The TF Wiki

[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 )

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.