User talk:Derik/2007

Legend of the Five Rings Wiki vote

I vote we ban this passive-aggressive, inexplicably rigid adder of his personal fanon. -Rotty 03:28, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Novelizations

Derik, if you're going to persist in putting things up from the novels, I will be forced to remove you from the wiki until July 3rd. For the love of God, please stop. --ItsWalky 07:23, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

*squints eyes* I don't think the dates will be mentioned in the movie- it was 3rd person omniscient narrative...

Er- but as a larger statement of principle, I completely understand. Consider it muzzled. -Derik 07:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Movie nav

Dude, don't put it in the middle of the article. It looks shit.--FFN 08:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks better than on top on my (admittedly wide) screen.

The layout issue you raise has been noted- I'll switch it back. -Derik 08:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Its not that I don't appreciate your work, I just don't agree with where its sitting at the moment. --FFN 18:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

FFN... I have no deep emotional investment in this matter either. I happen to rather dislike the current look/treatment of the franchise pages, but Steve-o designed them. They work well most of the time, but they appear to be working poorly on the movie page itself, so we probably need to look at either wholesale redesigning or at least readjusting our franchise navigation scheme.

I think maybe a right-collumn-type-thing like you see here might be a potential direction, because the ugliest thing about the navigation right now is that it's a different width from the image. (Would it be less repellent if we manually forces it to be 250 pixels wide?)-Derik 22:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

"CSS changes"

What are you talking about? You asked me if it was possible to do something once, I'm vaguely aware of you working on something code-wise, but that's frankly it. If you're going to passive-aggressively snipe at me to do what random thing you want me to do in article comments, forget it. If you want something from me, ASK. Politely, and without the attitude. --ItsWalky 21:39, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I assumed you'd seen the original request in recent changes since you were doing edits at the same time, I hoped to avoid cluttering your already-busy user talk page with something I could communicate elsewise.

Guess you never saw it, my bad. :( This will teach me to assume your omniscience. This is what I was referring to. It's a block wikiipedia-standard CSS used for a variety of messagebox formats.

If you want to test if out on your personal css file first, stick the code here. You can see the classes at work Beast Wars.-Derik 23:15, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and put it all in. It all looks good to me.

(Plus, I can't say no to an adorable Junkion. Ever.) --Suki Brits 00:59, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Man, I totally have to lean to keep rack of who has admin privileges here. Normally I just take my problem to Walky, which has to get old for him too...

Thanks Suki! -Derik 01:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Storylinks

Please please please please PLEASE stop float-righting the storylinks. --ItsWalky 16:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

They look better that way. -Derik 16:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Derik -- about the audio adventures you asked about last week... maybe? Or, yeah. Looks like yes: Bumblebee to the Rescue, Espionage, Menace at the Dam, and Terror of Mount Sheelah. I just suck at keeping websites updated. You know the feeling, I think. But anyway, I have them already, thanks.  :)

--Steve-o 01:25, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Uh... a spoiler template, aside from Template:Spoiler?

--Steve-o 04:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That's the cutest catboy I've ever seen! --Crockalley 14:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with that chart is that it tells you so very little that the italicized intro and the table of contents at the beginning of a page don't already. After all, the table of contents tells you specifically which fiction stuff he's been in at a glance. There's absolutely no need to tell that information twice. --ItsWalky 04:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I've already been arranging the first fictional appearance of a character first in the list of fictions. (With the exception of Unicron, of course, who's a living ongoing retcon.) So I'm not sure how needed the "showed up first" thinger would be. Alpha Trion shows up first in the cartoon, thus "Animated continuity" is his first fiction section. --ItsWalky 05:14, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

*shrug* I happen to think the absolute mass of continutiy listings for characters, often containing the most minor refs, is... frankly bad. I further feel it handles the splintered nature of tf badly.

But then, I think Robotmasters shoudl be a sub-section of Generation 1, because it's set in G1, not its own side-thing. In short- I think the arrangement of the continuities has meanings, and this 'puttign the first appearance first' can, potentially anihilate those meanings.

What i liked about muy first pass at this was that it had a continuity drilldown. Generation 1 :: Marvel :: US That's a clear hierarchy.

We're inconsistent about hierarchy. I see characters listed as 'Dreamwave Comics Continuity,' with no parentign hierarchy. (I construe G1 from the italics at the top.) Dreamwave published in 6 distinct continuities.

Generation 1 => Cartoon => Redemption Center (Starscrem's amnesiac adventure)

Generation 1 => Cartoon => RobotMasters - (Air Hunter)

Generation 1 => Cartoon => Rebirth => Blackthorne #3 - (The Destructons or whatever...)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: Wreckers - (Fractly)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: IDW - (LioConvoy)

Beast Era: => Beast Wars Cartoon => Expanded Continuity :: RobotMasters - (Psycho Orb's continuity of origin)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Dreamwave - (Megatron's rename)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Timelines - (MasterColelctor's theft of the disk)

Beast Era: => Pre-Beast Wars => Wreckers - (Cryotek is the crimelord who organized the theft)

Generation 1 => Toyline => Action Master Boxback - (Where Axer started from)

Robots in Disguise => Expanded Universe - (Where he ended up)

Generation 1 => Toyline => Action Master Boxback - (Nucleon Quest Super Convoy)

Generation 1 => Joe Crossovers => TF/Joe Comic - (Nathaniel appears)

Generation 1 => Dreamwave - (Nathaniel mentioned)

This is a really stupid system. But it has a real advantage vs listing '3H Continuity' followed by 'MasterCollector Continuity.' Here you csn see- "They're both expanded continuities that consider the cartoon cannon for how they operate- but they diverge from that point and do not overlap."

What I'm gettign to is- hierarchy is important. Hierarchy conveys information.

And TF's continuity hierarchy is really, really wierd. NQSC.

/Generation 1/JG1/Post-Battlestars/../../Toyline/ Action Master Boxback

...guh!

Dont' tell me I'm overthinking it. I KNOW I'm overthinking it for this- but since TF is clearly hierachical in nature, I'm still gonna fight single-suffixing, because it fails to convey hierarchy. ^_^ -Derik 06:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't all this be better served via information within the articles expressly ABOUT the fictions and continuities THEMSELVES, perhaps with a flowchart of the variety presented in the Fun Pulications magazine, than creating some horrible crushing mess in every single character article where such matters frankly are not RELEVANT and creating a massive hidous arbitrary disorganiztion system? --M Sipher 06:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I SAID this was a bad system!

I still don't think appending series to the end of article title sis a good one either. -Derik 12:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I see characters listed as 'Dreamwave Comics Continuity,' with no parentign hierarchy. (I construe G1 from the italics at the top.)

....yeah. I know. That construing is the point. There's absolutely no reason to specify that it's Generation 1 animated continuity if the top of the page specifically says he's in the G1 continuity. That's why it's done that way. --ItsWalky 15:40, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Communicating with other users

For the love of God, use the user talk pages the next time you want to tell another user something. I've already said Spengler on his talk page about image copyrights. This is a better method than expecting other users to look at Recent changes and see you screaming your lungs out over something they didn't know. Singularity 06:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Guess you used it already. Never mind, then. Singularity 06:38, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would consider that 'patiently explaining point by point.' The flat rock bit is a running gag.

And yes, I could just put it on his user talk page- but I had to adjust all those images anyway- so why not amuse myself with the memo field? Otherwise they'd all jsut read 'copyright'.

Er- consider me duly chastised. I'll be nicer. -Derik 06:40, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

You seemed pretty agitated, and I felt sorry for Spengler. If you were just having fun, sorry for the misunderstanding. Singularity 06:48, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Giving absolutely no tells by which someone listening to me could discern if I was joking is an annoying habit I picked up from one of my ex-supervisors.

I eventually realised that he thought people's deer-in-the-headlight responses to his dead-serious black-humored treatment of them was hilarious. I got tired or guessing and just never took him seriously.

He fired me. Nice guy. (I mean that last bit seriously, he's a great guy. GREAT sense of humor. Not so much fun to be on the recieving end.) -Derik 07:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Image copyrights

Ah'm gittin' to it, boy! Just getting the article up first! :) - Chris McFeely 21:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Matrix of Conquest

Kudos on the very nice coloring of the Matrix of Conquest. And I really shouldn't have clicked the link in your profile. --Richardstone 08:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Things that don't exist

No, but seriously, that Decepticon Matrix article probably needs to be a redirect of some sort. --Suki Brits 04:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

G2 Annual

Yeah, I own the G2 annual. I scanned the profile pages from it a while back, which I think have been floating around the internet. I need to do more with it, but as it's mostly text stories with unrelated images (mainly box art), I lose interest quickly - though I do specifically remember Deftwing showing up and doing stuff.

(There IS a strip story, too, but it's a weird retelling of how the Autobots met the Dinobots...) --Monzo 10:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I have scans of the first third, I loce it. It's so insane. (Rakash is the only other person I knwo that owns a copy, abnd her computer bloo'd int he middle of scannign it for me, and now it's in storage someplace...)

...there's a request to scan the rest of it buried in there somewhere. (Well, a request to scan all of it- I had the implicit assumption that I'm going to be able to recover mys cans of the first 3rd off my dead hard drive.) -Derik 10:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Note to self:

Digimon Savers

I shall reply here!

Personally, I think it's got a lot better, yes. The first episode did not exactly grab me - it seemed, to me, to be using in a serious way all those silly anime cliches that Medabots (if you ever watched that) went out of its way to make fun of. In comparison with past Digimon series, which I always felt had a strong "Western" tinge to them, this one is very "Anime," if you know what I mean. Particularly, there's the really quite ridiculous "wise old fisherman who's there whenever you need him to give you an obscure metaphor that coincidentally applies to your current predicament." Ironically enough, turns out the show's being... what is, directed, or... has the head writer of... whatever... of Medabots itself. So I guess it knows what it's doing in that regard. But they've taken that character and made him make a bit more sense recently. And there are a lot of things I DO like about the show. The characters, particularly defied the expectations I had of them when I saw the character designs. I like that they allowed Masaru's family to find out about Agumon right away - their relationship is VERY Ikki-and-Metabee. I like the show's portrayal of the Digital World and human interaction with it, and I REALLY like that they've taken a Gotsumon - a Digimon who has, historically, always been a goofly, harmless, fun little character - and made him into a nasty, scheming bastard. - Chris McFeely 22:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Power Rangers query

Are you actually the guy mentioned here? Interrobang 06:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yup!  :-) -Derik 09:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Derik natters

I'm just doing this on my page because Walky's talk page is dedicated to more important subjects.

So, Del...

Read "The Magnificent Six" recently, did you? :) - Chris McFeely 15:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Someoen has to go through it. Seeing Walky's perfunctory bio of steamhammer go up that didnt' even mention he was a triplechanger spurred me into action. And I figured- might as well do it THROUGHLY. -Derik 15:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Junpei from the G2 Manga

You expressed interest in Junpei from the G2 manga. I just finished translating the entire thing. I warn you, though. This thing is *awful*. --DrSpengler 00:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Autotrooper divisions

Can we get a list of the Autotrooper devisions? I think they're based on the zodiac animals...? (I have no idea what those divisions would be though.) -Derik 13:08, 17 October 2006 (PDT)

I uploaded an image from Autorooper's box that shows the different zodiac signs and what districts they're assigned to. Mostly in Japanese, though. Evan1975 06:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Danke, I noticed when it went up.  :) -Derik 08:46, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

urhere

I like the urhere template, but I think the template could be made better by replacing the "previous/next episode" link text with the name of the episode or comic issue. That way, the same template can be used with all fiction. --FortMax 17:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Possibly. Discussing with Steve-O, I think we concluded there were enough 'issues' with presenting the information in comics that it made more sense to create one template for cartoon episodes (Of which there are about 600) and another one for comics (Of which there are... also about 600.)

I'll be moving the 'urhere' template to something like 'Episodetop' tonight, and writing some proper documentation.

IMO, the real advantage of making them separate templates is you can say {{Episodetop|G1}} and it's obvious you mean the G1 cartoon- not one of the two-dozen other forms 'G1' can take. If the same template was used for comics, you'd need to look up every time- 'okay, what're we calling the franchise'? Making this one cartoon-only significantly simplifies its use.

I do intend to make a similar topper template for comic issues... but I want to get this working first and shake out any bugs. (Like- I'd liek ot have a link to the overall 'continuity family' somewhere... but I'm not sure where/how.)-Derik19:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, however it would also probably be best if the variable contained the entire link; that way we wouldn't have a "previous" link at MTMTE Part 1. (or we could just copy Wikipedia's template) The episodes template would definitely be the place to work out the bugs, as the only continuity oddity is the US/Japan split after TRoOP pt 2, which would simply use the template once for each continuity. The Marvel UK comics will definitely be a mess with its reprints and backup stories (heck, 232 has 3 TF stories in it). --FortMax 20:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I can see where you're coming from, however it would also probably be best if the variable contained the entire link; that way we wouldn't have a "previous" link at MTMTE Part 1.

{{urhere|G1|season=1|1|next=More Than Meets the Eye, Part 2}}

If you don't put in a 'prev' value, you don't get a link. Same for season. (Since a lot of TF series don't have multiple seasons.)

(or we could just copy Wikipedia's template)

Which one?

I agree the Headmasters/Rebirth thing is a pain for RoOP- but that's the only place that pain-in-the-butt happens, so it can live in a special note.

as for the UK stuff especially- I think yu have to decide- are we talking about stories, or are we talking about issues? issues is really simple to do. 234 is followed by 235. And I think trying to do anything else is madness.

A lot of the episode-stats templates I looked at were both massively overpowered and massively under-flexible for our purposes. This is a lowest-common-denominator solution. -Derik 20:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and before I forget, the logic behind having the text be 'next' instead of the episode/story/page name... is because long titles would break the layout. The goal is simple/clean. -Derik 20:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

RE UK issues. The main reason the "next issue" thing won't work with the UK issues is we don't actually have issue pages for them, as US issues are broken up, and any UK stories printed across multiple issues get a single article. This doesn't even take into account when later comics reprinted half of a full UK comic. --FortMax 17:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Money is Everything

Yessir, that would be an, er, "Mega-Erg." - Chris McFeely 12:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Seeker variants page

Your variant Seekers page has been gone for a while right? You don't happen to still have all those other colored model sheets (in addition to the few on the Seeker page here). I hold vague dreams of repainting some Classics and I was looking for some good references. :) Thanks. -ZacWilliam.

Re: The Funny Stays

Bravo. :) -Zac

Maybe if there's a subtle hint at the top of the discussion page that this issue has been gone over before, it will encourage posters to read those discussions, and only start a new one if they have something to add.

(At least, that's how I'm justifying it.)-Derik 13:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Templates

I appreciate your work on them, and I very much like the idea of all our templates not being ridiculously boring; but I think it would be appropriate to keep the tone of them serious. Not taking ourselves too seriously is one of the best parts of the wiki, no doubt, but in general, all administrative messages should be straightforward and simple. It just complicates things otherwise, and you're never going to get a good joke into one, anyway. --Suki Brits 00:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, so you didn't liek the text. I went back and forth on that. However- what you just reverted was an interm step to the main change- adding a Quint death's head to the tobedeleted template. Sipher suggested it ont he community forum 3 days ago and no one opposed it. Is that alright so long as the text remain intact? (IU ask because I'll require an admin to put throught he final CSS change, and you just volunteered yourself.) -Derik 00:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the images are a great idea, for every reason Siph gave. Just keep the text simple. (And yeah, yeah, I'd be doing the CSS changes anyway... sure.) --Suki Brits 00:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Derik -- I don't know what all the CSS classes you've added are/do, so I'm going to rely on you to deal with this... I added a min-height property to the Tobedeleted div because the bottom of the Quint head graphic was sticking out of the box. But, the box itself displays some strange behavior, like overlapping with whatever is below it. I assume that's the fault of one of your style rules. It was doing it before to a lesser extent, but now that the box is taller it's really obvious. Also, I tried putting a vertical-align:center rule in so the text isn't all pushed to the top but that that didn't work. Fix that too, if you can. --Steve-o 14:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Min-height isn't widely supported and is unlikely to be widely supported for another 5 years. It's a valid tag- it just won't do anything in most cases. The icons are supposed to tail out of the bottom of the messageboxes, that was their intentonal design. There are some other functional issues you might be having witht he quint box (since it went in I've been havign a nagging feeling like it might need some custom margins because it's much taller than the cleanup template) however, words are sadly ambiguious when discussing this. Can you make a screencap of the most egregious example so we both know exactly what you're referrign to? -Derik 20:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I guess the head wasn't sticking out far enough for me to realize it was intentional. In looking at the cleanup template, I do like the way that one looks... So, I dunno what the right thing to do is. Anyway, I reverted the template. But yes, I think the template needs more bottom margin or something. Here's an example of what I see. That's a screenshot from Opera. In Firefox it's not as pronounced, but the "tails" still penetrate slightly into the category box. --Steve-o 15:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange! Well, it's all custom namespaced- I'll just give it some more custom breathing room. Thanks Steve! -Derik 21:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Bumblebee fixes

Done. --Steve-o and DD 03:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Thankee! -Derik 03:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sun Raid

There's a book too?? But yeah, I suck. This is just the sort of ribbing I need to get me to do it, though, so good show on that. --Steve-o 14:28, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Just colorforms with backgrounds, no text. I wanted to hear the audio version before I figured out how I'd scan it. (Is there a logical place for the colorforms, or...?) -Derik 14:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Zelda symbols?!

I was wondering if you would know why the Sector Seven arg site uses symbols from TLOZ: Ocarina of Time (at least, if you use the password "BYEBYEPOWERS"). Does that mean that that game has something to do with this, or is that just Sector Seven being weird?KrytenKoro 00:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The consensus on Stop Sector Seven is that it's the programmers making a joke- but they have been wrong before, they thought the domain registration information for sectorseven.org wasn't part of the game either. -Derik 01:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion?

I would perhaps insert in it's place "wrote and added to the value of the article while making a specific note drawing others attention to this section I aware I lack an impartial viewpoint on, knowing they would doubtless wish to moderate it." (I have faith in the collaborative, and often combative, system to settle on an acceptable consensus.)

I recall reading an earlier comment on a Talk page from you along these same lines. You state that you make these obviously opinionated edits to articles, expecting others to modify them so that they are more impartial, or at least more appropriate?

If you absolutely cannot make additions to the articles in such a manner that edits by other users are not inherently necessary, then can I suggest you, instead, make suggestions on the Talk pages about adding such information? Having to continually monitor your contributions - argueably more closely than others'? - is an unfair request to make of people, and can become tiresome. --Sntint 15:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup categories

Hey, Derik. User:JW recently created Category:Wiki cleanup, which seems to be the category that articles marked with Template:Cleanup go if the month argument isn't given? Is that right? We should really have all the cleanup categories in a single hierarchy under Category:Teletraan I Wiki. Since you made the templates, I will let you figure out how to accomplish that and make the fixes, but I wanted to make sure you had noticed. --Steve-o 05:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The script doesn't create the categories though- that's a manual job. (It assigns them automatically, but the cleanup-by-month categories themselves dont' exist until someone creates them, like Category: Things that don't exist.)

As such, adjusting the hierarchy doesn't affects the script. -05:33, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyrights thing

Basically, I have no idea. --Steve-o 21:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

A little bit of help on a template

I've made a template that will allow "previous" and "next" links for splits in the Marvel US and UK printing, but there are sone kinks I haven't been able to iron out.

You'll notice the top two rows have more space between them than the other rows. I'm wanting the large space to be between the middle two rows, but I have no idea how to do this. --FortMax 17:31, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's see...

By using the 'subst' commend ({{subst:User:FortMax/Template:Comicnav|etc|etc|etc}}) I can cause any template to vomit out a 'rendered' version of its text when saved.

In this case that's telling me that the reason for that extra space is that, when rendered, there is a newline before the contents of the first row, unlike the others. Now, I have no idea why a newline at the top results in space at the bottom- but it is clearly so!

In your template... this is the critical spot:

| colspan=2 | <--- Right here!
'''{{ #if: {{{seriesname|}}} | [[{{{1}}}|{{{seriesname}}}]] | [[{{{1}}}]] }} > {{ #if: {{#ifexpr: {{{2}}} }} | {{{2}}} | Issue #{{{2}}} }} '''

Remove it where you don't want the space, add it where you do. -Derik 22:57, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Night Attack Broadside

Use more descriptive filenames, please. We have three different Broadsides, and two are Mini-Cons. I suggest reuploading his toy image with a filename starting with Armada. --FFN 14:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is putting "night attack" in front of "broadside" not enough? Are we counting on a new Night Attack Broadside? --ItsWalky 16:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

If he had typed NightAttack_Broadside_toy or something, then I wouldn't have a problem. But 'Nat'? That's kind of vague, especially when the focus of the filename (as they are the only actual words) are broadside and toy. Yes, I'm a stickler for clearly defined filenames so one can tell at a glance what it is. --FFN 16:28, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Night Attack Team.

Frankly, I'm of two minds on this whole 'sile names have to be super descriptive' thing. The file details page has to be descriptive, the file name merely has to be unique- the names should just be distinct enough to keep track of what's what. (Editing an article filled of images named Soundeave.jpg, Soundwave2,jpg, Soundwave3.jpg would be a nightmare.)

That said, I'll take you desire for more immediately descriptive filenames under consideration in the future. -Derik 04:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)