Transformers Wiki talk:Community Portal

This is the place for discussion of topics that affect the entire wiki. For less wide-reaching subjects, either use articles' individual talk pages or our Discord server.

Some topics that would ordinarily be here have merited their own pages:

Press release or logo for 30,000 articles?

Is it worth putting something together as we get very very close? Maybe something like:

• 3 from Thrilling 30 logo
• 0 from the 40th logo
• 0 from the Vector Sigma "Featured" logo
• 0 from the cosmic-streaking O in the TFTM opener
• 0 from GO!

Just a suggestion.... --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 13:45, 10 November 2023 (EST)

If we wanted to go down that route, maybe tie into some of the contemporary material? Say, the "O"s from Energon Universe or Evolution? (Though the latter isn't exactly straight-on...) --Broadside (talk) 14:38, 10 November 2023 (EST)

Sure! I lean towards the Energon Universe choice. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 15:48, 10 November 2023 (EST)

Apologies, I've corrected the count on the main page as it was inaccurate, so we're not as close as it looked like we were. --abates (talk) 16:20, 10 November 2023 (EST)

That just means we have more time to decide and, if so, pull things together. :) -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 16:51, 10 November 2023 (EST)

Feels like we just leapt up 40 new articles in the last 2-3 days. Is it worth putting a graphic together? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 22:47, 18 January 2024 (EST)

"Multi-pack" vs "gift set" and suchlike

Incoming semantics, but... as I've been going through the toy entries, been trying to standardize/streamline a lot of stuff, and I think maybe a set of consistent terms/definitions for "a bunch of separate toys packed together" is in order. So lemme throw this out here for discussion/future reference...

• Multi-pack — A pack of toys where the contents (or at least most/some/any of them) are exclusive to this release, not sold in other packaging. Most multi-toy releases nowadays would fall under this umbrella by default.
• Gift set — A pack of toys where all of the contents are/were concurrently (or close enough) sold individually as well, without changes, in the same market. Like all the various G1 combiner sets.

The latter brings up the question of if we want to label all the Takara "VS" packs and the various UT-era "VALUE PACK!" sets under that umbrella, which I'm ambivalent-to-marginally-in-favor-of over. Especially as Takara's been putting out new "VS" packs where the toys are new decos not available elsewhere... also we kinda made up the "VS pack" term anyway, as memory serves, so. --M Sipher (talk) 20:15, 8 January 2024 (EST)

Hasbro has used the word "Giftset" to refer to unique variants not available separately. I'm inclined to think we shouldn't directly contradict that. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 21:21, 8 January 2024 (EST)

and damn but does that article need updating. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2024 (EST)

I'm inclined to think that Hasbro uses lots of terms in ways that are not exactly conducive to organizing a wiki. --M Sipher (talk) 21:29, 8 January 2024 (EST)

More bullet point insignia?

Okay so... I recall there were some other possible faction symbol bullet points we could maybe use. I ran across a few with this batch of toy pics we might consider adding. I'll list them here, see if people can think of more. I feel like there might be a couple more two-faction matchups out there.

• Rescue Bots
• The various BotBots squads
• My First Transformers

I'm not un-convinced that we should have the bespoke insignia for stuff like the Disney Label, since they do use them on the packaging. So uh... there. --M Sipher (talk) 01:51, 13 January 2024 (EST)

Also, while looking at the list of all the bullets on the template page... maybe we should see if we can split the list up a smidge? Like, put all the mutli-faction icons in one section, a section just for BotBots since there's gonna be quite a few of them? Alphabetizing them might also be in order. (I have exactly zero idea how those templates are coded, so uh, lemme know if that's doable.) --M Sipher (talk) 04:42, 13 January 2024 (EST)

There's also the Star Wars Transformers... though I'm not sure if using Star Wars insignia falls too much out of this wiki's scope, although we do use at least use them on the actual characters' pages (see Darth Vader). Turborun (talk) 10:34, 13 January 2024 (EST)

I don't think we'd use SW insignia because, near as I can tell, the toy packaging doesn't mark the toys that way. --M Sipher (talk) 05:27, 14 January 2024 (EST)

Idea for reducing the size of toy sections by compacting unchanged toy entries

I've come up with an idea that I think would make toy sections on character pages a little better and more intuitive. Instead of having a long list of entries for multiple releases of the exact same toy completely unchanged, we could just compact them all in a single entry, describing how the toy was available both individually and unchanged in a bunch of multipacks. This could be especially helpful with toy sections that are way too long, such as both the Movie Optimus Prime and Bumblebee toy pages that have been subject to a lot of discussion already.

I used the 2007 Legends Class section of the Movie Optimus Prime toy page to make a quick example out of it. The entries would be reduced from four to two toys, since 3/4 of them are the same toy anyway, and a lot of white space would be removed. As for the images of the multipacks, I don't think we would be losing much in removing them since the wiki has never prioritized images of packagings for anything really and, as I know is written somewhere in the "rules", the wiki isn't supposed to be used as an image hosting website in the first place.

So, any thoughts? --Fritz (talk) 20:18, 20 January 2024 (EST)

We used to do this and it was actually kind of worse. There's also complications when unchanged toys end up being sold under different franchise headers, and when you add in all the other bullet point data a toy/set might have, you could end up with a lonnnnng list of bullet points before you get to the actual writeup, plus describing the multi-packs' contents... you're not really saving space while also kinda hurting the demi-chronological flow of the information. And deleting the multi-pack package imagery feels very wrong. It's one of those cases where there's no real ideal situation, but there's a least-bad one.

That said, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to make sure the first entry mentions these "repacks" alongside the redecoes and links to the relevant items. --M Sipher (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2024 (EST)

Good points, as usual. Now that you mentioned it, I think I do have a vague memory of this being done in the past. I was going to suggest the repacks from different toylines should remain separate, though. My mentality was that maybe we could have a way to highlight the "main" releases (original and redecoes/retools) from the "minor" ones (unchanged repacks) to make it easier to identify in a glance how many actually-different toys were released within a toyline, but I wouldn't want it to cause more confusion than less. Anyway thanks for taking the time to evaluate the idea. --Fritz (talk) 05:54, 22 January 2024 (EST)

Repurposings, continuity transplants, and using Template:Main/Template:See to improve navigability

I've gone back to the drawing board to come up with a way to signal to readers where closely-related pages exist, as I don't think disambiguation pages are enough and have found Template:OtherVersions to be unideal. Previously, I'd suggested merging a bunch of pages for so-called "continuity transplants", but other users convinced me this would be a poor solution. One alternative suggestion, from User:Broadside, was to use Template:Main to put key links to a character's appearances in other continuity families directly in the fiction section—reactions at the time were neutral-positive. You can see mockups for Cy-Kill and Bug Bite. This strikes me as the best of both worlds, because it keeps the consistent schema (which helps for page length and organisation) but also puts a link to the information in the place where your typical reader is expecting to find it (on the page for the highest-profile first incarnation of the character).

With the same philosophy in mind, I've also designed two new templates. The first, Template:Toyappeared, is intended for use in toy write-ups as a way of linking to fiction write-ups and character pages. It covers repurposings, "continuity transplants", notable instances of toy-accuracy, in-fiction powerups, "virtual" redecos, you name it. Toy write-ups are increasingly being duplicated across multiple character pages, which creates maintenance overhead, as both instances must be manually kept in sync. My suggestion is to use Template:See to link to the full information regarding a toy on the original page, with the repurposed instance giving only brief information of what the toy is and why it was repurposed or whatever. The second of my new templates has a much more specific intended use case: Template:Bwucharacter provides an easy way of explaining how/why a character was reinterpreted for their Uprising appearance, as Uprising accounts for most of the situations I view as being problematic.

I realise I'm proposing like five things at once here, so my sandbox has a full example demonstrating how it all works together, along with tons of individual examples of the templates' usage and a more thorough explanation of what I'm trying to address with them. Take a look, and let me know which aspects you like, which parts you don't like, or any ideas you have to add! —The Wadapan (talk) 06:24, 12 February 2024 (EST)

I can vouch for these templates! ShootingStar7X (talk) 15:38, 26 February 2024 (EST)

I'm seeing a lot of problems with the implementation of some of this, and a lot of future headaches. The ones rolled out put what look like stub headers in a fiction section with just a small normal missable note up top; and in Override's case in specific, multiple stubs with completely redundant information. What this is going to do is get new people thinking that these are missing information that needs to be filled, then we gotta revert it and tell them no all that goes elsewhere, which is utterly unintuitive and will just lead to arguments and headaches all around.

As for toys, in the instances of BWU-type stuff where it's a one-toy Mini-Con or whatever, I feel like NOT having the actual toy info for them on the BWU page, as with the Mini-Con Snow Cat toy currently, is not doing the reader any favors. Quite the opposite. Why are we making them jump to a different page for information that has no reason to not be right there? I don't like making readers jump through hoops needlessly, and that's all this feels like. And it's not like the toy sections of most of these are gonna see major changes, so lack of cross-updating is very, very, very unlikely to be an issue.

I really don't think these require new templates and a bunch of new-editor landmines. At most, there's a decent argument to be made for re-positioning the "you look familiar" template that already exists, maybe below the main character writeup (above feels like a bad layout choice, pushing all kinds of stuff down.) --M Sipher (talk) 02:11, 28 February 2024 (EST)

Listings and accessories

When I was making the description for cannonball based on the Walmart listing, there was mention of a Gatling gun and hammer not shown in the stock images,and left them out.

If I run into this type of situation again, what do I do?Poliwag06 (talk) 10:56, 7 March 2024 (EST)

A few suggestions

Gallery pages should only include images that aren't easily accessed by going to the main page, to avoid cluttering. I guess this is not an issue now since the current gallery pages are fairly short.

There should be more dedication in listing alt-modes of characters. Maybe there should be a header or something. For example, if the Dreamwave version of Sunstorm transforms into an F-16 jet, it should be listed in the beginning with a header for the sake of easy access to the said information.--Primestar3 (talk) 13:59, 17 March 2024 (EDT)

Will we get an article on The Masked Singer?

Will there be an article on TFWiki about The Masked Singer, specifically their recent "Transformers Night" episode (https://the-masked-singer.fandom.com/wiki/Transformers_Night)? --John Pannozzi (talk) 20:01, 12 April 2024 (EDT)

Assuming it's a licensed appearance (I can't check the credits myself :C ), I can't think why it wouldn't be AkibaSilver (talk) 21:15, 12 April 2024 (EDT)

It was indeed licensed. --John Pannozzi (talk) 22:30, 12 April 2024 (EDT)

Yes, as an official Hasbro-sanctioned piece of TF media, the episode does meet our requirements for inclusion. It just needs someone to write it up. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 23:22, 12 April 2024 (EDT)

Franchise articles

So I was looking at the franchise pages to try and get an idea of what the standard is supposed to be for how they are written. Should all of them be updated to be more like the Beast Wars: Transformers (franchise) article? What was making me wonder this was that on the Transformers: Energon (franchise) article it had a section for "Homages" and one for "New characters" which I don't think any other franchise article has. --1levichurch (|talk) 22:57, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

AI upscaled images

With fresh offsite talks about the matter, I put forth we add an official policy against posting AI upscaled images of any kind to the wiki, owing to their subpar performance in "enhancing" the quality of images. McBaggins (talk) 23:52, 1 May 2024 (EDT)

Agreed. It's literally faking information and presenting it as official. (Also often noticeably terrible.) Sometimes the best quality available of something sucks, but we simply have to deal. Saix (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2024 (EDT)

100 percent agreed. It's called "artificial" for a reason. Plenty of details would be lost out through the upscaling, and several times errors on the wiki somehow became official through Hastak using the wiki for references (the whole Circular reporting thing). If we start allowing AI upscaled images, then we're likely to have things lost to the annals of time. Potato quality is better than lost qualitySingularity (talk) 00:11, 2 May 2024 (EDT)

Sure. --M Sipher (talk) 00:43, 2 May 2024 (EDT)

Ending addition of high-end statues

This is something I doubt other people have noticed, but I'm putting down a tent-peg on it: After having built the entries for dozens of high-end collectable TF statues in the last 2-3 years, from firms like Diamond Select, Imaginarium, Azure Sea, XM Studios, etc., and then seeing most of them either officially cancelled or never spoken of again with no reported purchases, I am going to stop adding such items here. If someone else feels like cataloguing them, great.

It really may not be possible for us to keep up with toy-like non-transforming merchandise (figurines and statues) the way we used to. There are at least two released series of G1 core cast micro-figurines with micro-comics and magnifying glasses, which would have been the rage of the fandom in 2005, that nobody ever got around to adding, and it feels like too much of a chore for me to start. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 10:35, 3 May 2024 (EDT)

It's an unfortunate but very real thing that once you enter the world of licensed merch, we're gonna have big gaps. It's... a lot, on top of the "a lot" that is the regular TF toyline and fictional output today. I've said that the work involved in keeping up with all of TF's merch ought to be a full-time paying job, and I genuinely mean it. --M Sipher (talk) 16:39, 3 May 2024 (EDT)

Transformers Roleplaying Game releases on the front page and sidebar

The Transformers Roleplaying Game is getting pretty frequent releases of both sourcebooks and pre-written adventures, and it occurs to me that it might be a good idea to have it on the "current releases" section of the front page and/or the navigation sidebar. How would people feel about that? --Broadside (talk) 15:49, 4 May 2024 (EDT)

I think that makes a lot of sense, as long as we have people keeping up with the new releases to document them. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:51, 4 May 2024 (EDT)

How we handle weapons' toy/merch sections

Okay, so like... I'm not really convinced that what we've been doing is the best way to handle the weapon pages' toys/merch sections. Honestly, they end up looking... really shoddy. There's just tiny scraps of info, vast wads of whitespace, few to no links, the images are tons of different sizes.
I'm thinking that instead of all this... maybe this is a place where a gallery is in order, just a chronological procession. Have the captions just say what lines/toys the weapons came with and link to the toys directly on the character page. It's not like there's much to say about any of these, why not let the toy listing on the character page say it? Why make people scroll through screens of mostly-emptiness, which I feel they're increasingly unlikely to do? I may do a sandbox if I'm feeling up to it. --M Sipher (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2024 (EDT)

User:M Sipher/Sandbox:WeaponPageToysSection - So... this, basically. --M Sipher (talk) 22:39, 6 May 2024 (EDT)

I'd be on board with that. --Broadside (talk) 22:34, 6 May 2024 (EDT)

I like it. It would be far more compact than our current approach for, say, Fusion cannon#Toys, while still getting the point across. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 11:13, 10 May 2024 (EDT)

Proposal for Unproduced or Unreleased Template

I don't think the Apocrypha template is particularly useful. It was created specifically for Alignment, but most of the things in it don't fit that criteria. Something like Unproduced or Unreleased Transformer media would be more self explanatory. WillR113 (talk) 07:05, 11 May 2024 (EDT)

Use of pictures from ebay, fan sites, etc

Is it appropriate to use pictures of toys from ebay, fan reviews, video review screenshots and the like? Under fair use and with source credit? Sometimes rarer items we don't have good pictures of on the wiki show up in these places. In particular I found a ebay seller with good images of EZ collection toys and and old Japanese review blog with images of Takara variants of HFTD/Autobot Alliance toys so that got me wondering. —BluJayWarrior (talk) 10:10, 12 May 2024 (EDT)

Images from eBay and other fan sites have been and can continue to be used, giving the fullest source credit feasible. I don't think we've ever needed to rely on video review screenshots and would always prefer to have a "normal" still image instead whenever possible. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 11:02, 16 May 2024 (EDT)

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers “再構成版” エピソード視聴ガイド "Re-Configuration Version" aka "Re-Constructed Version" Episode Viewing Guide

We really need to document the "canon" Japanese viewing order for Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers & Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers 2010 originally included with the Pioneer Laserdisc booklets & later apparently revised by Hirofumi Ichikawa (市川裕文) for the DVD BOX SET 2 Instruction Booklet as it would help clean-up the chronology on many wiki pages here. From what I've been able to gather this particular viewing order differs from both the US/Japan production orders, the US-Airing order and the Japanese-Airing order. So what exactly is the order of the episodes of these two series according to these documents? Does anyone own them and able to list the specific order in which the episodes appear in those LD/DVD "Instruction Booklets" word-for-word? As it stands, we've only mentioned that a "narrative viewing order" exists but do not have it listed anywhere. For further clarification, it is not the order in which the episodes appear on the Japanese DVDs. Astrobotix (talk) 01:09, 15 May 2024 (EDT)

While this information would be valuable and is worth documenting, it's unlikely to result in us making any major changes to the way our information is structured. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 17:31, 16 May 2024 (EDT)

Okay, having seen the booklets in question, it just lists the episodes in production order, continuity errors and all. So...absolutely no change, then. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:44, 17 May 2024 (EDT)

Documenting MSRP?

Would it be worth documenting MSRP prices (in usd at least)? For the regular retail classes that's for the most part covered by the size class page, but we don't keep track of them for more specialty items like Masterpieces, multipacks, exclusives, one-off releases not in a normal size class, special lines like Missing Link, etc. It's something I find personally interesting and would've liked to know for older figures and someone in the future might want to know about today's releases. It can also offer some neat bits of info like how Premium Finish releases were generally one price point up compared to the figure's size or how the upcoming United Cliffjumper multipack is a whole $30 off what the individual figures would cost --BluJayWarrior (talk) 14:20, 21 May 2024 (EDT)

I think this would be very interesting, particularly when you scroll down pages for G1 toys that got multiple reissues like the Seekers, Insecticons, and tape players. It's just that - like the Designer Notes and the proper insignias on each and every toy - it would take forever to add and would probably wind up being one super-dedicated person having to do most of the work. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:28, 21 May 2024 (EDT)

I might try to do what I can, going back to recatalogue everything would definitely be a chore. But at the very least I strongly believe it's something we can and should implement for future toy entries. I've started a MSRP Sandbox to try out a few formats, any feedback is appreciated. --BluJayWarrior (talk) 05:18, 23 May 2024 (EDT)

Cleaned up the sandbox page. Anyone have anything to say about the format? Might try applying Style 1 to a few pages this weekend if no one makes any objections. BluJayWarrior (talk) 12:58, 24 May 2024 (EDT)

Of those options I like Style 1 the best. As you already noted, the size class pages covers basically all normal U.S. retail from BW through Legacy, missing things like Platinum and MP. To find contemporary G1 prices, here are some good resources:

https://web.archive.org/web/20181125082555/https://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf84.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20191114081109/http://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf85.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20191114091052/http://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf86.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20191114090836/http://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf87.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20191114084922/http://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf88.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20191114081716/http://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf89.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20191114085830/http://pleasesavemerobots.com/vstp/vstptf90.html

https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/g1-original-retail-price-listing.1167895/

I tried looking for G2 MSRP but couldn't find anything as obvious. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 13:24, 24 May 2024 (EDT)

Thanks for the sources, gonna have to sort through that later. Planning to start with new ROTB characters since they're smaller pages and prices can still be found. I've decided to add prices for retail classes for reader convenience; not everyone will know to go to the size class page for them and its not linked often enough to make it reasonable they would. BluJayWarrior (talk) 14:22, 24 May 2024 (EDT)

I'd been working on a project like this a long time ago, had originally proposed adding this to the wiki, but then kinda stopped... mostly because near as I could tell, the MSRP in the 80s was something retailers could just make the hell up. The price ranges for any given toy were kinda all over the damn place, and the MSRP was something some retailers used to go "no really we're cheaper SEE?" then make up some price they supposedly "discounted" down from... you know, the thing that got Kay-Bee in legal-type troubles. I was increasingly unsure how to handle that wild price variance concisely on the wiki. In fact...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PBE2i9vLE6fkr933GQbXosA1cxIqB3CkOSnzW0BMdwc/edit#gid=448439989

Take a look-see. There's at least three different MSRP values for the standard Headmasters, never mind actual sticker prices. Like, I want to provide this kind of context, I really do, and it's pretty easy once we get to the unified price points of BW on... but for G1 and G2? Woof. That's going to take a bit of mulling. "Average" price maybe, but there's gonna be some Prices Georg here and there throwing shit off. --M Sipher (talk) 16:35, 24 May 2024 (EDT)

RE: The sandbox... I'm gonna have to vote against Style 1, because, as noted, price info is very likely going to get... cluttered, and the longer that parenthetical is, the worse it is. I'd REALLY like to keep that to just "size class/type (if not obvious) and release year". And don't forget Takara-release prices, which can be more flexible even within a size class... but at least those have been extensively documented. I think we need to talk about bit more about everything we'd need to cover and how before we go implementing anything, and get a few more people in on the discussion. (Sorry for all the add-ons, lightly scattered today.) --M Sipher (talk) 18:18, 24 May 2024 (EDT)

Fair enough on the old stuff since that gets convoluted, but the newer stuff is comparatively easier to do and I'd rather start sooner before some MSRP prices get harder to find (ROTB Autobots Unite subline prices seem to have disappeared already). Added the ROTB Airazor page I was gonna start with to the sandbox so you can see how the page might look as a whole. Since you object to Style 1 I added a Style 2 version too. --BluJayWarrior (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2024 (EDT)

Assemble the data, sure, but I am going to say do not actually apply any of this to live articles. Again, there's barely been any time or discussion on a project that is... vast in scope, and we simply do not jump on stuff like this right away, because that means things will get not considered and then we have to re-do hundreds to thousands of pages... and we absolutely do not do it when there's a giant obvious gap (the first decade of the franchise) that still needs to be considered, as how we handle that will affect how we handle all the others, because we try and keep things consistent.

Like, just off the top of my head, there's non-US-or-Japan markets to consider for just about everything normal-retail. Which makes me think we may want to look into a collapsible template, like with the toy designers and voice actors, to handle the other markets without overloading the bullet point sections, some of which are already a bit husky. There's the fact that Walmart and Target just dropped the prices on TF Deluxes in the US... but apparently, Hasbro didn't change their "MSRP"/cost at all. In fact a quick jump to Hasbro Pulse shows they're still charging $25 for a Legacy/Studio Deluxe, while I can pop to the local Target/Walmart and buy 'em at $20, so we gotta consider ranges just like with G1/G2. And again... I'm moderately convinced that "MSRP" in the USA was bullshit all along, so I don't know that it's the term we even want to use in the first place. Maybe "Retail price" would be better. --M Sipher (talk) 00:17, 25 May 2024 (EDT)

I think just documenting the MSRP, if we know it, is enough. No need to go down the rabbit hole of tracking down what individual retailers sell them at when they disregard the MSRP (which as, after all, only a suggested price). In my opinion, at least, it's little different from listing the cover prices of books - the only difference is that Hasbro doesn't print their suggested price directly on the box.

Totally hear you on waiting to the pull the trigger until it's been properly discussed, though. Also, I prefer BluJay's Style 2 as well. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 03:46, 25 May 2024 (EDT)

Um, the problem is, again... I really don't think we HAVE any actual MSRPs outside of Takara's. What's been cataloged here are just "prices they were sold at", which isn't specifically a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price, the specific price suggested specifically by the manufacturer. Those we'd need a source for, and as I've pointed out, the handful of stated "MSRP"s we've seen for Hasbro stuff... well, someone was lying, likely multiple someones. For BW on we have a pretty strong inference of MSRP, but, well. And even that's not reliable... I just remembered that Walmart and Target were charging markedly different prices for the EarthSpark Tacticons, like, a $2 diff.

What I'm saying is, we might want to just not call it "MSRP" because of that (also, frankly I question how many people even recognize that acronym). And because of the wide variance in prices for older stuff, no, we don't need to list every price at every retailer (there were a billion retailers in the 80s... man, remember when actual competition in the market was a thing?), but we really OUGHT to account for the variance somehow, because it can be wide and full. "Original price" might be best, since that's what we're actually reporting here, with something like "$2.99 - $4.99 (US) / ¥500 (Japan) <expand>". I'd rather do a range than a single-price "average" on old stuff, especially when we have so MUCH data on what these were sold at across the nation that we can see the trends and when a particularly high or low price is an outlier adn should not have been counted. "Modern" stuff we can certainly ignore, say, Kohl's's higher prices and just do the average probable-MSRP-if-those-actually-exist prices most places (all two of them) charge. --M Sipher (talk) 17:10, 25 May 2024 (EDT)

Alright, I'll make a separate sub page to catalog prices for now while that gets sorted out

As Dark T said, I think prioritizing initial Hasbro MSRP is best as it is the "intended" price (this is what Brickset does for Lego). It's a point of consistency since historically different retailers tend have slight variations on the price anyway (Target/Walmart sometimes being slightly lower, Kohls/BBTS being higher, general lag on reflecting the msrp price increases a few years ago, etc) and I don't think that whole range needs to be noted. Admittedly the current Target/Walmart prices drops are pretty unusual (a whole $5?!) but unless it becomes something more widespread I personally wouldn't consider it as a data point. Might be worth making a note of somewhere if anything, though I'm not sure where --BluJayWarrior (talk) 04:26, 25 May 2024 (EDT)

Micronauts, etc.

Why are we suddenly gaining detailed issue write-ups for so much of Micronauts, which contains no TF elements at all? Isn't that the point of the IDW Hasbroverse wiki? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 13:14, 1 August 2024 (EDT)

Oh and look, now whole issues of M.A.S.K. written 7 years ago with no TF content whatsoever are being pasted from the Hasbroverse wiki. Is the other site going offline or something? --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 14:26, 1 August 2024 (EDT)

I don't think it was really our intention to formally unveil the project until we were further along, but some of us have been doing a fair bit of work towards creating a sister wiki for G.I. Joe where the out-of-scope IDW Joe coverage has already been re-homed. The Joe crew hasn't made any calls about what do with non-Joe stuff to be clear (we're sort of preoccupied, there's so much Joe you guys) but I'm guessing the idea here is to align the rest with our current approach to Skybound's shared universe and sundown the IDW one? --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 15:43, 1 August 2024 (EDT)

That is more or less the intention, yeah. The Hasbroverse wiki was built at a time where it was perhaps anticipated to be grander than it ended up being, and it wasn't certain how long it was going to run; with the end result being "not very", having this other vestigial site for what is ultimately not a lot of content just doesn't feel practical. The exception, of course, is pre-V5 Joe, which has always been the sticking point in discussions about moving Hasbroverse content here, both for the amount and for how little it has to do with the IDW Transformers line. Having a dedicated Joe wiki solves that problem and frees up the rest of the Hasbroverse stuff to be reintegrated. Plus, there's still new Joe material being released to this day; arguably having a complete and better curated site for the franchise as a whole that continues to be updated with new releases is more likely to drive traffic and get other people to contribute than it would be linking to a dead wiki for a long-ended comic line that's had the same featured articles for five years because no one cares to add anything to it anymore. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 15:59, 1 August 2024 (EDT)

It does look like a rough consensus was reached to do this back in 2021 (Archive 69), it was just never implemented. --Xaaron (talk) 16:10, 1 August 2024 (EDT)

Like half of MASK issues have something from Transformers in them. Picking and choosing which select issues to cover here is hair-splitting and obnoxious for readers. It's immensely better to just have all the information in one, easily-accessible spot and regard Hasbro Universe as a de facto spinoff of Transformers, much like Beastformers and Energon Universe are. Saix (talk) 17:10, 1 August 2024 (EDT)

One spoilers

I propose that information about this movie be withheld until it actually opens in its largest market next weekend. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 11:04, 14 September 2024 (EDT)

Agreed. Locoman (talk) 11:08, 14 September 2024 (EDT)

Transformers One and the conversation we've all been waiting for

On September 12th, Lorenzo di Bonaventura clarified the relationship between Transformers One and the live-action Transformers films, describing them as "two universes" that will be "separate". For some, this kind of explicit confirmation may come as a relief after years of wishy-washy answers regarding Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts, but it also leaves us with questions on how to best handle One-related information going forward. Around 2015, we adopted a unique layout we applied to all the movie characters, where we organized their movie appearances at the top of the page, regardless of chronological order of release (see "Optimus Prime (Movie)#Movies"). Obviously, this leads to some questions regarding how we should handle our One coverage going forward.

The way I see it, we have three options:

• Keep the page format as is, and keep One up with the rest of the movies: For obvious reasons I think this is probably our weakest possible solution; it's pretty clear at this point that our current solution for classifying the films is not really sustainable, and mashing them all together under a single loosely-affiliated umbrella is already confusing and frustrating people who aren't intimately acquainted with the mechanics of the wiki.

• Reorganize movie character pages so that we acknowledge the live-action films and One as separate continuities within one continuity family, similar to how our G1 pages cover Sunbow, Marvel, JG1, IDW, etc.: Historically speaking, this is probably the safest option, but from what I understand there is very little "connective tissue"—visually, character-wise, plot-beats—between the live-action films and One beyond the inertia of "they were both made by Paramount". As some people have discussed in the past, this could lead to a full or partial reformat of our movie character coverage to more clearly reflect the ambiguous "prequel" status of Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts, but this may be a conversation for another time.

• Separate One as an entirely new continuity family and split out the relevant information so we have pages for "Optimus Prime (One)", "Megatron (One)", etc. Probably the most radical proposal, but this is honestly where I'm at right now: from what I understand the movie is a pretty radical departure from everything that's gone before, with entirely new interpretations of old Transformers lore—I'd classify it as the start of a new "franchise" in the same way that we distinguish Earthspark and Cyberverse despite them both clearly drawing on the same well of post-Aligned lore, and these days "new franchise" is generally synonymous with "new continuity family" for the ease of wiki bookkeeping.

We would appreciate hearing your thoughts on the matter! As the film is not out yet in all regions please refrain from posting spoilers here. Locoman (talk) 08:56, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I could see option 3 being the way we go, but what holds me back from that is that beyond just Paramount, Spielberg and Bay are still executive producers on the film. Escargon (talk) 09:39, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I think we should put them on the Earthspark Continuity pages to satisfy no-one /j - but yeah, the film is drawing from the same vaguely Binder Of Revelation backstory as everything else for the last 10 years, and unless they have been hiding The Fallen twisting D-16 to evil or the twist that the Creators were the Quintessons all along, One feels pretty decoupled from the rest of the movies. The big issue I see with splitting out fully is that people wondering why we do not do the same for Bumblebee/ROTB, but that more easily passes a "vibe check" as being "Movie-adjacent" and belonging on the same page as the Bay 5-dom than One so far. Agree that trying to put them directly alongside the other movies as a prequel feels both unwieldy and confusing. AkibaSilver (talk) 09:41, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I vote for option 3, I think creating separate pages is the way to go. MrRald (talk) 09:54, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I vote for option 2. To me the movie is different enough to be a separate universe but not an entirely different continuity. Josh Cooley himself on April 18 when asked whether the film is a fresh start, a prequel to the live-action films, or its own thing, replied with: "yes to all of the above" https://comicbook.com/movies/news/transformers-one-director-confirms-new-movies-canon-status. (And having seen the movie I can confirm those connections to the live-action series do exist). Grievous Prime (talk) 10:05, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I vote for option 3. One has always felt very different to the previous live action movies so I feel it should get its own dedicated pages. As for BB and ROTB, there is "connective tissue" to the Bayverse movies so I feel they can stay on the pre-existing movie pages. PublicCrown (talk) 10:25, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

Having viewed the film at an advance screening, I think there are easily enough references and homages to previous films that option two makes the most sense. - Archforce (talk) 10:45, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I'm favorable for the 3rd option, it is still produced under Paramount & there are some producers attached to the project that were on previous movies, but my stance is that we should judge based on the final product & having seen the movie, it doesn't try to be in line to what came before (there are some similarities in design & names, but it stops there since every popular TF stories has influence over the next ones), helped by the new team of writers & creatives. If we can treat each new cartoon as its own entity (even tho in recent years they are streamlined in some areas), I think we can do the same for the recent movies that have more contradictory elements to the Bayverse –MahXyme/MahXymal (talk) 10:49, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

#3 is the cleanest option to me. Saix (talk) 11:32, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I think from a practical perspective, #3 is the only real option. Looking at the loose guidelines for a new family on our continuity family page:

• "a fresh continuity" — Yep, even Lorenzo's acknowledged this. Even if we questioned that, there's stuff like the AllSpark being absent (with the Matrix pretty much taking exactly the role the AllSpark would have), Megatronus being a good guy, and Sentinel's role being entirely irreconcilable with Dark of the Moon.
• "within a separate franchise" — Yep. New franchise, and the marketing hasn't done anything to allude to the live-action films specifically.
• "significantly different in cast, theme, style, etc." — This is the big sticking point for me. One makes no attempt to align with the visual style or characterisations of the live-action films. The sole real connective point is B-127 (name from Bumblebee, he has the big cheeks and antenna of the movie guy, and his talking a lot is clearly a meta-gag about him losing his voice), but even he's characterised completely differently, as the "comedy crazy guy" who's a peer to Optimus and co instead of the cool-but-rude big brother figure from Bay/Bee/Beasts.

I'm sympathetic to the Paramount/Bay/Spielberg/Di Bonaventura connective tissue, but my big rebuttal there is that we don't consider EarthSpark to be Aligned because Nicole Dubuc is the showrunner. Ultimately, if we hadn't had pre-release producer statements (now contradicted) calling it a prequel to the other movies, there's absolutely no way this would be in question — we'd already have it as a separate continuity family. And from a wiki organisation standpoint I don't think there's any way to, say, write up Sentinel Prime's opening paragraph in a way that adequately covers both the DOTM and One characters without genericising it to the point of uselessness. --Broadside (talk) 12:33, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

Yeah, I think #3 is straightforward and likely the approach we'd take if we were presented with the film, as a story, with zero context on the studio releasing it or EPs involved or whatever. I also think there's a high likelihood that the next live-action film will have Elita appear and be like "hey Optimus remember when we were in Transformers One?" and we'll all groan and have to reconsider, but until then, I think the real-world context is basically the only thing separating One from just being the next Broadly Aligned-y New Thing like Cyberverse and EarthSpark before it, which we consistently split out for organisation reasons. Jalaguy (talk) 13:45, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

Toss me in for Option 3 of an entirely new continuity given how different the story details has been laid out when compared to the original 2007 film-verse and then later what's set by Bumblebee. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 14:38, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

Voting for option #2. While we would still have the outlier of TF:TAM 86 being a theatrically released movie in the G1 continuity family, I see no reason why "movie continuity family" would not only include transmedia spinoffs from feature films (Reign of Starscream, toy redeco Tech Specs, etc. etc.) but also feature films which are belonging different timelines and story universes. This would also free us from having to reconcile Movie 'Bee's history -- did he come to Earth in the 1940s or the 1980s? -- and put to bed *that* long running argument about whether the Bay-directed films were the same universe as BB and RotB or not -- now they don't have to be! Banpei the Mini-Con (talk) 14:58, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

Having seen the movie, I think #3 is our cleanest option. Between the Lorenzo interview and, without going into spoilers, the numerous discrepencies there are, I don't think we can get away with suiting it out ala G1. The time may come when we do that for Bumblebee onwards but as far as One goes, I say we treat it as a new continuity. Ezim93 (talk) 19:53, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

#3. #2 was close for me, but TFOne (having seen the movie) is so artistically different from the live action movies, it feels pointless to keep it on the same page like G1/IDW. Ironically, we could give Bayverse/BB&ROTB the G1/IDW treatment. --Boingus (talk) 23:23, 15 September 2024 (EDT)

I think 3 is where I'm leaning after seeing the film. Keeping this as "movie continuity" simply because it was released theatrically doesn't make sense to me. We wouldn't do that with a new comic or show because it was the same medium, why do it for a movie just because of that? Yes There is some CNA here to the live action films, but it could be argued it has just as much pulled from G1. One is it's own thing in the end. Trying to fit it into the live action movie box just doesn't feel right in this case.--ParadoxFactor (talk) 05:47, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

I vote for Option 3 for all the reasons previously mentioned as well as size concerns. --Khajidha (talk) 09:29, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

Option 3, I believe the movie was clearly made with a new continuity in mind.-TitaniumToughGuy (talk) 09:38, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

CHECKPOINT (2024/09/16)

• Votes for Option 1: 1 (96megatron)
• Votes for Option 2: 3 (GrievousPrime, Archforce, Banpei the Mini-Con)
• Votes for Option 3: 15 (Locoman, AkibaSilver, MrRald, PublicCrown, MahXyme, Saix, Broadside, Jalaguy, Lonegamer, Ezim93, Boingus, ParadoxFactor, Khajidha, TitaniumToughGuy, CyberLink420)

As it stands, current consensus is pretty overwhelmingly in favor of Option 3 by a ratio of 5:1. I know it's only been a day, but barring a sudden swell of support for #2, it might be prudent to start switching everything over. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 10:20, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

I'm reluctant to make actual changes until the movie hits wide release and the general public can make informed input. Give it a few more days. --Broadside (talk) 10:40, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

This. Let people... SEE the movie before we make important decisions. --ItsWalky (talk) 19:49, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

Right. We can wait a few days for more than a small handful of people to see this and base their decision on, you know, the actual movie rather than whatever someone who had something to do with it says this week, which historically has waffled between "vague" and "contradictory". Hell, even now some of them are still being all "well maybe it is and maybe it isn't" and frankly I have no faith they won't ride that ambiguity for a long time like they've done since Bumblebee. --M Sipher (talk) 20:49, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

I've said ever since Keegan Michael Key tweeted as much that One should be treated as a separate continuity. Option 3 for sure. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by jmcdavid (talk • contribs).

Option 3. I've seen the movie and other users have covered why that seems like the best choice. It feels as different from the previous movies as Prime is from Animated, or Earthspark from Sunbow (which, despite directly homaging/referencing Sunbow, Earthspark is considered separate from). Ashendawn (talk) 18:01, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

I vote Option 2. There seems to be a large focus on whether or not the film fits in continuity with the prior films, but considering how little they fit with each other that feels irrelevant to me. The creators have been rather unclear whether this film should be considered separate from the ongoing live-action series in terms of production, just in terms of universe. If we had a sense this was the springboard for an entirely separate animated film series I'd say Option 3, but it feels unwarranted at this time. Indridcold13 (talk) 20:29, 16 September 2024 (EDT)

I'm voting Option 3; much of my reasons are the same as others have stated above, and I do apologise for opening this bags of worms on the One talk page. It's not that I don't understand why some people are opposed to creating a new set if pages, but for argument's sake, if One gets one or more sequels, it would likely draw further away from the established live-action films and become its own continuity/franchise (though that's more of a what-if right now). Overall, I personally think that separating live-action films and animated ones into their own continuities is a reasonable option, and I believe that One has proven itself a different entity. Prime Temple (talk) 06:26, 17 September 2024 (EDT)

Also Option 3 . In tone, content, continuity, style, story, just feels too different to me from the Michael Bay and other films, really only having the method of release in common. It feels more separate from the other movies than even Cyberverse from G1, and that’s happily separate. —MissDaria (talk) 10:05, 17 September 2024 (EDT)

Screen Rant: I vote for Option 1 This came out from ScreenRant today. Is Transformers One considered a prequel to the recent movies of Bumblebee and Rise of the Beast or the original live-action film starting in 2007? Or is it something completely, entirely new? ... Lorenzo di Bonaventura: "It obviously exists beforehand. I think we figured it out. It was like 300 million years before the first Michael Bay movie, so if that's a prequel, that's a prequel. But we're really following the lore about where it starts, and so we really just think about it as the beginning of the story. The origin, yes, but literally the beginning of the thing that we've all come to appreciate." https://screenrant.com/transformers-one-lorenzo-di-bonaventura-and-josh-cooley-interview/ 96megatron (talk) 10:56, 17 September 2024 (EDT)

Voting for Option 2. If adding stuff like Aligned backstory influence disqualifies One from being movie, then there could be an argument for splitting IDW characters off from the G1 pages because of things like the absence of the traditional "Ark crashes on Earth, everyone wakes up 4 million years later" backstory, and no amount of Owning The Bayverse (which I can't help but feel some of the desire to split One off is fueled by) is worth opening that can of worms. BattleBlade (talk) 12:31, 17 September 2024 (EDT)

Voting Option 3, y'all gotta stop taking Lorenzo's word as gospel especially over the actual creatives behind these movies. Jman98 (talk) 14:25, 17 September 2024 (EDT)

Voting Option 3, Lorenzo has made multiple contradictory statements in the past, some having been outright proven wrong. He doesn't seem like he's involved enough in the productions in order to make concrete statements about their continuity, nor is he a representative of Hasbro. TheDarkMage10218 (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2024 (CST)

While I would agree that splitting it out makes the most sense as I currently see it, lets also not pretend the wiki is under some thrall to the evil boogeyman known as "the fandoms view of Lorenzo" and ignore that multiple creatives for all the movies people like to argue are definitely not Bayverse for realsies have made contradictory statements about whether or not the films are all supposed to be prequels / sequels, and its because they are not ubernerds who care about whether this movie perfectly follows the backstory of one from nearly 2 decades ago. Just personally, I am seeing this like the High Moon Games advertising themselves as a G1 prequel back in the day - for people not like us, all of Transformers falls into the same vague umbrella, so sure, it can be a "prequel" to the rest of the movies, in the same way Optimus Prime is Optimus Prime is Optimus Prime to Hasbro, no matter whether he be G1, Movie, Animated, or Armada. AkibaSilver (talk) 04:34, 18 September 2024 (EDT)

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I strongly agree with that comment. This wiki has never been governed by author intent, and particularly regarding the live-action movies there are too many authors giving too much contradictory intent about contradictory material. We made up the concept of a "continuity family," that concept we made up is now old enough for a driver's license, we will have to continue making our own judgments about which stories mesh with what. --Thylacine 2000 (talk) 08:45, 18 September 2024 (EDT)

All this, and as to that last point: "continuity family" has literally NEVER meant "all fits into one actual internal timeline". There's a reason we used the word "family". We treat the totally-irreconcilable-timelines-having G1 cartoon and G1 comic as part of the same "family" (and BW as well), because of an external concept of them being "related" to each other by dint of the how and who and why of their creations. And this has held true as we moved forward, the above-mentioned High Moon statements being a very good example. The sheer squirreliness of multiple creatives -and the films themselves- over the past half-decade or so over "continuity" (and let's just dismiss out of hand what a voice actor thinks, okay), doesn't exactly make me think that the future won't see more squirreliness in whatever comes next. "The existing character pages are too big already" is a more convincing argument for a full-on split, and we got subpages/suites for that problem. --M Sipher (talk) 17:17, 18 September 2024 (EDT)

You all make great points; I amend my reasoning for my choice of Option 3: One deviates stylistically and tonally from the live-action movies, and it isn't even live-action to begin with. TheDarkMage10218 (talk) 22:37, 18 September 2024 (EDT)

Having seen the movie, I believe Option 3 is the best. It is irreconcilable with the Bay films on several levels (more so than ROTB/Bumblebee). It is extremely aesthetically and tonally different from them as well. I feel that grouping One with the rest of the live-action films simply because they share the same release venue would be akin to grouping Prime and G1. Paladin Denn (talk) 15:22, 18 September 2024 (EDT)

Just got out of the advanced screening, I think Option 3 would be the best option. There's a few details that clash with the prior films in many regards. It has an overall different feel. --GordonShumway8690 (talk) 22:10, 18 September 2024 (EDT)

Just saw the movie, and I vote Option 3. This movie cannot be in the same continuity as the other films, so Option 3 would be our safest bet. Decepticon Stryker (talk) 01:06, 19 September 2024 (EDT)

Another vote by a movie watcher for Option 3. Several events in the third act counter what has happened in Bay's films. For the ease of the wiki having it stay separated is the best way to prevent headaches and finger pointing by having it all on the same page. Singularity (talk) 12:21, 19 September 2024 (EDT)

Does my vote count when I watch it tomorrow? JasenomousTF (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2024 (EDT)

Saw the film yesterday, only delayed a response because I didn't think I could come up with any unique arguments. But a vote is a vote, and mine is Option 3. Bobpiecheese (talk) 19:32, 19 September 2024 (EDT)

Count me among the other votes for Option 3. After seeing the movie, there really is no possible way to finagle it into the pre-existing Movie continuity, even in an Aligned Continuity "works-if-you-squint" manner. It's absolutely its own thing by the definitions the Wiki uses to separate continuities from one another. SlimerJoel (talk) 19:42, 19 September 2024 (EDT)

Just got back from seeing the movie, giving a vote for Option 3. The film is significantly different in tone, lore, designs, characterization, and story beats from bayverse. Arguably closer to aligned or idw1 Arren (talk) 21:31, 19 September 2024 (EDT)

Having just seen the film, it is thoroughly Option 3. There isn't a single link in play between this and the live action films, not even in design or animation language. Hell, you could make a vastly stronger argument for it being a prequel to the Aligned continuity than the films. Just from an ease of use angle, I also don't think people who are coming in for Transformers One info are going to want to dig through years of irrelevant existing live action film content in the first place. MCRG (talk) 02:16, 20 September 2024 (EDT)

Just seen the film. Definitely Option 3. I was just thinking it would be easier too for newcomers looking for info to not have to encounter a mainpic and write-up that describes a totally different person up top. Nu-Priest (talk) 09:10, 20 September 2024 (EDT)

Coming out of the movie, I was Option 2. Definitely separate from the live action films, but I think it would be convenient to have all the films (that aren’t extended episodes of a pre-existing cartoon) all under the same umbrella. I do understand the arguments that it’s really different in tone and content from the other films, but so is 2005 IDW to G1. Maybe do a suite page that includes everything One related? Like, Optimus Prime (Movie) Main/Games/Toys/One? Cylasbreakdown (talk) 20:34, 20 September 2024 (EDT)

Suiting is only done in instances where a single subject, such as a specific piece of media or a toy section, gets so big that it starts to overwhelm the page, something that absolutely does not apply to One yet. -- Cyberlink420 (talk) 20:39, 20 September 2024 (EDT)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but was Shattered Glass Unicron really overwhelming the rest of the page on its own? Or RID2001 Universe Optimus Prime? I figured they were just really distinct and separate from all the ether appearances. Unless there’s something I’m not completely understanding about the suiteing rules (which I admit is entirely possible), I think that hypothetically making a One suite for all the big main characters and their toys would be convenient. Cylasbreakdown (talk) 11:12, 21 September 2024 (EDT)

Shattered Glass Unicron and the female, yellow 2003 Universe RID2001 Optimus Prime pages also have arguments of merging them with the larger articles they were originally spun off from. Shockwave2018 (talk) 21:07, 23 September 2024 (GMT-3)

Option 3. After having watched the movie, it's substantially different so as to be disconnected from the live action movies, and I don't like the precedence it sets to lump every movie together from here on out, especially if this one's success inspires future free-standing Transformers movies down the line. I understand it with the live-action movies, because the line was very blurry, but it's pretty obvious that this one is separate. Thunderwolf (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2024 (EDT)

Option 3. I just got back from watching the movie, and it's the option that makes the most sense. There's just too much to connect it to the previous films, and while I do see where Option 2 is coming from I don't even think there's enough in common for it to be in the same continuity family (and I don't think its a good idea to throw every single movie that we're unsure about into the the 2007 family imo). Also taking into account the contradictory statements regarding the movie from producers and higher-ups, I think the simplest and most user-friendly option is to put everything into one new continuity family. If something changes so be it, but based on what we have 3 is the best choice. Hyperious (talk) 18:19, 21 September 2024 (EDT)

Might as well throw my vote for Option 3 in too. Even if we keep having this conversation over every new movie they release, it's already very clear that the best for wiki purposes is to split One from the rest. -- Fritz (talk) 20:23, 21 September 2024 (EDT)

I haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't quite feel right casting a vote here, but I do have one question: to those in favor of option 2, what do you feel makes Transformers One in the same family as the live-action movies, that didn't make Earthspark in the same family as Cyberverse? -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 03:39, 24 September 2024 (EDT)

The fact that Cyberverse and Earthspark are sold as entirely separate franchises, whereas this is just the new movie. Indridcold13 (talk) 07:19, 24 September 2024 (EDT)

All of the Paramount TF movies have had their own separate franchises. Heck, even the 2010 Movieverse toyline between ROTF and DOTM was its own franchise and it didn't even have a movie. --Sabrblade (talk) 18:51, 24 September 2024 (EDT)

We've clearly long since moved forward with this but just for posterity now that I've finally made it out to the theater, Option 3 does indeed strike me as the right call. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 18:24, 29 September 2024 (EDT)

I second what Azimuth said, now. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 18:29, 2 October 2024 (EDT)

Privacy Policy

It occurred to me recently that the Privacy Policy has not been adopted though it has been over fifteen years since it was originally written. I wrote a couple of things in its talk page but ultimately got no response. I then contacted abates on what to do next, he told me I could write up a new intro in the talk page. I did, and it hasn't had a response. The policy is linked to at the bottom of every page on the wiki, so if we could get some activity on its talk page, I'd appreciate it. Hilfam (talk) 20:41, 6 November 2024 (EST)

The Thirteen and the other conversation we've been waiting for

Over the last few years, the Thirteen have played a major role in multiple Transformers stories. However, this prominence—combined with Hasbro's increasingly loose approach their in-universe lore—has also led to increasingly divergent portrayals of the group and its individual members.

Around 2015, we took the step of consolidating all the different incarnations of the Thirteen on one page for each, with the rationale that the characters were former multiversal singularities, and mostly shared similar backstories and personalities between incarnations. However, even at the time, this was not a completely ideal comporomise. Most notably, the various Alpha Trions were not consolidated into one, partly due to length and partly because the existence of his murderously insane evil counterpart represented a massive contradiction to the entire notion.

However, over the years, multiple authors have drastically reinterpreted the Thirteen and their story. The role of "Thirteenth Prime" has been filled by multiple contradictory characters—Optimus Prime, Zeta Prime, Sentinel Prime—and individual depictions of the Primes themselves have grown increasingly divergent. "Shattered Glass" Alpha Trion is no longer the outlier, but rather an increasing trend: for instance, Transformers One features a completely heroic Megatronus who never becomes The Fallen, a Liege Maximo that looks nothing like Loki, and an incarnation of Nexus Prime that does not seem to be a combiner. With these data points in mind—and the potential for even further divergence in the coming years—I and several other editors feel that it may be time to reorganize our Thirteen coverage, splitting them out into individual continuity family-based incarnations the way we would for stock characters like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, etc.

However, if we do adopt this approach, some further problems would need to be solved.

• How do we handle toys? With a few exceptions like Revenge of the Fallen The Fallen, the toys of the Thirteen are clearly meant to be somewhat continuity-agnostic. Age of the Primes Solus Prime is about as faithful to her depiction in The Covenant of Primus as it is to One or any of the IDW comics in which she appears. Even if we count them as "repurposes" across multiple pages, the format of the wiki means they'd have to be based somewhere...

• FunPub stuff: The Vector Prime of "Ask Vector Prime" is clearly meant to be a version of the same Vector Prime who appeared in the Cybertron cartoon, but at the same time makes reference to off-camera events, such as a time when he and the Thirteen lived in Ancient Greece—would we make a separate "FunPub" page for the Thirteen, or try and work these events onto Unicron Trilogy pages when necessary? Other similar problems exist: "Coalescence" is a story that features a movie universe Fallen jumping into the world of Shattered Glass, and AVP established that "The Evil One" of GoBots fame, is another alternate-universe incarnation of The Fallen/Megatronus.

Feedback on this proposal is appreciated! Locoman (talk) 11:50, 7 December 2024 (EST)

From my point of view, I think as it stands right now my thoughts on the Thirteenth Prime stuff is that I absolutely understand the concerns, but for me personally it kind of falls into the same view as like, IDW Primus being Rung, which I think our current model handles fairly well. For the other Primes, I'm tempted to say that like...as it stands, there's about as much divergence there as like, Unicron as he's depicted in The Last Knight (not really shown to be aggressive beyond being called Cybertron's enemy), and as it stands right now, I don't think that's enough to say there should be a full-on split, but I do think it's worth thinking about future-proofing. And I suppose my main concern right now about pushing ahead too soon is in the event there's some fiction accompanying the Age of the Primes stuff; certainly, the fact that we're getting a toy of the Fallen with the Megatronus name but with the original Dreamwave design does make me hesitant that there might be some further consolidation of disparate elements; and I remember that last time we did this in the early 2010s was that we figured the idea of the Aligned Primes not having any connections to the others was going to be the standard going forward, which turned out not to be the case, and I figure it might be worth considering if something like that happens again. But! I am open to ideas of how to implement this if we do go for it; I think the suite options we have for Primus and Unicron work perfectly fine if we go for something like that. Just figure it's worth considering the stuff I've brought up here first. Escargon (talk) 12:35, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Right now, I'm leaning toward the camp of not splitting them out for all the reasons you've given. I look at our current situation and, while not perfect, I feel that things can be tidied up simply with some "Conceptual history" sections for the pages that need them. The aforementioned Vector Prime is a particular case not just for everything stated about him above, but because his very first Fub Pub appearance written by Forest Lee leans so heavily far into the multiversal aspect of the character that it doesn't treat him like he is a native to the Cybertron cartoon universe but rather to the whole multiverse itself. Similarly, Nexus Prime was also continuity-agnostic by his very nature from the ground up. The safest solution for splitting him out would be to classify his Fun Pub incarnation under "(Timelines)" (the previous "(Classics)" tag we had him under was bleh), but that's typically a last-resort tag we have tried to avoid in the past.

Regarding The Fallen, while he does tend to be evil in a majority of his depictions, and has had a few outlier cases where he either didn't go bad at all (TF One) or was the victim of other's manipulations (Covenant), it's implied that the majority of those evil versions weren't always evil from the start, and only went bad later. The TF One version of Megatronus never turned to the dark side, but one could argue that he was murdered before he ever would have gotten the chance to. ;-)

Regarding the Thirteenth Prime and various conflicting the depictions, we solved that issue by simply creating the "Thirteenth Prime" article to explain everything there.

You mention the situation with Alpha Trion, and I get it. The biggest reasons for simply not merging all of his pages together were that A) he was never originally meant to be one of the Thirteen since the original Dreamwave-based lore for the Thirteen had them all die before A3 was even born, and B) his Shattered Glass self. I used to be a proponent for keeping all of his versions separate because of A, but in the time since then we've had more and more depictions of him as a 13er who were all still pretty much the same as his traditional pre-Aligned depictions. If we were to merge all of his versions together, a "Conceptual history" section for him could explain the whole "Sometimes he's a 13er, sometimes he's not" situation.

BUT, there still remains his SG version, which I wouldn't feel comfortable putting on the same page as his other versions. Reaching back to the original discussion about how to handle the SG characters, I find myself still agreeing with those like Steve-o who pointed out how awkward "Continuity X: Bumblebee loves humans and does lots of funny and cute stuff to help save the universe. Continuity Y: Bumblebee loves humans and does lots of different but still funny and cute stuff to help save the universe. Shattered Glass: Bumblebee is hardcore evil and wants to kill you for no particular reason. Continuity Z: Bumblebee loves humans and does yet another set of funny and cute stuff to help save the universe." reads as a page. But, there is one thing we have nowadays that we did not have back when that original discussion was held and makes me wonder how differently the conversation might have gone if they had existed back then: Subpages. Looking at our Primus and Unicron articles, I find it to be a very fair and workable compromise that their respective SG versions are placed not on their respective main pages but as subpages for each. Doing the same for SG Alpha Trion were we to merge all of the non-SG A3's together could be a valid solution too, in my eyes. Unlike others, I don't see subpages as an annoying evil that much be dealt with and eliminated, but as a handy tool to work around tricky situations like this.

Had they even existed back then, it's very possible that ALL SG characters may have ended up on subpages for their positive polarity counterparts instead of separate pages entirely. And since then, SG has grown to expand not just beyond the original Fun Pub SG G1 continuity but to other non-G1 SG continuities, like for the Movies, Animated, and Cybertron, forcing us to create such unsightly tags as "(SG Movie)", "(SG Animated)", and "(SG Cybertron)", when subpages could have prevented that with "(Movie)/Shattered Glass" or "(Animated)/Shattered Glass" and so on.

But, I'm getting off topic. Backing up to the Thirteen, I'm for keeping the Thirteen together. In addition to what all I've said above, the Age of the Primes toys seem to be treating them as the standard or definitive versions of the Thirteen that apply for every version/universe/continuity, pulling from all across the board rather than sticking to a single depicted version of them. Prima has his Aligned body but the Sunbow Powerful Robot's head. The Fallen is just the Dreamwave design but with Aligned Megatronus's weapons from the books and RID 2015 cartoon. Micronus is likely to be based on his RID 2015 design which was itself based on the Aligned design. The statue group artwork makes Amalgamous looks more like his TF One design than his Aligned design. Vector Prime is just straight-up Cybertron Vector Prime. And Star Convoy was never one of the Thirteen in any version before now. Yet, all these disparately-sourced designs are being treated as if they all belong to the same group no matter what continuity they come from. So keeping them together as they are would just make it easier for us to not have to split hairs over which versions of which 13ers these are supposed to be when the answer would simply be "all of the above" (and we wouldn't have to put multiple entries of the same toy on, like, six or seven different characters' pages that would have to maintained equally across all of those pages). This model makes this particular version of the group feel inherently multiversal, with each member either originating from a different universe as each other, or being a multiversal hybrids comprised of different aspects of different versions of them from across the dimensions, as if Hasbro is trying to say that the AOTP versions represent *every* version of the Thirteen (minus Star Optimus, of course, since we know he's not a member in every version of this group). --Sabrblade (talk) 13:01, 7 December 2024 (EST)

As somebody who's pushed for this split for a long time, I'm obviously all for it. I feel we can easily determine where the toys go based on their main inspirations (Fallen is G1 Dreamwave, Micronus is Aligned RID, etc) are or just make the links go to the G1 pages (since G1 is effectively the wastebasket taxon of this franchise anyway). For the FunPub stuff, we can either do it Sideways style or just do it like we do for Kre-O and ancillary stuff: place them based on the characterization/design used by the work. Multiversal Vector Prime is pretty much just Cybertron Vector Prime (and the TransTech incarnation from the last portion of AVP can be split out).

I am pretty much opposed to "subpages" because that is just duplicating the parentheses system we already have just for the sake of pedantry. Saix (talk) 13:03, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Fully agree with both Escargon and Sabrblade, and their reasoning. I am biased against splits pretty much as a matter of cause, but the Thirteen in particular have for most of their history (including now, in the continuity-agnostic Age of the Primes!) been defined by their multiversal nature. I just don't think a split would be helpful. —wadapan (talk) 16:05, 7 December 2024 (EST)

So we need to wait five years of more non-multiversal stories to have this discussion again? That doesn't make sense. The COP version of the Thirteen weren't characterized as singularities in the first place, regardless; only FunPub cared about that aspect (and not even with the usual lineup we have now) and they tossed it because they realized it was an unworkable concept in this franchise and it's unlikely to ever get resurrected. It's been nearly a decade since the Shroud (the concept only existed from 2009-2015). You bring up AOTP but toylines clearly don't and never thought about those characters in terms of our organizational schema. Saix (talk) 17:19, 7 December 2024 (EST)

I think we can probably leave the most of the old content together, since it might be a mess to split them apart and much of that content is based on the Covenant mythos anyway. I feel new iterations of the Thirteen (post-POTP?) should get their own pages, like Earthspark Quintus and the One Primes (particularly Megatronus since he's quite different). Though I suppose that begs the question of what to use in the parentheses for their current pages... —BluJayWarrior (talk) 13:10, 7 December 2024 (EST)

How much of it is actually sticking to the Covenant? IDW1 had them be regular guys and some pre-Covenant stuff (notably Megatronus/Fallen) is more prominent for the character and not really compatible. Other Aligned stuff has also influenced other "continuity families", but we're not merging those articles, so I don't really see why this is different regarding the Thirteen. Saix (talk) 13:49, 7 December 2024 (EST)

I’m against splitting pages, mostly because The Thirteen haven’t had enough drastic and unique depictions of them to stop “breaking the rules” for them and give them split pages.

> The Thirteen haven’t followed the traditional convention of “every character gets a new page for that universe’s depiction”, mostly because of the whole multiversal singularity issue. Now while that concept isn’t used in fiction anymore, Age of the Primes seems to lean towards having a standard, continuity-agnostic depiction of the Thirteen from which future teams can use as the foundation of their depictions.

> Escargon and Sabrblade make some good points regarding subpages, particularly with the example of the standard “Primus = God” and Rung (G1) incarnations. Rung is a distinct and unique take on the Primus character whose backstory is incompatible with virtually every other Primus incarnation, so placing him on the same page as the Primus of the Marvel Comics, or Cybertron, or the Aligned continuity, wouldn’t seem right.

> The Covenant of Primus has been the foundation of every depiction of the Thirteen since it was released. Certain things might be modified, such as the 2005 IDW’s take on them, but even those Primes still follow certain story beats: Megatronus kills Solus, Liege Maximo is a manipulator, Prima’s role as the leader and his conflict with Megatronus, etc. One offers a depiction of the Thirteen who don’t enter a War of the Primes situation, but because we don’t really get any more information about them besides how they died, I wouldn’t say that they’re distinct enough or important enough to warrant their own pages.

> Then there’s the fact that a lot of the Primes either have had very small roles or haven’t had any real importance to the franchise in several years: Micronus’s last big role was a few episodes in Robots in Disguise and a clever tie-in to the Microspace of the 2005 IDW universe. Onyx’s only big role was in the Covenant, mostly thanks to this guy taking his place in another universe. Onyx has a few mentions in Cyberverse, but I don’t think that alone should be the reason for splitting his page up. Nexus Prime and Vector Prime haven’t really done anything notable since the Shroud. Solus Prime has seen some prominence thanks to IDW's Caminus and Power of the Primes, but those depictions again don’t stray too far from the Covenant. Amalgamous Prime has had virtually no exploration as a character. The most we’ve gotten for him is a much easier-to-look-at design in One.

> Character-wise, story-wise… they’re all still heavily based on the Covenant. Even Quintus Prime’s Earthspark depiction (with his more human-looking face) is based on his “Johnny Appleseed, made the Quintessons” lore established from the Covenant. Now if we had a full group of the Thirteen from a Shattered Glass universe or had some “What-If?” incarnations of the characters that made them very different… splitting pages would make more sense to me.

> A lot of the Thirteen have also maintained a consistent visual look to them since their introduction: all the Primes introduced in the Covenant have kept their look (Alchemist’s Lenses, Onyx’s face, Solus’ hair and color scheme), and every version of Megatronus seems to have a Decepticon insignia face, flames, and/or both. While One may have changed some color schemes (Liege Maximo missing his green), I don’t think just having a different color scheme and nothing else different warrants a new page.

> I like the idea of conceptual history sections for now, and as I said on The Fallen’s talk page, I think the beginning to his page needs a general rewrite from its “frozen in 2009” version. But until drastic new interpretations of those characters are created, if a member of the Thirteen has a single page… we should keep it as a single page --Daytonjhammon (talk) 16:33, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Splitting them would simply be a bigger headache. They're rather like Primus and Unicron where they're "bigger picture" characters (only this time around designed very specifically to be as such) and it's best to treat them as such, and really, there's not enough material to BOTHER splitting for most of them. --M Sipher (talk) 18:29, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Since it's related to this subject, it should probably also be mentioned here that there have recently been two discussions happening on the talk page for The Fallen. One about changing that article's mainpic and the other about moving the page's name to Megatronus. As of now, nothing has come out of either discussion, but I feel the results of this a bigger discussion may have an effect on either of those two smaller ones. Speaking as one who is in favor of not splitting out the Thirteen, my thoughts on these two smaller topics are that a good compromise would be to keep the article at its current name since many Megatronuses still become The Fallen, but replace the mainpic with The Fallen's Age of the Primes toy packaging art (as it depicts him in his original first body from Dreamwave but armed with his now-signature weapons from Aligned media, serving as a sort of visual overview for the character's history), along with a rewrite of his intro at the top of the page to be more all-encompassing, and the inclusion of a new "Conceptual history" section to give a proper overview of his different depictions. --Sabrblade (talk) 19:29, 7 December 2024 (EST)

I'm going to second this. I've mulled it over a little bit and while there is an argument to be made for splitting them out, I feel that 12 of the 13 primes really don't warrant it. They just haven't had as much an impact on the story and while it could be future proofing to split them, until we get prominent appearances from them I don't think it's a viable option right now. Megatronus is clearly the exception to this rule. I don't know if there's a clean solution to dealing with him at the moment. Part of me thinks maybe we should suite out the Movie and RiD versions since those are his too big appearences to date. At the bare minimum though I think we should use either his Dreamwave or Age of Primes art as the mainpic. It's his first body and I think it's influenced more designs than his RoTF design has. Ezim93 (talk) 22:57, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Erm, no. Neither his Movie or RiD sections (certainly not the latter) are big enough to warrant subpages for either. --Sabrblade (talk) 00:57, 8 December 2024 (EST)

I'm also of the opinion that a split would be a massive hassle for very little gain, but I do feel we should move The Fallen to Megatronus. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2024 (EST)

To me, renaming the page to Megatronus feels like renaming an Optimus Prime page to Orion Pax. The name was created to tell us what he was called before he became The Fallen, like how Orion Pax was what Optimus was called before he became Optimus Prime. TF One Megatronus never became The Fallen but he's an anomaly, not a new standard. As of now, the only impact TF One Megatronus has had on the brand is the official reveal video for Age of the Primes describing the very Dreamwave/Aligned-based AOTP version as "the most powerful Prime," while also putting a grim, pronounced emphasis on "The Fallen" when referring to him as "Megatronus... The Fallen". --Sabrblade (talk) 13:16, 8 December 2024 (EST)

Yes to changing The Fallen's mainpic back to the DW-style character design, huge-ass No to changing the page name; the Optimus/Orion comparison is spot-on. (And as to below... yes. The Thirteen are absolutely "set dressing that walks like a man" and best to approach them as such.) --M Sipher (talk) 20:11, 8 December 2024 (EST)

After meditating upon this a while I think I've come to agree with the broad majority above that splitting each member of the Thirteen would hurt more than it would help. The way I see it what we should be striving for here is the approach that involves the least "hallucinating data" within our organizational system, and splitting will require making a lot of different calls on what "counts" to formulate micro-characterizations for dozens of serial continuity transplants, none of which do much individually, while obfuscating the larger context they are gesturing towards. Fundamentally what we may be running up against here is that the closest most of these guys have to a true "home continuity" as we typically think of it is... the brand bible. They are set dressing that walks like a man.

To go one step further, if we want to talk future-proofing I would advocate formalizing the approach of treating them as a squad of mini-Unicrons/Primuses such that:

1) My suggestion for the issues currently plaguing the Fallen (and to a lesser degree Trion) would be to make "Conceptual History" sections more or less standard issue across the board for the Thirteen, laying out swerves in characterization and appearance as they happened rather than trying to pry them apart or smoosh them together.

2) I think it's worth revisiting merging Alpha Trion for consistency. In the decade+ since Prime cludged him into the lineup, Alpha Trion has consistently appeared as a member of the Thirteen, an insubstantial cameo, or both in pretty much every continuity he's appeared, and looking backwards I cannot help but notice that the fact that there's next to no meaningful daylight between his depictions has been the running gag of his disambiguation page since day one. If Shattered Glass remains a sticking point the Unicron/Primus style suite split approach is a reasonable compromise.

I wouldn't say I'm married to any of this and counter-counter-proposals are welcome, but that's my two cents. --AzimuthAcolyte (talk) 14:08, 8 December 2024 (EST)

I think just put a line at the end of the fallens intro article that says "while mostly a bad guy, there exists at least one universe (link to TF one section) where he's managed to defy all logic and be...good for once).Poliwag06 (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2024 (EST)

I'm for splitting the Thirteen, for the same reasons Saix gave. If that doesn't work, I think the versions of Alpha Trion should be merged. It's the inconsistency that drives me batty. --Boingus (talk) 22:12, 8 December 2024 (EST)

Maybe we should consider our stance on leaks...

I know they suck, but considering how they happen and most the fandom tends to lap it up (at least on TFW and seibertron),us just kind of vehemently refusing to admit they happen feels a bit wrong now. Maybe we should retroactively start acknowledging when the figures got leaked when they're officially confirmed, instead of just pretending they don't exist, for completionists sake. --Poliwag06 (talk) 19:41, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Sometimes Hasbro affiliate wiki. No. --McBaggins (talk) 20:05, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Absogoddamnlutely not. This site does not exist to give leakers clout. --M Sipher (talk) 20:46, 7 December 2024 (EST)

That's a legal area best not crossed, so it's a bad idea. --Lonegamer78 (talk) 23:49, 7 December 2024 (EST)

Understood.Poliwag06 (talk) 23:53, 7 December 2024 (EST)