Talk:Lists of Transformers characters

Proposed merge with List of Autobots
These lists really are not needed and have no real function on this site. The characters are too numerous and varied for navigation based upon characteristics to be of value. Each character has like three versions, so trying to differentiate them outside of the series in which they appear seems like it just does not work with this format. Both lists should be redirected here so any redirects of characters also redirect here. TTN (talk) 22:21, 26 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Merge - Agreed with TTN on the redundancy of two arbitrary lists of characters. The information in the listed pages can be condensed into a single page. -- Unquestionable Truth -- 23:31, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I am closing the merge proposal due to what a appears now to be a seemingly uncontroversial proposal. Both List of Autobots & List of Decepticons have been redirected here. The content of those lists was essentially the same material found on other lists listed in this particular page, all of which still need major cleanup.-- Unquestionable Truth -- 17:27, 1 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Although response was low, I believe that this discussion - being closed and implemented by its sole responder - was premature. As can be seen on Talk:List of Autobots and Talk:List of Decepticons, numerous articles (and presumably other ones not listed there) were merged into those two lists.  Transformers characters are notable as a whole (who has not at least heard of them?) regardless of whether most of the individual characters meet WP:GNG.  What simply redirecting them has done has been to remove valid merge targets.  I see that Kristopherprime tried to restore them but was reverted, and both articles were heavily edited before being redirected.  This redirecting can cause a problem, such as seen on Articles for deletion/Scrapper (Transformers) (2nd nomination). Yes, I see that there are "in other media" lists, but my argument would be that to merge character articles to lists about the comic book versions or TV versions or any other such versions of the characters would be less appropriate than to merge them to a general list about the characters, as all or nearly all Transformers originated as toys before being adapted into other media. While I agree that the "multiple versions of every character" situation is a problem, I do not believe it is an insurmountable one.  I believe that the original version of the character is almost always the most easily identifiable and best recognized version of the character, so if a character originated as a Decepticon it should be merged there, and likewise for Autobots.  The apparent difficulties in this approach do not mean that nothing should be merged at all.  If "by type" is simply not workable for these purposes, then I propose that a list(s) of toy releases by date by toy line be created, and subsequently using that as a merge target for all the different versions of the characters.  My personal feeling is that Transformers characters should not be treated as characters who happened to have toys that look like them, but that these were toys first that were adapted into multiple forms of media (TV, films, comics, etc), and most of the character articles do not deal very much with the aspect of them being toys first and multimedia characters second. BOZ (talk) 13:35, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Having a central list as the target of actual information doesn't work for a franchise like this. There are just too many variations with little to no connection to each other aside from the shared name. Only a few core characters retain the same characteristics throughout all the series, and those characters are the ones that are actually notable for the most part. I would agree that a central "List of Transformers" article would be fine, but that would need to be a bare-bones table that then links to the individual versions of each character on those lists. If that list would be too large, maybe separate it by decade introduced or something like that. Basically, style it after List of Pokemon and work from there. TTN (talk) 14:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * A central list would be better than no list (something akin to List of Pokémon and the sublists it is linked to), and a list of toy releases by year/decade would be fine. BOZ (talk) 23:47, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose TTN has been nominating individual Transformer characters for deletion for some time, and many of then have ended as "merge to list of autobot/decepticon" because the two lists provide a user a way to search for the specific character name and see what show/comic they appeared in. Redirecting them here, where there is no way to search a name, retroactively overturns all of the merge AfDs. If the merge succeeds, the next step (by TTN or someone else) would be to delete the redirects because the target page doesn't mention the subject. Argento Surfer (talk) 12:23, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Since List of Autobots and List of Decepticons were merged by the sole respondent after agreeing with the nominator, and since both Argento Surfer and myself oppose the merge, I am going to restore both pages, and would rather see an uninvolved person close this discussion if they feel that consensus is to merge/redirect these lists. If someone wants to create a more appropriate list page (such as suggestions above of by year / by toyline, etc) then that may ultimately be preferable, but such an undertaking is far beyond my time at the moment. BOZ (talk) 11:44, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

You forgot to put a list of video game transformers you know.(107.77.227.59 (talk) 21:37, 9 August 2020 (UTC))