Infosphere:Conference Table/Old format

The Conference Table is for discussion of the Infosphere, and proposals for new ideas. For information about upcoming changes to the Infosphere, see Current events.

Something I found whilest wandering Meta
Interwiki linking looks like it could be somewhat useful. If we set it up we'd be able to link to things in other wikis where necessary (such as from trivia about an obscure joke) withoutout the little arrow thing in the middle of the text. setup guide - Quolnok 23:55, 11 July 2006 (PDT)


 * I am working on this. Forgot to mention. Buddy 16:21, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Poster Guy
Should probably have an article about the "poster guy" who appears in the various posters throughout the show. "Poster Child" is the proper proverbial term, but I like "Poster Guy". Any thoughts? He's a psuedocharacter, but I think he should have his own article (as opposed to being added to the Minor Characters page), so we can show several screenshots and discuss him. 20:48, 15 July 2006 (PDT)
 * Poster guy is definately deserving of some mention, there's probably enough for a new page. - Quolnok 20:53, 15 July 2006 (PDT)

I created two links so far (in the Characters section from two episodes I was sure he was in), all that's left, I guess, is creating the page and giving it content. Buddy 16:21, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Throwing down the gauntlet
In light of the announced ressurection of the show, I think it's time to throw down the gauntlet, as it were. We need to commit ourseles to making the Infosphere the most comprehensive site for Futurama info on the web by 2008. We're well on our way, and it can only keep going up from here. Lets keep those articles coming!

PE Building Floorplan
I'm asking for help. I have a few key episodes that I know of, but I'd like you guys to take any screenshots you can find (even low quality ones) and mail them to me (check my userpage for the email link). I'd like pictures of known areas of the PE building, covering as much of the floorplan as possible. Like in some scenes, you can see the TV area through the door in the conference room area (and that's pretty consistent, since on the outside, the TV area window is near where the conference table spot should be). Stuff like that. I'm going to start working on a map, and I'm hoping to be as accurate as possible. Areas that are difficult to locate should also be sent, and you can let me know where you think the area is. I'll color-code the map so speculative areas and canon areas are distinguishable. Thanks for the help. 14:19, 12 August 2006 (PDT)

Template Request
I'd like to see a ProductArticleTemplate created. After seeing the page on Popplers, it seems that a bit more polish is needed on the subject. The only two articles in the Products category are Dr. FlimFlam's Miracle Cream and Slurm, and both are inconsistent even with each other. A standard of some sort needs to be created. What sort of information would be common to most product pages? Product type (be it medical, food, industrial, et cetera)? Maybe manufacturer? Any ideas?

New Users and Bad Pages
The new and useless pages are getting obnoxious. From now on, new users shouldn't create new pages before reading the help pages (especially the page on templates). Any sysops who see a new page that is terribly formatted (dead end page, orphan page, non-standard format), just go ahead and delete it. Then put a note on the creator's talk page reminding them (nicely) to read the help pages. If it's an anonymous IP, you can still send them a message via "Talk" on the recent changes page. The QualityControl and Stub tags don't seem to be helping much (nobody's trying to correct pages marked thusly), so deletion seems to be the best option, and the page can be saved for someone who's read the help pages. Once it's created again, the old version will be in the history, so any valuable information they posted can be salvaged. Any other thoughts? Am I being too harsh? 12:21, 24 August 2006 (PDT)

Whoo-hoo!
Only six more episodes to go! Good job, guys! 11:44, 1 September 2006 (PDT)
 * Yes, astounding, isn't it... but the rest will be tough going, at least for me, as I find most of the remaining episodes to be sub-average. I can maybe do one or two more, like Bender gets made and Time keeps on slipping, but not much more. About time some other people did some work on the episodes as well, I think. --Whaler on the Moon 13:02, 1 September 2006 (PDT)
 * Actually, I've been keeping track of certain article's status on my talk page, the following additional episodes are currently incomplete, or at least labled that way:
 * Bendin' in the Wind
 * Where the Buggalo Roam
 * The Route of All Evil
 * Insane in the Mainframe
 * Anthology of Interest II
 * ...so there's 11. - Quolnok 19:28, 2 September 2006 (PDT)

Conference Table vs. Current Events
Right now the two pages are serving similar purposes. Anyone want to suggest a different purpose for one or the other? Or we could just delete the Conference Table and migrate these discussions to the Current Events page. Current Events could also be a news page or similar. Suggestions welcome! 14:33, 7 September 2006 (PDT)


 * It always threw me off having the 2 separate pages. It doesn't help that the Conference Table isn't linked in the sidebar.  I would always have to remember it was linked from the main page.  I'd favor merging the two pages. - ClonedWizard 15:32, 7 September 2006 (PDT)


 * As I see it, the difference between the two (if any) should be that CE is more formal stating big changes. However they should probably merge due to the high simiilarity, if not both should be linked from the side. - Quolnok 19:34, 7 September 2006 (PDT)


 * I'll add the Conference table to the sidebar. And if I'm understanding your statement correctly, it might be good to say that the conference table is for discussing changes, and the Current Events is good for announcing changes, right? 13:07, 10 September 2006 (PDT)


 * More or less. CE would have major things happening soonish, CT has things people would like to happen and generic discussions. We'd also need a sentance at the top of each, directing people to the correct page. - Quolnok 03:12, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

I am beginning the migration. In the process I'm going to delete a lot of sections that are inactive or solved/completed. Buddy 16:08, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Commentaries
I was reading the talk on the Wikipedia page, and someone thought it might be a good idea to have an article on the commentaries. Someone else said it was fancruft, which it would be on Wikipedia, but such articles may be quite apropriate here. Anyone agree? Disagree? I was thinking we could do "sister" articles, like for "Space Pilot 3000", have "Space Pilot 3000 (commentary)"? I know this would be hard for "Mother's Day (episode)" and "Mars University (episode)", but I think the solution is to remove the "(episode)" part and have a linke like they do on Wikipedia. Something like "This article is about the episode, for the holiday/place, see ..." you know?


 * Yeah, it might work. I have no idea what would be involved though. A list of topics discussed and highlights with quotes? If we do this I can knock up a navbar for the articles with an extra link to the episode article. - Quolnok 03:12, 11 September 2006 (PDT)
 * Template_talk:CommentaryNavTemplate looks right. I think commentary articles probably should be linked either in credits or trivia, but if not Template:EpisodeNavTemplateV2 would be able to be moved to the current template's location and all current articles (excluding the articles ending with "(episode)") would link to the uncreated commentary pages.
 * Yes, I was thinking that in the nav area would be the ideal place, with additional links in trivia or such if references are made. Buddy 17:50, 16 September 2006 (PDT)
 * I had a go at a commentary article for the pilot. I don't think it worked too well (granted I haven't cleaned it up). - Quolnok 03:07, 20 October 2006 (PDT)
 * I like the Highlights/Quotes idea. I like how you've summarized the discussion, rather than putting a transcript (I think there's another site that's already got transcripts, anyway). Buddy 12:55, 21 October 2006 (PDT)
 * Looking better now, here's a template too Template:EpisodeCommentaryArticleTemplate. All required changes are made. I'll leave Template:EpisodeNavTemplateV2 where it is for any future experimentation. - Quolnok 03:41, 22 October 2006 (PDT)

Dead Much?
Is it just me or is it a little dead around here?


 * I'm much busier now than I was over the summer. I'm back at college and am involved in other things, but I still check out what has been going on here every few days.  I just don't have much free time in which to contribute. - ClonedWizard 08:52, 22 September 2006 (PDT)


 * Likewise, bunch of stuff for uni right now. - Quolnok 18:37, 22 September 2006 (PDT)

Our Logo
I've noticed some other Futurama themed wikis have changed their logos of late, problem is they changed it to ours (albeit a version with distorted colour). They  appear to think any Futurama-based wiki's logos apply to any site. I suspect the responsible parties visit here often. In any case, I attempted to contact both communities (via talk page or email). - Quolnok 19:37, 30 October 2006 (PST)
 * I think I have an idea of who it might be. If it's who I think it is, I'll at least ban them from here. It's about all I can do, since I don't own the trademarks/copyrights of the images or fonts... Buddy 15:49, 31 October 2006 (PST)
 * Well, if your suspect was the same as mine, you'd be right. I've (hopefully) clarified the stituation on his talk page. On the other hand (or wiki as he case may be) the administrator has reverted the logo, so now it's just the second of the two links using the logo. - Quolnok 17:11, 31 October 2006 (PST)

Site outage
Yeah... Ugh, I can't upgrade because I'm too stupid to run the right scripts (or figure out how), and nobody will tell me. Sorry for the long wait, but it looks like we're stuck with this old version (not that there's anything wrong with it) until I figure things out. 15:59, 31 October 2006 (PST)
 * Heh, that's fine. If the official help wiki doesn't, the folks over at hrwiki.org might be able to help. - Quolnok 17:11, 31 October 2006 (PST)

Yeah-hoo! I'm a delivery boy!
Check it out! 09:53, 9 November 2006 (PST)

Userbox
I think we should have userboxes that I have attempted to create. --Dagpile 12:34, 25 November 2006 (PST)
 * We currently don't have the right version of mediawiki to do this the easiest way, but we can probably make a few. What type of boxes do you have in mind? - Quolnok 20:49, 25 November 2006 (PST)

Well, ones like "This user is an administrator on this Wiki", or what shows you like or "This user is a member of the welcoming committee" and a few others. Some others include what you do like, such as foods. --Dagpile 11:47, 26 November 2006 (PST)
 * Here are some samples, I'll colour them in and make some others later. - Quolnok 18:56, 26 November 2006 (PST)
 * Userboxes - Quolnok 18:44, 30 November 2006 (PST)

Al Gore in the movie?!
Al Gore was on Jay Leno last night and said Matt Groening had cast him in the Futurama movie, and that is disembodied head was next to Richard Nixon's disembodied head. This brings up some questions: Either way, I recorded the clip as best I could, sorry for the format and such, but here it is. 10:48, 30 November 2006 (PST)
 * 1) Is there still a movie in the works?
 * 2) When Al Gore said "movie", did he mean "show", because the past-tense is ambiguous, and was his experience so great to still be talking about it five years later in a conversation that really had nothing to do with Futurama?
 * I think the Futurama DVD movie is going ahead, but that it'll be like the Stewie (Family Guy) movie in that it will later be broken up into episode format and aired that way. Also based on the wikipedia article for the movie (which may not be accurate) he is in it. - Quolnok 16:38, 30 November 2006 (PST)

ABSG Quota
I was listening to one of the commentaries (forgot which one) and John DiMaggio responded to a character's use of the word "Ass" by saying there had to be a quota for "Ass" and "Bastard". So I had a crazy idea to actually watch the show and count every occurrence, but I also remembered that in other commentaries, they'd said this show has the highest gasp-per-episode rating, and highest slaps as well. So I added them as well. So I started a tally of the number of "Ass", "Bastard", Slaps, and Gasps, and started making a chart. I know it's dumb, but it's fun. You can visibly see the slap count jump when Mom shows up. Anyway, I'm a few episodes into Season 2, and I thought I'd see what people thought of the idea. Here's what I have so far. The first spike is the first Mom episode (A Fishful of Dollars). I can't tell you which colour lines are what right now, but the coloured backgrounds are obviously the seasons. I've yet to add labels to any of it, but I will (in the appropriate Futurama font). 11:14, 30 November 2006 (PST)


 * Heh heh, that's actually kind of cool. I expect the most "ass"es is going to be War is the H-Word - Quolnok 17:04, 30 November 2006 (PST)
 * "I can say ass again! Ass, ass, ass!"

What makes a minor character?
I have thought for a while now that perhaps Sal shouldn't be classed as minor, I've prevented one attempt to move URL to his own article but am reconsidering after the second attempt (Smitty would obviously be non minor also, I still think they should share an entry... is it URL or Url?). It seems obvious that Australian Guy and the Crushinator should go into the minor characters page as well. Is there a better way to describe minor characters? Something about the amount of episodes, being the focus of an episode, relative of other major character, etc. - Quolnok 18:19, 2 December 2006 (PST)
 * Australian Guy is in at least two episodes (HHRHGB and APTR), but he's still quite minor. Maybe recategorize them into "Primary Character", "Secondary Character", and "Tertiary Character"--that word's a tad unknown, but it makes sense. Then we could put numbers to how many episodes makes the difference between 2nd and 3rd (primary is obviously the PE crew). 19:48, 3 December 2006 (PST)

Lists
I think that some categories (such as planets, locations, Farnsworth inventions, non-Farnsworth technology, products, alien species, ships, animals, robots... ) must have an article with a list, as episodes or comics categories. The information in each item must be (at most) a very brief description, an image, and references to episodes. If an item has a bigger description or it is relevant, then it must have its own article linked from the corresponding list item (but preserving the brief description in the list). So, we avoid a possible large amount of short articles. What do you think? Bender22 02:44, 9 December 2006 (PST)
 * Yeah, you're probably right. (except for robots, those are still in the minor charaters page) - Quolnok 03:04, 9 December 2006 (PST)