Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Transformers

Assessment

FYI...the assessment of all the Transformers articles is pretty much done. There are a few that I left alone, because they still need to be merged, as the result of a deletion discussion. Please let me know if you feel that I've assessed an article incorrectly.

In the meantime, you can see all the articles broken down by quality status here, or by clicking on the quality status of any Transformers article's talk page, and see all the status categories in the table of contents at the top of the page. In addition, the statistics table has been updated with all of the necessary importance categories, and you can see all of the articles broken down by importance here, or again by clicking on the importance status of any Transformers article's talk page, and see all the importance categories in the table of contents at the top of the page.

Also, all of the stub-class Transformers articles have been tagged with the template {{Transformers-stub}}. If you remove the tag because you are expanding an article, please be sure to update the classification on the article's talk page as well. There is a log of everything that has been updated here, which is maintained by the WP 1.0 bot. The articles of WikiProject Transformers are now fully part of Wikipedia:Version 1.0, and I hope that the quality and importance guides will help you to improve the coverage of Transformers articles on Wikipedia. Fortdj33 (talk) 17:11, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Mirage article talk

There is a bit fo a disagreement currently on the fomatting of the page Mirage (Transformers). I wish to treat all versions of Bay movie Mirage as one character, while another editor wishes to make seperate entires for the one seen in Dark of the Moon and the one who appeared in the Transformers movie card game. My reasoning for merging them was because they are both movieverse Mirage, just with different artist takes on his appearance. We have split a few movieverse characters like Mudflap and Crankcase where they are depicted as seperate characters IN FICTION, but since the card game Mirage is just different in the art, I don't think that's enough to spawn it's own section. You may notice that movie card characters like Cliffjumper (and others) have card art that don't match their toys precisely, but we don't split them apart into different entires. Any other opinions on this? Mathewignash (talk) 16:51, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Two different movie-based sections really is just cruft, especially given how trivial one of them really is. GRAPPLE X 16:53, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but what if your opinion on the article formatting? I tried to just have the card game Mirage be mentioned in the article section on Dark of the Moon Mirage. The other editor wants the card game Mirage to have his own section on the page. I think it's making an assumption to make a character-less card into a seperate character. Seemingly based solely on thr fact that the card is a BLUE CAR and DOTM Mirage is red. An Autobot can change his colors you know! Mathewignash (talk) 16:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Have both mentioned (in chronological order) in a "Live-action films" heading. GRAPPLE X 17:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Transformers film TFA

Please take a look at today's featured article. Transformers (film) is on our main page. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions) 06:04, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Infobox update?

I was wanting to update the layout of the Transformers character infobox. I was considering making it more like the fictional character infobox. I wanted to add the title "Transformers character" to the top, seperate the real world from fictional data, maybe add lines for gender and for the Takara number of the toy. Anyone object? Mathewignash (talk) 02:05, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Gender seems needless, and why only the Takara information—doesn't Hasblow give their stuff ID numbers too? GRAPPLE X 02:10, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Some Transfomers are male, and others are female, and Takara assigns every toy a number, Hasbro does not... still that might be better listed in the toy section. Mathewignash (talk) 02:12, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I know some are female, but the number that are and have articles is minuscule, and even att hat, it's mostly just an aesthetic thing. It just seems like cruft to me. GRAPPLE X 13:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Grapple X that female Transformers are so much of a minority that the whole gender issue isn't worth even mentioning in the infobox. JIP | Talk 19:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Currently 19 Transformers article are about female Transformers. Anyways, I wanted to add it because we already mention being female in the sub-group and category, it would be more moving it to it's own section than adding it. Also, what does anyone think of the OTHER items I suggested? No objections? Mathewignash (talk) 19:59, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

My only objection is with the gender. It's so minor that it isn't worth mentioning. The other ideas are OK, as long as the Takara number is only even mentioned for toys that actually do have a Takara number, and even that only in the toys section. JIP | Talk 20:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

I want to restate my position that only information that is relevant to the character as a whole should go in the infobox. Takara ID numbers are relevant only to the specific toy, a character could have multiple toys each with its own ID number. Do we really want to list EVERY number that Takara has ever assigned to Convoy (aka Optimus Prime)? Same thing goes for the subgroups and partners. What is the relevant, core information about each character (not each toy). That, and only that, should be in the infobox. As far as gender goes, there are very few TFs that are female, fewer still that have articles, and some of those might not deserve articles here. It simply isn't worth adding. --Khajidha (talk) 13:50, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I already conceeded that the Takara number should go in the toy section, not the infobox. As for gender... Male Transformers have gender too. Fact is: 1 We already mention gender in the "Subgroup" line, and 2 Gender is a common thing in infoboxes for fictional characters. If we add a section for it in the infobox, you can leave it blank. Mathewignash (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite agree with your sentiment that "male Transformers have gender too". Transformers were originally created as wholly asexual and genderless, it was only later that the TV show started introducing a small token number of female Transformers as an afterthought. This is definitely a case where "male" is taken for granted and only "female" has actual status. If we were talking about real-life people, then of course male people have gender too, but we are talking about fictional robots, where the whole notion of "male" and "female" only exists because the TV show designers wanted to attract girls to the toys too. JIP | Talk 17:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Not arguing the gender in the infobox, that's not important, but to be fair the guy who imagined the whole series, Bob Budanski(sp?), wanted female Transformers from the beginning, Ratchet was to be female. They didn't make them genderless, they made them MALE. As for the percentage, you could honestly say GI Joes are over 90%+ male by watching that series, doesn't mean you don't have female GI Joes. I don't see the fact that someone is an alien species has anything to do with it. It's still a fictional person with a gender. More importantly though with the infobox, does anyone have any objections to arranging them to have "real world" info first, then fictional world info second, and adding a "first appearance" line? Mathewignash (talk) 23:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

My primary argument was not to list gender in the infobox. If you agree, then that's that settled. However, in your comparison to GI Joes, you have to take into account that GI Joes are humans, but Transformers are aliens, and robots for that matter. How many other fictions are there that even have male and female robots? Coming back to the infobox issue, I feel it's important to mention toy information about those characters who have toys. But this should be limited to the most important toys. Listing every one of the about thirty or forty toys that Optimus Prime has in the infobox would create so much clutter that it would make the infobox useless. The same goes for possible groups and partners. There are cases where there are so many variations of a character that it's impossible to make sense which variation has which group or partner. The "first appearance" thing is a bit complicated, because Transformers is essentially three things in one fiction: toys, a TV show, and a comic series. It was the toys that started the whole franchise, but it was the TV show and comic series that started the fiction around it. How are you going to handle the "first appearance" information based on this? Lastly, it's spelled "Budiansky". JIP | Talk 18:46, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I would have the "first appearance" data consist of the year of original release and the toyline name at the time for those characters that originated as toys. For those that originated in the fiction, more standard issue or episode listings would be appropriate. --Khajidha (talk) 15:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of the article on Maximals

There is currently a nomination for deletion on the article on Maximals here Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maximal (Transformers). I thought this would be of interest to those who edit Transformers articles, since there are only 4 main factions in Transformers, Autobots, Decepticons, Maximals and Predacons. Deleting this article would delete an article on about one fourth of the Transformers faction mythos. If anyone wants to add opinions to the debate, or add sources to the article, I'd appreciate it. Thanks Mathewignash (talk) 20:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Um, I'm pretty sure there are more than four main factions, considering the BM vehicons, and how Unicron's not necessarily Decepticon-affiliated. NotARealWord (talk) 06:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Deletion sorting

How come nobody's updated that page? There's nothing wrong with using this page to report AfDs, but the deletion sorting should be used too. Also, new AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Omnicon (2nd nomination). NotARealWord (talk) 06:49, 18 August 2011 (UTC)