The TF Wiki

[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?

[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

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.

[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