!"


Freedom of speech is a vital pillar in any aspect of life - especially where one professes to be an authoritative repository of knowledge. I think you guys think we go around acting as though we're the end-all and be-all TF info source. To my knowledge, we don't do that.

[jaydisc]

I assume it comes down to the fact that since it's an American wiki and Hasbro usually refer to the toys in American imperial measurements, we go by that system only for better reference to official materials. You could have remarked on a Discussion page somewhere, possibly community discussion, about making such additions.

I support the wiki and yourself on everything you've said but this. If Gok's account of the story is accurate (we're yet to truly hear the other side or another detailed account - edit history?), I think that was a bad move.

[roller]

i love Tf wiki

its bloody hilarious, the way its written and the jokes etc are of very high class wit.

The wheelie entry is also a good point as to why i enjoy it, the whole entry is in ryme

I agree that they leave out some facts etc and dont credit some of there sources. Keep in mind, its a wiki any one on the net can change and distort facts. If you want something factual, make yer own page with stuff like that. And then you can have a forum like this so fans can discuss the stuff.

Other then that its good, yeah yeah, i know, anyone can edit it. But really, you go to TF wiki expecting this kind of thing, so there are some diehards who edit your corrections/posts etc. Its Tf wiki, sure its biased etc, but that is what you expect from tf wiki.

[GoktimusPrime]

You're right, the tone of Kiss Players' articles are biased and opinionated, but as I said above, we don't really care about a neutral voice, nor do we purport to represent ourselves as anything vaguely official. We are a fan site, and for Kiss Players, that's what the majority of contributors thinks of it.
Hence why TFwiki reads more like a blog than an actual factual encyclopaedic resource (and there are fans who regard TFwiki as a bible, even if that's not the intention of its contributors. Perhaps there needs to be a disclaimer on the main page?)


I assume it comes down to the fact that since it's an American wiki and Hasbro usually refer to the toys in American imperial measurements, we go by that system only for better reference to official materials. You could have remarked on a Discussion page somewhere, possibly community discussion, about making such additions.
Considering that the toys are co-designed in Japan and manufactured in China, I imagine that a lot of official material would be in metric units too. And as I said, I was never advocating for the removal of United States Customary (USC) measures, merely for the inclusion of metric. The internet is the world wide web and your audience is an international one. Hence why other wikis have both USC and metric units. Star Wars and Halo are both franchises which originate from the US (and are more predominantly American than Transformers since TFs is half Japanese) yet Star Wars and Halo wikias use both USC and metric weights and measures. I can understand wanting to include USC for the benefit of Americans, but I don't see why metric units need to be excluded (as they would be useful for non-Americans).


Euro for easy reference due to it being the largest market for those specific toys. As I recall, Hasbro Australia was under the dominion of Hasbro UK back then.
I don't deny that, but saying that the "Euro" Transformers are exclusively European is as incorrect as say claiming that Transformers are exclusively creations of Takara. Hasbro Australia was certainly receiving toys from Hasbro UK - we sometimes get stuff from the UK and other times from the US... other times from neither. But the fact is that Australia and New Zealand are not European nations and many of the so-called European toys that were released in Europe were also released here and in Zippo's land.


A joke, and a fairly obvious one if you read the disambiguation page's contents.
Again, you're assuming that people are going to click on that. As you said, the captions can be quite polarising to people who are new to the content and simply browsing the page without clicking on links.


I think you guys think we go around acting as though we're the end-all and be-all TF info source. To my knowledge, we don't do that.
As I said, I think there ought to be a disclaimer because people do perceive wikis/wikia as if they're some kind of open-source encyclopaedia (as is the commonly accepted definition of "wiki"). The front page also states "TFWiki is the Transformers knowledge database" which I think some people would interpret as meaning that this site is an authority on the subject matter - hence why a disclaimer would be useful if it is not the intention of its contributors.


The disdain of the Wiki is unwarranted imo. They as others have pointed out have committed time and effort to building this. Time and effort that none of us would otherwise have put in. So to sit there smug and say its all in my head or its just not good enough is self indulgent. If these guys were getting paid to do it or making a profession out of it, I'd be more harsh but they aren't so they are perfectly entitled to do whatever they want. They'll be judged on it by the fandom.
I would be more than happy to regularly contribute and edit TFwiki if not for the fact that my edits are often undone for no apparent reason (to me anyway). It's a complete waste of my time to try and edit anything on TFwiki if it's just going to be undone most of the time.

I'm not one of those armchair critics who just looked at it and thought, "Pppfftt! This is crap," - the fact is that I have tried to contribute on several occasions, but my attempts were mostly thwarted. Consequently I have no interest in trying to make any further contributions to it.


If Gok's account of the story is accurate (we're yet to truly hear the other side or another detailed account - edit history?), I think that was a bad move.
Yeah, it ought to be in the edit history. I don't have TFwiki account so my edits would just appear to be from an anonymous IP address. But I usually leave a "reason for edit" comment saying something like, "removed bias" or "metric units included" etc.

[jaydisc]

As I said, I think there ought to be a disclaimer because people do perceive wikis/wikia as if they're some kind of open-source encyclopaedia (as is the commonly accepted definition of "wiki").

I think this is completely wrong. You previously posted Wikipedia's definition of Wikipedia, NOT a wiki. A wiki is simply a type of software. Here is Wikipedia's definition of a wiki:

"A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites."

Just because Wikipedia = Wiki does not mean Wiki = Wikipedia.

The term Wiki, at least by my experience, is much more associated with the concept of collaboration as opposed to being a definitive resource.

I also don't see why I site needs a disclaimer to describe everything it isn't. Should there be a disclaimer on the home page explaining that the term Transformer is not referring to an apparatus for reducing or increasing the voltage of an alternating current, as that is the truly commonly accepted definition of Transformer.


Yeah, it ought to be in the edit history. I don't have TFwiki account so my edits would just appear to be from an anonymous IP address. But I usually leave a "reason for edit" comment saying something like, "removed bias" or "metric units included" etc.

This helps explain things. It certainly would explain why you received no explanation for your addendum's removal. How would you be contacted? In my experience, in virtually any online context: wiki edits, blog postings, etc., anonymity immediately discounts any potential quality in the content for many reasons, including its lack of accountability and the inability for it to be followed up.

[FFN]

As Jaydisc says, you got your definition of a wiki wrong. We're a collaborative fan site of people who are (generally) like-minded.

Gok, obviously removing our tone or bias is an justifiable reason for your edits to be reverted without explanation, especially from an anon IP address. It would be seen as vandalism.


Again, you're assuming that people are going to click on that. As you said, the captions can be quite polarising to people who are new to the content and simply browsing the page without clicking on links. What is there to click on? The image with the caption was on the disambig page, which lists the original two golden discs with the four Dreamwave created afterwards (one of which can be taken as a continuity error unless Dreamwave's Beast Wars is a different continuity to cartoon Beast Wars).

So, it would be pretty bloody easy to see what the joke caption was referring to by the contents of the page the image was contained in.

[TheDirtyDigger]

Hey team.

I started this thread so the Wiki could be discussed in good faith with those that had criticisms being able to air them, and those that enjoy it as is, similarly being able to express themselves.

I have no wish for this to degenerate into an argument. I think everybody has made their points of view as clear as need be and I thank them all for it.

If a mod could now lock this thread it would be greatly appreciated, however if the board staff still think the thread has a valid reason for staying open then well...I am not one to argue.

Thank you again all.:)

[GoktimusPrime]

Just because Wikipedia = Wiki does not mean Wiki = Wikipedia.
Fair enough. I thought that "wiki" was an abbreviation for 'wikipedia.'


This helps explain things. It certainly would explain why you received no explanation for your addendum's removal. How would you be contacted? In my experience, in virtually any online context: wiki edits, blog postings, etc., anonymity immediately discounts any potential quality in the content for many reasons, including its lack of accountability and the inability for it to be followed up.
On the Edit History page people can leave comments for why they edit the page - and in doing so, explain why they've undone certain edits and thus leaving feedback to anonymous contributors.


Gok, obviously removing our tone or bias is an justifiable reason for your edits to be reverted without explanation, especially from an anon IP address. It would be seen as vandalism.
So you're saying that TFwiki doesn't accept contributions from anonymous users? Doesn't that kind of defeat the definition of what a wiki is? jaydisc's posted definition of wiki states "A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content" and the front page of TFwiki states "TFWiki is the Transformers knowledge database of 7,638 files that anyone can edit or add to!"

Just because my edits or contributions are anonymous doesn't mean that they're acts of vandalism. Furthermore, if TFwiki has a policy of rejected anonymous edits, then why are some of my other anonymous edits (e.g.: EU --> EU/AU/NZ) not undone? It seems that my edits are only undone when they conflict with the opinion(s) of someone else, which I think is bad form.

If someone's edit is a true form of vandalism or is incorrect or not substantiable enough, then sure, I can understand that edit being undone. But I don't think it's fair for edits to be undone if they are factual or attempting to remove someone's personal bias from an article.

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_vandalism) defines Vandalism as:
"...any addition, removal, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia, which cannot and will not be tolerated. The most common types of vandalism include the addition of obscenities or crude humor, page blanking, or the insertion of nonsense into articles.
Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Even harmful edits that are not explicitly made in bad faith are not considered vandalism. For example, adding a controversial personal opinion to an article once is not vandalism; reinserting it despite multiple warnings is. Not all vandalism is obvious, nor are all massive or controversial changes vandalism. Careful attention may need to be given to whether changes made are beneficial, detrimental but well-intended, or outright vandalism."

I can see no notice on TFwiki informing users to create an account in order to gain the privilege of editting pages, and if this is indeed a policy on TFwiki then perhaps it needs to be modified so that only registered users who have logged in are able to edit pages. Wikipedia pages which are prone to frequent vandalism have been locked so that unregistered users cannot edit them (e.g.: Wikipedia's page on Christianity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity)). It's a similar reason as to why message boards like this one only allow registered users to post. So if TFwiki is willing to allow anonymous users to edit pages then they need to consider the validity of their contributions and not reject them based solely on the fact that they're unregistered.


I have no wish for this to degenerate into an argument.
I think everyone's been quite civilised and rational in presenting their views and disagreeing on certain points quite respectfully. *shrug*

[TheDirtyDigger]

I think everyone's been quite civilised and rational in presenting their views and disagreeing on certain points quite respectfully. *shrug*

Me too. So far.:)

[FFN]

Where did I say anon edits were rejected outright? Like most wikis (unless they're ones without a large number of regular contributors), anonymous edits are held in lower regard, and we'd prefer it if people went to the extra trouble of registering an account to edit. No anon users are forbidden from editing. I myself actually argued against forcing people to register when somebody from Wikia (when we were on their servers) suggested we do that.

Once again, we are not the wikipedia, and by majority consensus, we like our bias and our tone. If somebody attempts to remove it in the name of "neutral voice" or trying to make the wiki more like the Wikipedia, then it's vandalism.

[Gutsman Heavy]

I'll take all the Wiki's bias happily if it means articles like Pat Lee and ruined forever exist in that style. Gold.

[GoktimusPrime]

Going back to what dirge said before:

If the "powers that be" who run the TF wikia decide to go that way, that's up to them. I do think it's a little _too_ lighthearted, but I'm not worried about it. I personally rarely visit the wikia, because I find the lightheartedness gets in the way of actual information (which is what I'd visit for).

For me - and probably others - the tone devalues it as a source of information. I have no interest in the wikia as a result, but for those such as yourself who do, it might be something worse considering. Which is I guess the point of this thread - allowing you to better understand the reasons why some transfans disregard the project, and possibly tweaking some aspects to reach a wider audience

That pretty much sums up my conclusion on this matter.

[kup]

I was reading shortpacked to maintain my sanity at work and came across this:

http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060411.html

[GoktimusPrime]

Heh... I wouldn't waste my time doing that. Like I said, I spent a bit of time trying to contribute to TFwiki but since it's clear that my contributions aren't welcome, I just don't bother.

[jaydisc]

I was reading shortpacked to maintain my sanity at work and came across this:

http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060411.html

Just for those who may not know, I'm pretty certain that the author of Shortpacked is also the head honcho of the Wiki.

[GoktimusPrime]

He was also one of the head honchos of #wiijii... I have nothing terribly pleasant to say about that IRC channel so I'll just shut my big yap now. ;)

[jaydisc]

Does that make David Willis "Nemesis Prime"? :D

[Pulse]

I'm glad Willis can see a funny-side to Wiki's critics... :) (which proves the comments/feedback aren't all getting marked as spam :D)

[FFN]

Just a note: If anybody here visiting the wiki sees weird sh-t going on (like random gibberish or articles that are blanked and replaced with links to dodgy-looking URLs, it's because we're under heavy spambot attacks at the moment. We apologise for the inconvenience.

[GoktimusPrime]

That sucks. While I'm not the biggest fan of TFwiki, I don't condone deliberate spamming or vandalism of it. If people don't like it, just leave it alone. :/ If it's people trying to advertise Viagra, then they deserve a good kick to the janglies.

[TheDirtyDigger]

Don't judge spambots as a race...judge them as individuals. If it wasn't for spambots I wouldn't have any friends on Myspace.:o




Seriously though....bastard hackers. :mad:

[Pulse]

If it wasn't for spambots I wouldn't have any friends on Myspace.:o


Digger, You realise all those femme myspace friends are actually guys? :D

[TheDirtyDigger]

Digger, You realise all those femme myspace friends are actually guys? :D

....and......

[FFN]

The attack went on for about 7 hours, and basically it was all hands on deck for the available staff and actual users to revert and repair articles.

Hopefully we'll be able to install more security software plugins for the server, but with Thanksgiving, our American staffers may not have time to do so until after the holiday.

What I consider to be a last resort is restricting editing only to registered users (meaning you need to make an account to do any editing). I personally feel this makes the site unfriendly to people who wander in and might want to fix small things like spelling errors or minor mistakes, like I sometimes do when wandering around Wikis I don't really contribute to. Spambots would get around registration eventually.


If spambots weren't enough of a problem, we also have a serial pest who attacks the wiki every now and then. He was a serial pest across Wikia's wikis and when we moved to our own server, he followed. Ever since one of our regular users reverted his spam and vandalism edits, the pest became obessessed by him, and registers dozens of accounts insulting that particular user, his heritage and making allegations about his sexuality.

Oy.

[GoktimusPrime]

No chance of IP banning such individuals? Or perhaps frequently vandalised pages will need to be locked so that only registered users can edit them - that way you can track precisely who the offenders are and possibly ban them if you know who's doing it. I'm not sure how wikis work so I'm just assuming this based on what happens with message boards. The problem with IP banning are those really annoying pests who will move between internet cafés and troll from changing IP addresses (Japanese board trolls are notorious for doing this (-_-)).

[jaydisc]

IP banning is typically ineffective as mostly only business grade internet connections have static (consistent) IPs. A simple restart of your broadband modem will usually give you a new address.

[FFN]

We've done all of that. The bots switch IPs so rapidly that when one is banned, another one pops up. As for tracking them, somebody suggested that the bots are piggybacking off of heavily-infected systems, unbeknownst to their owners.


Geez, half a day of editing was wasted, no significant work was done during that 7-hour period.

[GoktimusPrime]

What about locking TFwiki so that only registered users can edit? I know wikipedia does that with heavily vandalised pages. It's not ideal, but you could do it as a temporary measure to give you guys time to undo the damage and then consider unlocking afterwards. *shrug*

[Paulbot]

Kind of like transforming Autobot City, but hopefully locking the Wiki doesn't require two people running around pushing buttons, levers and knobs ;)

(Reminds me of that fanfic I did when the Ozformers board was attacked by Spam.)

[FFN]

What about locking TFwiki so that only registered users can edit? I know wikipedia does that with heavily vandalised pages. It's not ideal, but you could do it as a temporary measure to give you guys time to undo the damage and then consider unlocking afterwards. *shrug* If the attacks continue and/or get worse that may be considered, but I fear that would turn off readers who may simply wish to fix our spelling mistakes and minor issues (like forgetting a square bracket in a wikilink.)

Hopefully new security measures will be installed so we don't need to do this.

[GoktimusPrime]

It might be needed just as a temporary measure - you could put a notice up on the locked pages or on the main page to let people know why it's in place.

[FFN]

Some of the locked pages already have this message when you attempt to edit it.

[TheHandsomeCrab]

The key difference between the TFWiki and an Encyclopaedia is an Encyclopaedia is written for the benefit of others, and the TFWiki is written for the amusement of the children that write it.

Typical example: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Rartorata - "Basically, the only differences between Rappakaffalatta and Injector are that Throatwarbler Mangrove has a lighter, charcoal gray plastic instead of Injector's black."

The whole article is much the same, replacing Rartorata's name with something even more nonsensical. Even though it's very lowbrow humour, completely unnecessary and downright confusing to the uninitiated, one of the admins thinks it's funny so it stays.

I've made a few contributions here and there, which seem to have stuck, but I really don't have the patience to deal with the juvaniles running the show.

[FFN]

I'll take what he says as a compliment, because we're all pretty childish to be buying children's toys at our age.

One of our admins actually hates the gag in Bartfarger's page.

[GoktimusPrime]

I agree with TheHandsomeCrab's sentiments there.

I'll take what he says as a compliment, because we're all pretty childish to be buying children's toys at our age.
I disagree. I don't necessarily think that collecting toys is necessarily childish. I play with my toys too... maybe that's kinda childish, but not at the same level of juvenile behaviour that THC is talking about - and I don't think that the way I usually play with my toys is necessarily child-like. A lot of it depends on one's "nature of fandom."

Albert Einstein is well known for having said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." and it's well known that children who enjoy playing and exhibit good imagination and creative skills tend to be quite intelligent. One way we try to identify gifted and talented students is through their creativity - which is why Einstein said that it's more important than knowledge because imagination is the mother of invention... we only invent and create things that we dream of, such as Leonardo Da Vinci's dreams of aircrafts some 500 years before the Wright brothers took their maiden flight. And just because you grow older, doesn't mean that you suddenly have to stop being creative and imaginative... I think most of us don't do that sort of thing as much as we used to as kids primarily because we just don't have the time (not necessarily because we don't want to). Just yesterday evening I was playing with my Classics/Universe figures in a short campaign (I usually only have time to run short stories - unlike my younger days when I would run epic sagas for days, weeks or even months). And most of us are avid fans of TF fiction - be it cartoons, comics, movies, fan fics, fan essays etc.

The Merriem-Webster Dictionary defines "childish" as a "lack of poise" and "lacking complexity." To me, TFwiki fits that definition, but I wouldn't necessarily say that Transfandom necessarily fits that description. It might for some fans, but not for all.

Beginning from this term we have commenced a new syllabus in NSW for HSC 3 Unit Japanese Extension (http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_hsc/japanese-extension.html) called "Animé Technique and Themes in Spirited Away" using Miyazaki Hayao's animé movie "Spirited Away" as the primary text; but in teaching this course I have already made several references to Transformers (as well as other animé, manga and sci-fi/fantasy titles) when breaking down and analysing the issues that students are currently studying for this course.

So I definitely don't agree with the notion that collecting toys and being a fan of animation and comic books necessarily makes one childish.

[FFN]

You take yourselves too seriously. Like, mellow out :p

[Geminii]

I like it enough to have my web browser rigged so I can perform tfwiki searches directly from the address bar.

[TheDirtyDigger]

How do you do that Geminii?

[jaydisc]

I like it enough to have my web browser rigged so I can perform tfwiki searches directly from the address bar.

Great idea!


How do you do that Geminii?

Inspired by Gemeni, I made a bookmarklet for you Digger. If you add this as a Favorite/Bookmark address and put it in your button bar you should get the desired effect:


javascript:theQuery=prompt('TF%20Wiki%20search%20( leave%20blank%20for%20home%20page):');if(theQuery) {window.location.href='http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Special:Search?search='%20+%20theQuery+'&go=Go';}else%20if(theQuery==''){window.location.hr ef='http://tfwiki.net/';};

It will pop open a search prompt and when you hit OK, it's like hitting "Go" on the Wiki (I can make it act like "Search" instead if desired). If you leave it blank and hit OK, you just go to the Wiki home page, and if you Cancel, nothing happens.

[TheDirtyDigger]

Great idea!



Inspired by Gemeni, I made a bookmarklet for you Digger. If you add this as a Favorite/Bookmark address and put it in your button bar you should get the desired effect:


javascript:theQuery=prompt('TF%20Wiki%20search%20( leave%20blank%20for%20home%20page):');if(theQuery) {window.location.href='http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Special:Search?search='%20+%20theQuery+'&go=Go';}else%20if(theQuery==''){window.location.hr ef='http://tfwiki.net/';};

It will pop open a search prompt and when you hit OK, it's like hitting "Go" on the Wiki (I can make it act like "Search" instead if desired). If you leave it blank and hit OK, you just go to the Wiki home page, and if you Cancel, nothing happens.

Whoa! Appreciated mate but can you just dumb down the instructions a little from the part after...'Inspired by...'

[blackie]

just make a new bookmark dd, and use the code that jay made as the target, ie the website

[llamatron]

TF Wiki? MORE LIKE SEE WHO CAN BE THE FUNNIEST AND TRY TO IMPRESS DAVID WILLIS THE MOST WIKI, AM I RIGHT?

The crazy wacky zany captions and jokes are just too HILARIOUS for me.

[FFN]

The wiki also has a Go! Button sig image/link to use on boards that enable HTML in sigs. It randomly loads a Go! Button for one of our articles. Unfortunately, since most boards don't allow HTML in sigs...

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/A_GoBox_of_your_own!

[Geminii]

How do you do that Geminii?

It's a built-in function in the latest version of Opera. Visit any webpage with a search box, right-click it and choose "Create Search", then supply a keyword. Then, any time you want to do a search without having to navigate to the website first, hotkey to the address bar and type "keyword searchterm".

So I can fire up a blank webbrowser page (much faster than loading the tfu.info main page, and also cuts their server load), and type the "address" of, for instance, tfu megatron in order to get all the Megatron search results.

Opera comes with a ton of these built-in, usually with one-letter keywords. So I can type "g jhiaxus" to Google for jhiaxus, "w Transformers" to search Wikipedia for Transformers, "e MP02" to search eBay for 20th Anniversary Ultra Magnus, etc. I even overwrote the default eBay keyword so it now searches Australian eBay instead of the US.

It also comes with keyword searches for download.com, yahoo, bittorrent, in-page search, amazon.com, Google groups and news etc. I've personally added keyword searches for Youtube, the Transformers Wiki, BBTS, IMDB, eBay search-by-auction-number, and a stack of other sites I visit regularly. All of the entries - including the supplied defaults - can be manually edited, copied, overwritten etc, and there's no limit to the length of the keyword (although short ones are faster to type).

Likewise, Firefox can now do much the same thing. Right-click any WWW search field and choose "Add a keyword for this search". The searches are stored as bookmarks of the corresponding search string URL, and you'll notice all Firefox bookmarks have a keyword field for this. (It can also be used so a keyword brings up any non-search site, too - in that case, any search terms are discarded.)

[roller]

For G1 Axer, the tf wiki mentions something about him crossing over into another continuity. But it doesn't have any references etc

any info?

[FFN]

I believe it might have been info from Hasbro, that G1 Axer and RID Axer are considered to be the same guy. RID Axer's bio states rather ambiguously that he went into a black hole on some sort of rescue mission and hints at the two different names used for Axer's original bike vehicle accessory.

I'll try to get clarification for you.

[Geminii]

http://www.tfu.info/2002/Decepticon/Axer/axer.htm ?

[FFN]

I started a discussion on this. Maybe the comments can answer your question. (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Talk:Axer)

[roller]

thanks

[roller]

someone has edited the G1 Swerve page, it no longer says that he appeared in 'Forever is a long time coming' he did though in the race scene

[FFN]

I cannot find evidence of that line ever existing in the article according to it's history, but I'll edit the page to say he participated in a race blah blah during blah's experiments.

Done, also added him to the character infobox for the episode's article.

[GoktimusPrime]

The page also makes no mention of reissue Swerve's name variation　（ウエーブ） either. The Anglonisation of his Japanese is also incorrect - his name is Wave　（ウェーブ） not "Weave"　（which would be ウィーブ） or "Werve"　（which would be ワーブ） (-_-)

[Sam]

To be honest I actually use Wikipedia more than TF Wiki when it comes to looking up information on Transformers. I (personally) find the Wikipedia articles more informative without the needless humour (the humour on TF Wiki seems to try to hard, the frequent contributors there try to make everything humorous and in my opinion it gives the site a "crude" and "amateur" feel).

Having said that my knowledge of Transformers lore is hardly comprehensive so TF Wiki may have more reliable information...

[FFN]

In my opinion the Wikipedia's coverage of Transformers is amateurish by comparison. So what if the TF Wiki has fun? We go into depth and detail.

Besides, I don't like how the Wikipedia is just used to post rumours, leaked photos or leaked toys.


The page also makes no mention of reissue Swerve's name variation　（ウエーブ） either. The Anglonisation of his Japanese is also incorrect - his name is Wave　（ウェーブ） not "Weave"　（which would be ウィーブ） or "Werve"　（which would be ワーブ） (-_-) Then fix it, and I will back you up if somebody attempts to revert it (I dunno, by saying "He's Japanese" or something).

[GoktimusPrime]

Done.


if somebody attempts to revert it (I dunno, by saying "He's Japanese" or something).
I speak Japanese fluently (I went to uni in Japan (http://www.daito.ac.jp/)) and I do teach it for a living. I've also interacted with the Japanese TF fandom, my Japanese board name is 孫コンボイ (Son Convoy) :)

[GoktimusPrime]

*sigh* Oh look, my edit's been undone (incorrect information which I deleted has been undeleted).


Japanese name: Weave/Werve (ウェーブ, wee-bu), later Wave (ウエーブ, u-ee-bu)
Umm... no. Both ウェーブ (wee-bu) and ウエーブ (uee-bu) transliterate as "wave," although ウェーブ (wee-bu) is a better transliteration.

As I said before;the transliteration of "Weave" would be ウィーブ (Wii-bu) and the transliteration of "Werve"　would be ワーブ (waa-bu), so ウェーブ (wee-bu) is not Weave or Werve.

I'm not going to edit that page anymore... as I said before, I'm thoroughly sick of my edits being undone for no apparent reason. (-_-) I'm just gonna go back to avoiding TFwiki.

____

P.S.: if you need proof that ウェーブ (ueebu) is "Wave" then here:
レーザーウェーブ (G1 Laserwave) (http://www.vega.or.jp/~butto/tftcolleg1-39.htm)
レーザーウェーブ (Super Link Laserwave) (http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/superlink/destron/sd14.html)
レーザーウェーブ (Binaltech Laserwave) (http://ooebihara.sakura.ne.jp/toys/TF/binal13/binal13.htm)
Also refer to pp.012, 016, 039, 043, 055, 060, 117 and 128 of Transformers Generations Deluxe for Japanese spellings of Laserwave, Wave and Waver.
TakaraTOMY's Encore Minibots (http://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/TF/products/encore/e-09.html) page also cites the original ウェーブ (wee-bu) spelling but the Encore packaging uses ウエーブ (uee-bu) (image (http://tformers.net/g/albums/9627/tfe10b.jpg))

[FFN]

Nevermore has apparently fixed it. I dunno, but I don't really care either way.

[STL]

I used TF wikia actively for the first time last night. I was looking for a bit more info on Tread Bolt and the other Universe 2.0 "Micromaster" repaints and found it to be useful while being fun. I found it to be very useful but w/out being very anal.

[FFN]

I used TF wikia actively for the first time last night. I was looking for a bit more info on Tread Bolt and the other Universe 2.0 "Micromaster" repaints and found it to be useful while being fun. I found it to be very useful but w/out being very anal. TF Wiki and TF Wikia are two different sites :) We left Wikia in protest of their advertising policies (putting ads inside of articles, at first for all users, but then changed to logged-out/no account users due to complaints).

Glad to see you're enjoying it.

[STL]

TF Wiki and TF Wikia are two different sites :) We left Wikia in protest of their advertising policies (putting ads inside of articles, at first for all users, but then changed to logged-out/no account users due to complaints).

Glad to see you're enjoying it.
Sorry! I get confused on all those differences. I just appreciate having a good place to find information that keeps in fun.

[dirge]

TF Wiki and TF Wikia are two different sites :)

"Judean People's Front!" :D

[GoktimusPrime]

lol! (^0^)

[FFN]

I prefer to think of us as the place that actually updates content. Last I checked, the TF Wikia was turning into the Wikipedia (though with the benefit of our edits up to mid-September, 2008.)

Wikia was scared Pat Lee would sue them after an anonymous IP made a "legal threat", so they edited down his article. At least it's not as bad as what the Wikipedia did - *THOSE* guys absolved Lee of all of Dreamwave's dirty deeds.

Wikipedia is full of crap.

[Sky Shadow]

Bizarrely, I just learned something new about myself on TFWiki. I invented Gold Plastic Syndrome (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Gold_Plastic_Syndrome#Etymology). That's right - all of you with broken Black Zaraks and G2 Slingshots... it was me! Bwahahaha! (Well, not really.)

(From TFWiki): "The earliest use of the term that can be found in the alt.toys.transformers archives dates to September 2002 in a post by user Sky Shadow".

And this was my post back in 2002:

"I have a MOC Pretender Monster Slog sitting on my desk, just begging me to open him.

However, if Slogs suffer from Gold Plastic Syndrome (i.e. the sort of brittleness that will make me want to cry) then I'd rather not put myself through that sort of torment.

So if anyone has any experience with GPS Slogs (or Bristlebacks, for that matter) could you please let me know? Maybe it's time we came up with a comprehensive list of diseased GPS Transformers.

I know about Black Zarak, Pretender Roadblock and G2 Slingshot. Who else needs to be quarantined?"

[GoktimusPrime]

You broke my Slog and Bristleback you pr1ck! :p jkz

You need one of those "I'm Famous On The Internet" T-shirts now. :)

[roller]

i dont think G2 Slingshots should be in the list

mine is super fine and its 2nd hand

maybe gold plastic syndrome doesn't exist, maybe its a ploy to jack the prices of certain toys up:eek:

how come Tf wiki doesn't have anything written on Staxx? he's so cool

and claims that in the episode "The Autobot Run" its a continuity error that Shockwave turns up.

I mean, Megatrons brilliant planned almost worked this time. The only reason he didn't succeed is because he took all day just to kill the Autobots in some fancy crusher device, Shockwave probably showed up to see an end to the great optimus prime and others.

i say it aint an error

[FFN]

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Staxx

He hasn't appeared in any fiction, to my knowledge, so all we have is a toy description.

[Kyle]

Noticed that the following page was missing two toys.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28Movie%29_toys

1. TransScanning OP toy.

2. The repaint of the "Spychanger" toy - a Japanese movie DVD pre-order/purchase bonus. This toy was not packaged with the DVD but was individually bagged in a small clear plastic bag with its instructions sheet. It was meant as a pre-order exclusive of the DVD, but many retail stores had enough stock of the toy on the first day to hand out to buyers who didn't pre-order their DVD.

[GoktimusPrime]

Noticed on the Blitzwing page (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Blitzwing_(G1)):

1) "Blitzwing's earliest Diaclone sculpt had him with a somewhat odd faceless head." - First of all, that variant head isn't truly faceless. COBRA's Vipers, BATs and Cobra Commander's faceplates are faceless... this isn't a humanlike face (i.e.: it's devoid of a mouth, nose and paired eyes) but it's still a face - as much as Roadbuster's face is a face (it's much more of a face than what Shockwave and Whirl have!). Secondly, I'd like to see evidence that early Diaclone Triple Changer Jet Type toys actually had that early concept face or if it was only seen in conceptual art. There's no reference to verify this claim on the page and it's also not supported by the Triple Changer Jet Type page on Diaclone.net (here (http://www.diaclone.net/orid/diatri/d091.html)) nor any mention of it on the Pre-Transformers section of the Complete Variants Page (here (http://www.geocities.com/futuristgroup/vdiaclone.html)).

2) Where it says "Blitzwing's Tech-Spec Bio has a typographical error" I think the word "anomaly" would be better suited. The evidence there doesn't seem to support that the bio & tech specs were necessarily in error... it probably was, but the fact is that the bio & tech specs has effectively made it official (much like the whole Sideswipe-Sunstreaker switcheroonie thing).

3) It says, "The opening sequence of Season 3 features a large row of identical tanks that look suspiciously just like Bliztwing's tank mode, before zooming in on the barrel of one particular tank."
...yeah... go Bliztwing! :p Okay, this is probably a typo and I think I can edit this without anyone going against me and changing it back - but I would like points 1 and 2 examined please.

[jaydisc]

Why don't you sign up for a proper account and discuss this at the wiki? Posting it here seems like you're asking FFN to do your dirty work for you.

[FFN]

I put up a {{fact}} (citation needed}} on the first point. Second point I left alone, since it's quite possibly a typographical error if the other similarly written bios of the time give him "commando" as his function. On the third point, I don't know what your issue is :confused:


Noticed that the following page was missing two toys.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_%28Movie%29_toys

1. TransScanning OP toy.

2. The repaint of the "Spychanger" toy - a Japanese movie DVD pre-order/purchase bonus. This toy was not packaged with the DVD but was individually bagged in a small clear plastic bag with its instructions sheet. It was meant as a pre-order exclusive of the DVD, but many retail stores had enough stock of the toy on the first day to hand out to buyers who didn't pre-order their DVD. I write quite a lot of the toy stuff on the wiki. I keep forgetting about the Trans-Scanning thing because it's so obscure and hardly anybody owns it. Same goes for the DVD Spy Changer.

Mostly I add stuff when there are stock photos I can use, and unfortuantely, Takara almost never releases stock photos in the quantity and resolution that Hasbro does. They're almost always small, blurry, with possibly some giant watermark over the top of them.

[GoktimusPrime]

Why don't you sign up for a proper account and discuss this at the wiki?
...I'm not sure if I want to get into that level of dedication with the TF wiki considering my opinions about it on the whole.


Posting it here seems like you're asking FFN to do your dirty work for you.
If FFN doesn't like being a "go-between" then I'll happily stop referring issues to him and just continue to keep my yap shut about the many questionable points I find on TFwiki. It's up to you FFN, if you don't feel comfortable about it then I'll stop referring things here.


Second point I left alone, since it's quite possibly a typographical error if the other similarly written bios of the time give him "commando" as his function.
That's the point, it's possibly a typographical error. I think it probably is - but until you know for sure I think it's best to word it more factually, even if you were to say "probable typographical error." I'm quite sure it is an error but yeah... until you have conclusive proof I would avoid making such conclusively sweeping statements like that.


I write quite a lot of the toy stuff on the wiki. I keep forgetting about the Trans-Scanning thing because it's so obscure and hardly anybody owns it. Same goes for the DVD Spy Changer.
Dude, the TFwiki has a lot of stuff that's equally if not more obscure than these toys. :)


Mostly I add stuff when there are stock photos I can use, and unfortuantely, Takara almost never releases stock photos in the quantity and resolution that Hasbro does. They're almost always small, blurry, with possibly some giant watermark over the top of them.
Trans-Scanning Protoform Optimus Prime pics (http://ameblo.jp/hinjaku/entry-10083209656.html) and here (http://blog.goo.ne.jp/yuki_bune/e/79661551e853b72a15e4ef9ddf648ef6)
Trans-Scanning Earth Mode Optimus Prime Pics (http://blog.goo.ne.jp/yuki_bune/e/8cfba1b8d0a70a230b84ce5a907e5411)
DVD Spychanger Optimus Prime pics (http://snakas.web.infoseek.co.jp/07movie/dvd_optimus.html)

I'm sure you can use those images so long as you credit the original sources and provide a hyper-link to those pages or you could message/email those admins directly and ask for permission. :)

[FFN]

Added probable to Blitzwing's article trivia. Hmm. Never noticed we didn't link tech spec and bio to their respective articles there.

I only know of snakas being conversant in english, and I'm somewhat intimidated by him since (from what I heard) he's a fairly well-known Japanese fan :o


I should really update Prime's toy page, in particular adding our latest gimmick: Tech spec graphs onto the bottom of the toy pics if that toy has a tech spec and the numbers are available. Oy, I am going to curse Revenge of the Fallen's toyline.

SO MANY TOYS TO ADD.

[jacksplatt11]

Just a quick question, what is the TF wiki's stance on things like City Commander, Coronation set, etc. I can't find them on the wiki, is this because they are not official, or just because no-one has gotten around to adding them... Just wondering

[FFN]

Does anybody know what DVD Spychanger Prime is officially called?


Just a quick question, what is the TF wiki's stance on things like City Commander, Coronation set, etc. I can't find them on the wiki, is this because they are not official, or just because no-one has gotten around to adding them... Just wondering The TF Wiki does not deal with unofficial products. We don't even acknowledge leaked or unofficial news/ information. Stuff basically has to come from Hasbro/Takara, their affiliates, partners and licensees.

As a consequence we're one of the worst sources of information on Revenge of the Fallen :D

There are exceptions, of course, and we do still put up information that was released by an official source, but then retracted by the order of higher sources, such as IDW confirming certain things about Revenge of the Fallen and Michael Bay/Paramount ordering the removal of that info).

[griffin]

Does anybody know what DVD Spychanger Prime is officially called?

That's all I have ever seen it called as. But you'd need to see if anyone saw it on an official TakaraTomy website or publication, and see if it was given a specific name, or just that 'generic' name.

Maybe ask Kyle, as I think it was one of his HK friends who got me mine, so would need to know what it was called.

[GoktimusPrime]

I only know of snakas being conversant in english, and I'm somewhat intimidated by him since (from what I heard) he's a fairly well-known Japanese fan
The web site is called Autobase Aichi and the admin's name is Nakashima. I never knew he could communicate in English though. ;)


Does anybody know what DVD Spychanger Prime is officially called?
"Optimus Prime" (オプティマスプライム). All the movie Transformers keep their Anglophone names in the Japanese dub of the movie and all related toys and merchandise (so Jazz is called Jazz not Meister and Bumblebee isn't called Bumble).

[Paulbot]

Why don't you sign up for a proper account and discuss this at the wiki? Posting it here seems like you're asking FFN to do your dirty work for you.


...I'm not sure if I want to get into that level of dedication with the TF wiki considering my opinions about it on the whole.

If FFN doesn't like being a "go-between" then I'll happily stop referring issues to him and just continue to keep my yap shut about the many questionable points I find on TFwiki. It's up to you FFN, if you don't feel comfortable about it then I'll stop referring things here.


Moderation Note:
I tend to agree with Jaydisc here. The TF Wiki has a discussion page for every article. You don't even need to sign in to post a query about content in their discussion pages.

This board should not be used to criticise particular points of content on another website, especially when that website already allows any body to question or discuss the content.

The other option you have is to PM FFN if you like with these comments, but posting them on the TF Wiki's discussion pages would be the better option.

[Kyle]

That's all I have ever seen it called as. But you'd need to see if anyone saw it on an official TakaraTomy website or publication, and see if it was given a specific name, or just that 'generic' name.

Maybe ask Kyle, as I think it was one of his HK friends who got me mine, so would need to know what it was called.

A friend of both me and heero wanted one for himself and bought a bulk lot from a Japanese dealer to save on shipping. You got his very last one. :p
I on the other hand already picked one up (the one you saw in the May meet) while I was in Tokyo on the release date of the DVD from a HMV.


FFN, I have both the promotional and instruction sheet in front of me.


http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee16/Kyle_Chow/DSC00282.jpg
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee16/Kyle_Chow/DSC00284.jpg
On the promotional (an official printed handout I picked up from the HMV), the toy was labelled as "Optimus Prime Figure (not for sale item)" (translated) with an additional "bubble" that reads "DVD & HD DVD advance pre-order special bonus" (translated). I think in context the "advance" simply means "early bird", "first come first served" or "while stock lasts".


http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee16/Kyle_Chow/DSC00285.jpg
On the actual instruction sheet, it reads "TRANSFORMERS, DVD advance pre-order special bonus, (not for sale item), Optimus Prime, Autobot" (translated).


I can also take photos of the actual toys (this and the Trans Scanning OP), if you need additional photos. :)

[griffin]

"TRANSFORMERS, DVD advance pre-order special bonus, (not for sale item), Optimus Prime, Autobot" - That is one big name for one small toy...
It'll make for a big wiki link if they use the entire name as the link. Or maybe it'll be shortened to something like 'Pre-order DVD Optimus Prime'.

[Golden Phoenix]

"TRANSFORMERS, DVD advance pre-order special bonus, (not for sale item), Optimus Prime, Autobot" - That is one big name for one small toy...

It's compensating

[Kyle]

I would just call it "DVD preorder bonus figure". :)

[GoktimusPrime]

"TRANSFORMERS, DVD advance pre-order special bonus, (not for sale item), Optimus Prime, Autobot" - That is one big name for one small toy...
The name of the actual toy is just "Optimus Prime" - the rest of that are descriptors provided in the material cited by Kyle. It's like saying "Transformers 2005 Convention Deathsaurus BotCon Figure" (which is the descriptor I found on the OTFCC front page (http://www.otfcc.com/)) - the name of the toy is just "Deathsaurus" but they're obviously using those other words as a descriptor. It's not the same as say "Decepticon Frenzy" or "Autobot Ratchet" where those are the actual names of the toys and not mere descriptors attached onto names.

[FFN]

Thanks chaps. I stuck him under "Other toys" since he didn't have any sort of official subline.



* Optimus Prime (Spychanger, 2007)

This toy is a redeco of Robots In Disguise Spychanger Scourge, painted to resemble Movie Optimus Prime. Of note is the tampographed detailing on his chest resembling Movie Prime's distinctive chest design. He was only available exclusively in Japan with a pre-order for the Transformers DVD and HD-DVD. He has no Japanese ID number right?

My apologies for the unfinished state of the Movie Prime toy page. Because we do the wiki as a hobby, we often do things when we feel like it. After all, the easiest way to lose interest is to treat this like a job and try to push on beyond your levels of interest.



Why don't you sign up for a proper account and discuss this at the wiki? Posting it here seems like you're asking FFN to do your dirty work for you.
Moderation Note:
I tend to agree with Jaydisc here. The TF Wiki has a discussion page for every article. You don't even need to sign in to post a query about content in their discussion pages.

This board should not be used to criticise particular points of content on another website, especially when that website already allows any body to question or discuss the content.

The other option you have is to PM FFN if you like with these comments, but posting them on the TF Wiki's discussion pages would be the better option. Naw, I don't mind too much. At least Gok alerts me to problems I wouldn't otherwise know about.

[Kyle]

Thanks chaps. I stuck him under "Other toys" since he didn't have any sort of official subline.

He has no Japanese ID number right?

My apologies for the unfinished state of the Movie Prime toy page. Because we do the wiki as a hobby, we often do things when we feel like it. After all, the easiest way to lose interest is to treat this like a job and try to push on beyond your levels of interest.

Thanks FFN. He has no Japanese ID number. And no need for any apology since you guys do the wiki as a hobby. I was under the impression that the page was trying to be as complete as it could be. As a fan I noticed the missing toys and just wanted to point out or help if I could. NEVER meant to "order" you around or treat it as your job. Never any rush. :)

[FFN]

Thanks for reminding me about them. I totally forgot about the Trans-Scanning and DVD Spychanger.

[FFN]

I was just looking at the old Wikia Teletraan 1 wiki and was both amused and sad at how unprofessional it was becoming, especially the bad, low-resolution pictures being uploaded without descriptions, Wikipedia-style.

Also amused that evidently the new staff there (well, one guy) decided to ditch our officially-confirmed news only policy, and, like the Wikipedia, is reporting ROTF information from unofficial sources.

Yeah, I'm petty.

[dirge]

FFN, what's the deal with the "old" site, anyway? Was there like a split or something?

[griffin]

IIRC, they just abandoned it in favour of a host that didn't cover half their articles with advertising. Unfortunately the original host won't just remove the framework of a 'free' wiki, it has to be left there like an abandoned house, allowing any squatters to use or vandalise the premises. So while the framework (sub-domain) exists, deleting the contents by the outgoing owners is a waste of time because the contents can be re-installed at any time by the new 'owners'.

[FFN]

Wikia wouldn't delete it partly because the Teletraan I wikia was one of their most popular wikis, and they used it for propaganda purposes when promoting how the new Wikia layout (which itself was later modified to include more intrusive advertising). Wikia claimed since changing we received a spike of hits. IIRC, the problem was their claimed jump in the number of visits was due to the BotCon weekend and the days when new episodes of Animated aired, so we would have been expecting jumps in visitors regardless of layout.

Lots of non-fan sites linked to the Teletraan I wikia during the filming of Revenge of the Fallen because of certain rumours, which doesn't help. Our article for a certain character related to this was updated to beef up the fiction section/biography and include more images, but it's still on page 3 of google searches.

[FFN]

Yay, the TFWiki.net now has over 1000 more articles than the Wikia site.

As of 25/1/09:
TFWiki.net: 8,009 articles
Wikia: 6,998 articles

Psyche edge! We hit 8000 before they hit 7000, in two days we created 65 new articles.

[GoktimusPrime]

So what is the 8009th article?

[FFN]

8010 articles now.

The latest one is Hiroaki Hirata (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Hiroaki_Hirata), and the 8009th article is a frame work for the Armada preview comic from 2002. (http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Armada_Preview) Somebody should get around to writing it during the week.

[griffin]

You guys should have stayed at the old location and 'deleted' its content, and then after it dropped out of the 'ratings', asked for it to be removed. Now you'll be competing against something you guys put in the effort to create in the first place.

[FFN]

Are you suggesting we should have deleted our articles and sit on the wiki for a few months, then ask Wikia to delete it entirely?

If so, then that would have been a bad idea, because not only would it have annoying, but it would be petty and would damage our reputation in the long run. We would be annoying ourselves by not being able to edit our work for however long it took to accomplishthis, and would also deprive fellow fans of information.

Besides, wikia would just restore the wiki from a backup database. They would never delete it entirely if there's money to be had.Towards the end, Wikia were very impatient to see is go as we were clearly not going to toe the company line. Apparently our protest made it to the technology section of The Guardian in the UK.

When they started placing ads on the front page of the wiki, it busted up the layout, but we decided to leave it alone with the ad hovering over content as a protest. Wikia wanted us to fix it, we refused, they proposed to do it themselves, we weren't keen. They did it anyway... and made the problem even worse. The guy who attempted to fix the layout only used Internet Explorer, so it was screwed up for users of Opera, Firefox and other non-IE browsers.

We moved because we didn't want corporate interference such as this into our hobby. As for competition, it's not much competition. Assuming the Wikia wallows in an unmoderated wasteland from now on, we will catch up in google rankings eventually.

[griffin]

I wasn't suggesting to be petty or childish over the matter. You seem annoyed about the direction the new admin is taking the wiki, as if it is perverting all the effort that was originally put into it. Since you were saying that host (wikia) wouldn't allow the creators to remove the site because of how high it rated for them - then why not make it less popular, so that it was no longer of financial interest to the host, allowing the creators regain control over it again. It wouldn't have meant making the old site unreliable or empty, but just prioritising the new tfwiki, and putting in links to the new one from the old one. When the site wasn't generating as many hits, the host wouldn't have a financial interest in it, and wouldn't care if it was removed.
Once it was completely removed (the sub-domain or registered site) at the creator's request, someone else may register a new Transformers wikia, but I wouldn't think that wikia would allow the new site and registrant access and install your content on an entirely new wikia website.
You said that keeping the old site to direct traffic to the new site would damage your reputation, but allowing someone else to pervert your creation with the same appearance and format, people will think the new one is related to the old one, damaging your claim/reputation of objectiveness. At least if you still held the old site and directed traffic to your new one direct from it, without vandalising the old site, your reputation would have remained intact.

[FFN]

I believe somebody proposed that, but in the end, Wikia were very keen to see us go if we weren't going to be 100% into their wiki, and we didn't have the time or people to watch over two wikis.

We advertised our move for quite a while before we actually left, so sites linking to us changed their links and most fans who visited us changed their bookmarks accordingly. Soon after the move, there was a notice at the top of the wiki advertising the fact the staff and contributors had left. Wikia changed it about a day or two later to simply say there was an alternative site, to make it seem as though it was a mirror. Then they removed the notice altogether.


Some of us had hoped that after we left, the Wikia wiki would become a different sort of wiki, the sort of wiki Gok and others might have preferred with an ultra-serious tone without jokes or fun :p, or a place for people who have an axe to grind about Walky (one of our admins) could go. Then we could have a rumble at BotCon Board Wars :D

However, the person installed by Wikia to replace us was a semi-regular contributor who declined to come with us (though he's since edited on our TF Wiki, anyway) pretty much kept the place as it was, with some minor differences. So instead of being reborn into a new wiki, it has limped on ever since.

Oh, here's some randomness. This is what the front page looked like after Wikia forced their ads in.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Awesome-tfwiki-mainpage.png

[GoktimusPrime]

Continued from here (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?p=78730[/url)


But it's true. People who <expletive> off at Galaxy Force and complained about how Hasbro was totally ruining Takara's Galaxy Force series by placing Cybertron in Armada-Energon's continuity (as both companies had originally planned) deserve to be mocked and derided for all they are worth.
That's your opinion, not a fact. You cannot be seriously saying that it's a fact that Galaxy Force fans who were disgruntled with Cybertron deserve to be mocked. Nobody deserves to be ridiculed just because their opinions differ from your own. :/

Opinions =/= facts. Something that TFwiki seems to be incapable of recognising. (-_-)

[roller]

wait wait wait


there are some people who DON'T want 'Cybertron' included in the 'Armada trilogy" ???

Whatever for?

[GoktimusPrime]

Not quite. When Galaxy Force was first produced, it was intended to be a separate series from Micron Legend and Super Link in Japan, but Hasbro had Cybertron modified to make it a direct continuation from Energon. Some Galaxy Force fans didn't like this and criticised Hasbro for altering Galaxy Force like that. Later Studio Gonzo retconned Galaxy Force making it part of the same continuity as Micron Legend and Super Link, just like Cybertron was in the first place.

That doesn't meant that those critics "deserved" to be ridiculed though - to state that this is a fact is ridiculous, just because someone may not agree with them. I don't necessarily agree with them - I'm a Galaxy Force fan myself, but if Hasbro wants to change Cybertron then whatever... I don't watch Cybertron anyway so I don't care what Hasbro does with it anyway. If Galaxy Force fans find the alterations made to Cybertron to be so unpalatable then don't watch it!

[FFN]

Continued from here (http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showthread.php?p=78730[/url)


That's your opinion, not a fact. You cannot be seriously saying that it's a fact that Galaxy Force fans who were disgruntled with Cybertron deserve to be mocked. Nobody deserves to be ridiculed just because their opinions differ from your own. :/

Opinions =/= facts. Something that TFwiki seems to be incapable of recognising. (-_-) They deserve to be mocked because they were wrong, and they were sad about their arguments in an anime fanboy fashion.

[roller]

hmmmmm ive weighed up the evidence on both sides

It seems to me that Galaxy force should have been a sequel to its predecessors from the start, a series about a newly formed black hole, obviously it was caused by Unicrons destruction in Energon/Superlink :rolleyes:

I have no choice but to side with Cybertron, the others were deserving of their fate

Case closed!!!


Roller has been a practicing continuity barrister for 25 years, if you have any problems understanding continuity and your place in it don't hesitate to visit his offices between 9-5

[GoktimusPrime]

They deserve to be mocked because they were wrong, and they were sad about their arguments in an anime fanboy fashion.
That's your opinion - and while I can see where you're coming from, it's not a fact.

[jaydisc]

That's your opinion - and while I can see where you're coming from, it's not a fact.

C'mon... haven't we covered this?


For bias and tone, I think Pablo Hidalgo, content manager Lucasfilm's websites, said it best:

--- quote ----
There are plenty of reasons as a TransFan to dig it, but what I particularly like is its absolute disregard to neutral voice. It never pretends to be anything officials and in fact, gets a bit bawdy in some of its language - especially its often-hilarious captions ... It's got the perfect mix of retentive detail and irreverence.
--- end ----

As for 'lifting our standards' to be like other wikis, we don't want to emulate the Wikipedia or be like other wikis. In my opinion, that's what makes us stand out and makes us unique.

The TFWiki does not purport itself to be fact.

[Golden Phoenix]

Shouldn't this be stopped as it is an argument neither can win. one of those things like religion or politics.
It is pretty much about a moral since it is about whether or not someone deserved something or not


17 - Unresolveable topics like religion, politics, social ideologies, etc, are discouraged. Other boards cater for that.

[Paulbot]

While I'm not really sure about adding TFwiki to the board rules I am sick of the circular arguements. I've closed this thread before and if this continues it's going to be locked again.

[TheDirtyDigger]

One suggestion which I think would be improvement on TF Wiki would be to update the Featured Article on the main page more regularly.

Featured Articles are an excellent way to throw out some random and interesting fact and provide stimulus and change. Between Dinobot and Minerva, I think they've had the last 4-6 weeks in there just to themselves.

[FFN]

I think the problem is most of our articles are unfinished in some manner, making them less than Feature worthy. I think Dinobot's is the only finished Beast Wars character article. I blame 2006 article standards, which was when the BW articles were written. Stupid past-selves.

I'll see if I can get a vote going on the next Featured Article, thanks for reminding me.

[FFN]

There you go, featured article for Feb 2009 is up.

[roller]

does tf wiki have anything on the Chile ads ? they seem to feature unique animation

[GoktimusPrime]

A search string on "Sparkler(s)" doesn't redirect to "Sparkabot."

[Sky Shadow]

A search string on "Sparkler(s)" doesn't redirect to "Sparkabot."

Um... Gok... "Sparkler" does redirect there. "Sparklers" and "Sparkler Mini-bot" don't, however.

[GoktimusPrime]

I typed in "Sparklers." I think that ought to be fixed so that the redirection kicks in if people use the plural.