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.

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!
 * Every episode done! And according to the system clock, it's before 2007. Now to do the other stuff. - Quolnok 19:58, 31 December 2006 (PST)

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)
 * Still no screenshots. I've got a few myself, and I'll start sketching out the floorplan. I'll be doing it in SVG, so I can post the work in progress and making changes will be easy. Any comments or such on where you think things are would be helpful. Buddy 21:56, 24 December 2006 (PST)

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?

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)

I'm eager to see more. And I'm eager to plaster my user page with them, proclaiming myself to be on break. (still my favourite one) Buddy 21:56, 24 December 2006 (PST)
 * About 16 new ones (8 of which are similar to existing ones) are now on the Userboxes page, created on the 26th to celebrate everyone's favourite obsolete holiday, Boxing Day. - Quolnok 16:10, 27 December 2006 (PST)

Al Gore in the movie?!
Pretty much confirmed by the new Cohen interview, wasn't it? I'll leave the video up, in case anyone wants to do something with it (converting it to MPG would be nice ;) &rarr;here it is

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!"

Still working on it. Buddy 21:56, 24 December 2006 (PST)

Okay, I now have a computer. I can watch DVD's and edit the SVG file at the same time, which may make this easier. I'm not guarantee'ing anything, because work and homework eat up a lot of time, but I do have next weekend off, so I may get some more of this done. Probably not the whole thing, as I can't watch two and a half seasons of Futurama in a single weekend (maybe if I was really determined), but I'll get a large chunk of it done. I'm not sure if anyone's interested anymore, but I'll finish it anyway. I'm eager to see the numbers for seasons 3 and 4, when I think they'll be the most consistently high... --Buddy 19:14, 19 February 2007 (PST)

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)

I'm proposing a vote to define characters into four clearly-defined classes: Please vote and add your comments if you think you can improve the system.
 * Primary Characters: PE Crew, examples include Philip J. Fry, Amy Wong
 * Secondary Characters: Minor characters that appear in more than one episode, examples include Hattie, Sal
 * Tertiary Characters: Characters that appear in only one episode, examples include the Taco Bellevue chihuahua doctor, Beck
 * Psuedocharacters: Characters that are mentioned but never seen, such as Leela's boyfriend Shawn, and I. C. Wiener
 * While they are more clearly defined, we still need to determine who gets an individual article. Primary, most secondary and a few tertiary would get individual articles I think. All relatives of primaries would be in an individual or shared article of some kind. Most already are, with exceptions like Enos and Mildred, Yancy and Mrs. Fry (Fry's parents), Yancy and Mrs. Fry (Fry's brother and his wife) some of these are by the above definition Tertiary. Secondary collects characters like The Masked Unit, who is never really focal in his main episode and pops up in the background a few times. So I think a bit of refinement is still needed to be used for individual/group article distinction. -  Quolnok 02:22, 25 December 2006 (PST)
 * I think the current Minor Characters article could be split into Secondary Characters and Tertiary Characters, and leave the format very much the same. And then stick with the current method of giving them their own article when enough info is collected... And we'd still have to list them all, with the characters with their own pages having a link like "see full article" or some such. The eventual goal is to give everyone their own article, I think. --Buddy 10:10, 27 December 2006 (PST)
 * I guess that sounds right, this change just gives a better definition and helps trim the minor characters page. - Quolnok 15:38, 27 December 2006 (PST)
 * Sounds like a good idea to me but would Zapp and Kif go under primary or secondary- Humerbot 0.4 09:09, 2 January 2007 (PST)
 * Per the definitions above, they'd be Secondary characters. They just aren't in enough episodes to really be primary characters. And yes, I realize that they worked for PE at one point, but by "PE Crew" I mean the people that are in nearly every episode, namely: Fry, Leela, Bender, Professor, Hermes, Amy, Zoidberg. Scruffy is technically a PE Crewmember, but he'd be a secondary character as well. -- 18:26, 2 January 2007 (PST)

A Primary Character Category and Secondary Character Category have been added


 * Quolnok
 * Quolnok

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)
 * Personally, I'd love for everything to have an article of its own. But I think we should start with conglomerate pages, like the minor characters page. As more info is written, sections can be removed to their own pages. I know this won't work for things where very little is known, like Shawn, since an entire article is a bit much just to say "This is Leela's boyfriend that we never see." Anyway... *runs off* &mdash;Buddy 21:56, 24 December 2006 (PST)

Transcripts
How about we use transcripts for episodes, just like commentarys, just these are all the quotes in the episode. --Electricbolt 13:26, 23 December 2006 (PST)
 * There's another site that has transcripts. Forgot which one, though. --Buddy 15:25, 23 December 2006 (PST)

I think its Gotfuturama. --Electricbolt 14:21, 24 December 2006 (PST)
 * Wait a minute... : It is The Futurama Madhouse. --Electricbolt 19:22, 13 January 2007 (PST)

News, everyone!
That Cohen interview made me very giddy. --Buddy 15:25, 23 December 2006 (PST)

Redirects
I have noticed that there are short redirects of characters names like the other Wikia about Futurama. But there is only redirects for Fry, Leela, and Bender. Do you mind if I add the others? --Electricbolt 19:55, 24 December 2006 (PST)
 * Thanks for pointing those out. I have now deleted them. Prior active members had agreed that redirects are unneeded. Typing "Fry" into the search box yields results, the first of which is for Philip J. Fry. We avoided redirects to prevent contributors from being lazy, and to provide searchers with related pages they might not have found otherwise. If we want to vote again on the redirect issue, we can do so. But until a vote is held, I'll enforce the previous decision. Buddy 20:36, 24 December 2006 (PST)
 * In fact, while editing other stuff, I found the Standards page, which is where this is mentioned. All new users should read the help pages.

In fact, here's a vote: Do we wish to allow redirects of shortened/common names to the actual articles? Examples: Fry &rarr; Philip J. Fry, Zoidberg &rarr; Dr. John Zoidberg, et cetera.

Yes, I think laziness should be a "no", because in one article, Humorbot 0.4 had put the small redirect of Fry, Leela, and Bender. --Electricbolt 16:40, 25 December 2006 (PST)

Electricbolt Quolnok

Sigs
I have noticed that the following users (Gopher, User:Jensor) have AL1 sig images. Where did they get them? --Electricbolt 13:58, 25 December 2006 (PST)
 * They created it themselves using the Futurama fonts. Buddy 14:39, 25 December 2006 (PST)

Did they use photoshop doing this? --Electricbolt 17:01, 26 December 2006 (PST)
 * Well, they might have, but it would be just as easy using any paint program that came with your OS (probably MSPaint). - Quolnok 17:35, 26 December 2006 (PST)

Hooray!
We're on the Futurama Madhouse! Go to community portal, click their link, and scroll to the bottom. We's there!
 * Awesome, they're one of the best Futurama sites around. - Quolnok 17:59, 30 December 2006 (PST)
 * And we've already got 66 referrals! That's huge in my book. Buddy 09:00, 31 December 2006 (PST)

Referrals just spiked, since the link is now on the most recent post. Hooray us! (also, downloads for my nerdy Sims2 self) --Buddy 13:19, 15 January 2007 (PST)

Main Images
For most of the episodes and articles, the main image (usually the one at the upper right) is named the same as the article, with a .jpg at the end. Should we adopt this as a standard and make sure that all articles follow it? It would make finding images easier, for one thing. And article editors would automatically know the name of the image that goes there... Vote please:

Other Futurama Wikis
Oy. Why do users come here and make less-than-stellar contributions, and then run off and make half-assed copycat wikis? I mean, they're not even trying.

http://en.futurama.elwiki.com/Main_Page

Notice the news section. Notice the menu on the left. Obviously copied, since the "Conference Table" link leads to an uncreated page. I'm tempted to start banning members who have started other wikis. (not those who participate, since anyone's free to participate in whatever wiki they want), but most of these wiki creators rip things right off our pages and pretend it's their own crap. I'm getty royally annoyed. At this point, it's taking a great deal of restraint to even ask this question here rather than just banning them. I would love some feedback from Quolnok, but also from ElectricBolt, who created that Wiki, and Bender Bending Rodriguez who created one or two other wikis... Argh! -- 11:22, 9 January 2007 (PST)
 * Good point, if you copy things like Fry Family Tree which is ours you should be banded -
 * I'm going to have to agree on this one, heck Rod' even tried to recruit me for both of his wikis and the admin of wikia for the first one (from what I saw there she was confused by his decision to make another Futurama wiki). Perhaps an addition to the help pages reguarding other futurama wikis and the fact that "as The Infosphere intends to be the single most comprehensive resource for Futurama information and trivia on the internet, we don't feel as though additional wikis should be created to cover Futurama, please stay and contribute" or something. We have a section in there on plagarism right? Anyway, yes, something needs to happen. - Quolnok 03:07, 10 January 2007 (PST)

Okay, I added some text about the issue here and Help:FAQ here, but it probably needs more. Probably something about being banned. Now, should we go ahead and ban the two users known to have created wikis? Should it be permanent or for a month? Still no word from either of them here... &rarr;

You could try baning them for a month and if they keep copying when the month is up ban perminantly -

Well, you know I didn't actually create the ElWiki site of Futurama. I adopted it. Bender Bending Rodriguez, or known as Flexo on that wiki, created another one. Just to be sure though, go back to that wiki and leave a message on my talk page. --Electricbolt 18:10, 13 January 2007 (PST)
 * Before you "adopted" ElWiki's Futurama Wiki, did the page exist? If not, then you created it. - Quolnok 18:25, 13 January 2007 (PST)

What page are you talking about? The person who created it was "Flexo". Just view his page on that wiki. Also, a lot of the images on there from this wiki have been deleted by me. --Electricbolt 18:59, 13 January 2007 (PST)
 * Hmm, it does say that. I was just confused by these  - Quolnok 19:06, 13 January 2007 (PST)

Oh, you're talking about that. When I had the site adopted to me, I was given administrative access and Flexo's admin was gone. --Electricbolt 19:18, 13 January 2007 (PST)

Detailed Cast
Just an idea. How about a detailed cast list for every episode, as in type what characters that the voice actors play in the episode. Since this is a large scale idea, it will probably be declined but it's an idea nevertheless. --The preceding unsigned comment was made by 172.201.33.229
 * This actually might be a good idea, but could clutter up the ep articles, and adding another article per episode could be a bit much... Ideas on how to work this would be great. --Buddy 12:51, 11 January 2007 (PST)
 * Perhaps a detailed list per season with subsections for easch episode? - Quolnok 18:41, 17 February 2007 (PST)

User:Admin?
I think Admin should be blocked for username. It is a fake, because Buddy, I know is always on. --Electricbolt 19:21, 13 January 2007 (PST)
 * Thanks for pointing this out. I banned him, and I glanced at the user list and saw a bunch of questionable user names that I'm just going to delete from the database. I know it's not as effective as banning, but I'd rather just not have those kinds of names showing up at all. (for example, the user "F**k" only without the stars) --Buddy 11:41, 15 January 2007 (PST)
 * I also assume "Quolnok the spammer, like me!" and "This is a spam username" are bad names. People are idiots. --Buddy 11:50, 15 January 2007 (PST)
 * And while I'm looking at these, should I assume, Electricbolt, that I can delete your old usernames? Or are you still using them? --
 * I haven't looked at that list for a while, you can add "Quolnock" to the people are idiots category. - Quolnok 15:15, 15 January 2007 (PST)
 * BALEETED! Heh heh, more like Quol-knockoff... Oh, I amuse myself. --Buddy 11:30, 16 January 2007 (PST)
 * Yes, people are surely idiots. How can you delete a username from the database? I don't really need to though. But, I do need to delete one from my ATHF Wiki. Oh and one more thing about those usernames. I saw them before. I think you should ban all of them. They're no use at all. --Electricbolt 14:41, 17 January 2007 (PST)
 * While I could ban them, it leaves the objectionable names (like the one in my first response) in the user list. Deleting them from the database is easy if you've got Dreamhost. Or any other host that has MySQL and phpMyAdmin. You just go to the section of the database for the wiki (mine are easy, because the entries start with "") and browse to the user entries. Then delete whatever ones you want. But it's not the same as banning, as those people can just as easily re-register, and it won't track their IP's or anything, either. So unless there's a good reason, banning is probably the better choice. --Buddy 15:02, 17 January 2007 (PST)
 * I just noticed this message, guys. How was this wiki created? Dreamhost, MySQL, or phpMyAdmin? --Gravemind 18:06, 19 January 2007 (PST)

Random sidenote
I disabled hotlinking of images, which was sort of annoying me. The most popular bandwidth thief is MySpace, where everyone uses Zapp Brannigan's pic in their profiles and blogs. There are several dozen forums as well that are stealing bandwidth (the users are, not the actual forum). If anyone here was using an image for an authorized reason, let me know and I'll whitelist the url. And I don't know what authorized reasons are, so just give me a good reason to let you use the image. :D --Buddy 15:06, 17 January 2007 (PST)

How to lock a wiki database
I have noticed that you can lock a wiki. How can you lock a wiki? --Gravemind 18:47, 19 January 2007 (PST)
 * Well, firstly you've got to be an admin... or possibly database level? I'm not sure. What kind of wiki are you running? - Quolnok 18:52, 19 January 2007 (PST)
 * ... - Quolnok 18:54, 19 January 2007 (PST)

Infosphere Logo
I think it should be redesigned, and you? I could try to make a new one, doesanybody have the background Image with the Infosphere? - Bofr@
 * Personally, I like the current logo, however there may be other designs that are better, more modern and sound more green. Feel free to have a go at making a new one. - Quolnok 15:48, 28 January 2007 (PST)
 * I snipped the Infosphere out of this image, the light-ray background was created in photoshop (radial gradient, noise-type, bluish-cyan and black) and it's far from perfect. The text is, in order, Dungeon font, Futurama Title Bold font, Futurama Title font, the latter two with Photoshop effects on them to emulate those seen in the show. If you wanna make a new one, go ahead, and we'll vote on new versions here. &rarr; 11:47, 29 January 2007 (PST)

Other Languages
What do you think of other Languages, do you want them here, and is it possible to put them in? I'd like to start translating some Sites starting with the Characters and or Episode List, so what do you think? Bofr@
 * I think Infosphere in another language would be good but its Buddy's decision what language were you thinking of starting with Bofr@ -


 * Since I'm german, i'd like to start with the German language :)
 * I think Buddy might be more open to a variant in a language he or another sysop knows, due to the need to keep standards reasonably high. I certainly can't do much for a non-english wiki, unless we write it in a programming language, which we shouldn't. - Quolnok 15:31, 29 January 2007 (PST)

Another language would be great, but I don't have the capability to support multiple languages on the same server like Wikipedia does (at least, I think that's what they're doing)... Alternative solutions would be welcome. Was Futurama dubbed into German? The only languages I know of are Spanish and (Canadian) French. Though I know one of the discs has a special feature and it has about five or six languages on it, so who knows. Pick a random article (or one you really like) and translate it into German. Save it at "Article Name (German)" as a sort of test. Just one article for now. Till then, I'll have to think about it. Mull it over. Let it stew. You know. --Buddy 16:20, 29 January 2007 (PST)

300!
We've reached over 300 articles - Humorbot 0.4 05:32, 24 February 2007 (PST)

Monobook.css and "pretty URLs"
CSS: I have a proposal for a CSS change (along with a screenshot) on my userpage. Suggestions at its talk page are welcome.

Pretty URLs: I have noticed how this wiki lacks the pretty URLs, if it runs on an apache machine, it would be fairly easy to make it happen. I have done this with tonnes of Wikis of my own.

--Svip 07:36, 8 March 2007 (PST)

A universal template for all appearance articles (e.g. characters/items)
I am proposing an universal template for all articles which describe something that appears in an episode (or more) or in a comic (or more). Its purpose is to keep (and easily update) a general style for all articles. Currently it is all "hardcoded" into each article. A bad option if you ask me. And if you get the parse extension for MediaWiki, you can have if statements and thus if something is unrelated to something (e.g. you don't want "voiced by" on for an item). --Svip 14:16, 9 March 2007 (PST)
 * Also, I would propose calling the template "infobox", so it is universal right there. Or perhaps "appearance infobox" if you wish. --Svip 14:17, 9 March 2007 (PST)
 * And of course special templates for comic and episode articles. --Svip 14:48, 9 March 2007 (PST)
 * Might be good. Always worth a test. - Quolnok 18:12, 17 March 2007 (PDT)

Navigating season five
Because season five is to be released in a slightly odd manner, groups of four episodes making up four movies, I've done a new batch of Nav templates. These point to both episodes and movie articles. My proposed nav for the DVD movies has two versions on that page, I think the second is the better one, however it does require ten variables to be passed to it, which may result in some confusion for article creators. It's variable numbers will be changed to a more logical order before use. Also because the movie navs may point back at either an episode or a movie I just left the labels as "Next" and "Previous". - Quolnok 18:12, 17 March 2007 (PDT)
 * Also when the tittles are confirmed we can probably just hard code the movie names to the Devil's Hands nav template (also for 6ACV01 nav, if applicable) - Quolnok 18:18, 17 March 2007 (PDT)
 * Well they certainly look good I think I prefer the 2nd DVD nav template it would be easier, in my opinion, to use. - Humorbot 0.4 03:18, 18 March 2007 (PDT)