Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animation/Thomas & Friends task force

 WikiProject Thomas

• The Railway Series (RS)
• Thomas & Friends TV Series

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Things you can do

Project ToDo list

I've been keeping my eye out for how these are managed elsewhere.

Best one I've found is at WikiProject Trains. This utilises a custom variant of the {{todo}} box, called {{todo, trains}}. To see it in action, check out Talk:British Rail.

This box resides at top of a talk page, under the project banner, rather than in a side-bar. This has the benefit that longer sentences may be used!

EdJogg 15:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with any format you can come up with. If I can see a way in which it can be improved, I'll be sure to say something :)

As for the contents of the "To Do list", I'll put below what's floating around in my mind as mental notes... (It's like a world full of Too Many Post-Its in there...)

General tasks

(Can be completed by any members of WP:THOMAS)

• Revert vandalism and other harmful edits, as per Guidelines for Contribution and WP:THOMAS/FAQ
• Improve quality of all articles, through checking grammar and relevance, as well as adding any relevant information, so long as doing so is not superfluous.
• Completion of Minor characters from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends#The Chinese Dragon.

Higher tasks

(Can be completed by any member of WP:THOMAS who has a sound working knowledge of Wikipedia)

• Creation of article Jack and the Pack, merging in all information from On Site with Thomas, which is to be then redirected, and links changed to reflect this
• Fixing redirects – Check the "what links here" for articles (particularly major ones), and see if any pages link to the article via a redirect. If this is the case, open these articles and change the links so they link to the correct article.
• Skarloey engines, Railway Series perspective. Complete edits as per project talk page.

Admin duties

(Can be completed by senior members of WP:THOMAS, who have both an excellent working knowledge of Wikipedia, and who have a strong record in useful edits, particularly large-scale)

• Creation of a full list of articles – Bot generated?
• Continued maintenance of Project page and its sub-pages
• Exploring the "ratings system", in an attempt to get as many articles within WP:THOMAS' scope as possible to GA (Good Article) status, ideally one or two FAs (Featured Articles).
• Re-assessment of major articles, for Wikipedia 1.0 (I haven't re-visited this since it was raised back in Archive 1!)

At this stage, I would reccommend only EdJogg, Mdcollins1984 and the Project Founders attempt admin duties, as these users have proven they have what is required for these tasks. I imagine *most* active members could attempt Higher Tasks. However, if you feel you could satisfactorily complete a task, regardless of its "level", then please feel free.

That's my 3½ cents anyway :)

Gonzerelli 06:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:THOMAS fair-use image crisis

There is a current WP-wide push towards the effective elimination of non-free images, especially from pages using multiple images. This has a potentially huge impact on the 'Thomas' pages, considering almost all the pictures are tagged as 'fair use'. So far, only List of Railway Series Books has been de-imaged (see its talk page for important initial discussions), but the bots are roaming about and delete-warning messages concerning screenshot images are already appearing on grouped-character talk pages.

I have posted a lengthy message at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content#WikiProject Thomas and use of non-free images asking for formal guidance, as there is a potentially large workload to recover from this situation – too much for one person – and I don't want to waste what limited effort I can spare.

As I see it there are only three likely outcomes:

1. Non-free images are not allowed on 'list' pages: Current pages remain as they are, but without images. (only tidying required)
2. Non-free images ARE allowed on 'list' pages, but only in limited numbers: current character pages sub-divided into a greater number of smaller pages (lots of work, especially with redirects -- time for a bot!!)
3. Non-free screenshots/book covers ARE allowed, but only one-per-page: character pages to be split up as per main characters (humungous amount of work)

It is a sad state of affairs, but I think that the first of these is the only really likely outcome, since to retain the existing set of images also requires the application of individual 'fair use rationales' to all of the images – and there's a lot of them.

Views on the sensible way forward are welcomed.

Regards -- EdJogg 12:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Update: This new policy has caused major waves – and not a little ill-feeling – within the WP community. You don't have to look far to find editors requesting reviews of the policy, guidance on what is allowed, how to write fair-use rationales, requests for leniency with delete timescales, etc, etc. Some of the discussions (including at the link above) are extremely heated, and they are going on in parallel in several places. It will take a while for the dust to settle, but, whatever the final decisions, there is a lot of work ahead for WP:THOMAS members.

The one thing we can say for certain is that there has been an effective paradigm-shift on the use of non-free images within WP. In future, screen-shots and book-cover scans need to meet WP:FUC and be covered by a 'Fair Use Rationale' (FUR). (To be fair, this has always been the case, it's just that it was not enforced in the past.) The FUR provides information to describe the image and its source, plus our reasoning (for each location it is used) why it is necessary to use a non-free image. This is mainly required for downstream users, so that they may determine whether their use of the image is legal.

I've had a brief chat with MDCollins, and the following is a start at determining some kind of plan to move the project forward.

EdJogg 17:10, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair-use Images: Plan of action

1. Assign all images to an appropriate 'Thomas'-related image category. For example:
   • Category:Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends images -- for character screen shots
   • Category:The Railway Series book covers -- for book covers for the 40 books (already populated)
   • Category:The Railway Series images -- anything else! (should also be a parent of the two above)
2. Make downloaded copies of as many non-free images, in use by WP:THOMAS pages, as possible. This will allow restoration at a later date if appropriate.
   The following information must be noted or indicated as unavailable:
   • which pages they are used on
   • Image source (very important: where it came from) if known
   • userID of uploader
   • Other information, as available (please expand this list, as appropriate)
3. Apply FURs to the images, starting with those for the individual character pages, since these are easiest to justify and hence safest. (They're only 'safe' once the FUR is in place, otherwise it would make sense to target the most threatened!)
4. Ensure that appropriate 'critical commentary' of the image is in place within the article text (At present I am still not clear what this actually means!! [EdJogg])
5. Work out what we do about the grouped character pages, bearing in mind that the use of multiple non-free images will not be tolerated. (Should get away with 2 or 3 on an individual character page though, provided they are otherwise acceptable.)

Useful pages

• Wikipedia talk:Non-free content
• Wikipedia:Media copyright questions
• Wikipedia talk:Fair use rationale guideline

FU Image Crisis Plan: Comments

• Progress:
  • all 38 current images from Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) have been categorised
  • all 16 current images from Minor characters from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends have been categorised
  • all 8 current images from Rolling stock (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) have been categorised
  • all 15 current images from Non-rail vehicles (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) have been categorised
  • all 4 current images from People and animals (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) have been categorised
  • all 3 current images from Thomas the Tank Engine film characters have been categorised
  • all 1 current images from Emily (Thomas the Tank Engine) have been categorised
  • all 4 current images from On Site with Thomas have been categorised
  • all 1 current images from Calling All Engines have been categorised
  • all 1 current images from Thomas and the Magic Railroad have been categorised
  • approx 36 video/DVD covers from Thomas and Friends video releases NOT CATEGORISED
  • all 2 current images from Shining Time Station have been categorised

Where do we go from here?

At present I am thinking we will need to have a fairly serious rethink as to how the grouped pages are presented – that, or just accept that they will be clear of images. The following paragraphs list a few of my ideas, in no particular order...

• As a good starting point, each of the Railway Series books can be given its own article. I know we were trying to avoid this, but I don't think we have much choice. The book cover images are the easiest to provide a FUR for, and there's no way that we can have the list article in its (former!) present form (ie with images). We will need to expand the coverage somewhat, including a plot summary for each story, but the Awdry's have provided us with much information in their books, and Christopher has even provided the inspiration for all of them in '...between the lines'. There's even scope for covering some of the characters on the same pages – I'm thinking mainly of those that appear in a single volume (Stepney, various Diesels) or minor-but-featured characters (such as Oliver, Duke, Mavis) if they cannot support an article of their own.

• Skarloey Railway engines will need a new re-think. Having never properly grouped them, there is less work to do! Probably a good idea to create proper new pages for Duncan and Rusty, and link everything from the SR page. I think we can still get away with using the book covers for illustrations, but we will need to come up with some pretty good 'critical commentary' to justify it. It might be sufficient if each article has a section discussing the differences between the book and TV treatment (using the illustrations for reference), but I don't know whether that fits within WP policy.

• Major characters: I think that any that could potentially support their own page (when book and TV coverage is combined) should do so, as this will make image use much easier to justify. I would suggest the following might be candidates: Oliver, Bill and Ben, Daisy, Mavis, Duke, BoCo (and others)

• Railway Series Minor/Unfeatured character pages and the railway pages will not require a great deal of work, since these were never expected to use images in the first place. However, we might want to simplify/merge the major/minor pages since more of the information will have moved to individual pages again.

• The TV Series has a much bigger problem. We cannot have multiple-image pages (period); we cannot obtain free-use images for them; most of the characters could not be developed sufficiently to stand on their own articles; almost none of the information can be verified (unless referenced to specific episodes -- but that's a whole other problem!). One solution would be to use photos of models – not ideal, but better than nothing.

The one thing we can say from this is that the coverage of the Railway Series will be much easier to move forward due to the wealth of 'reliable source' material we have to draw on. But I can see many more problems for the TV Series coverage in the future...

EdJogg 18:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Having just re-read the many comments at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, there is an 'official' view that only the absolute minimum fair use content should be used in WP. This means: no album covers on album articles, for example, no book covers, and certainly no screenshots, etc. There is a lot of ill feeling about this, from other editors, but it is quite likely to be THE official view. If this policy remains unchallenged then the whole realm of WP:THOMAS will become image-less (apart from the maps). In which case there's not much point panicing now about trying to come up with FURs for the images as they'll all be shot down in flames in due course. It also means that much of what I wrote as 'suggested way forward', above, would be wasted effort.

Saving copies of the images may still be worthwhile though, especially if they may be copied to Train Spotting World in the future (not sure if they're allowed there either!).

At present, I am too busy at work to panic over this, and it may be best to let things run their course. When the dust has settled, we can take a new view of the situation.

Others' thoughts would be welcome...

EdJogg 00:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If there prove to be insurmountable difficulties over this I can offer the services of Train Spotting World in the same manner that we did when rescuing the various deleted Thomas lists.

The caveat is that we do absolutely need a fair use rationale there, and we, too, will delete non free images that do not have the rationale. However, our processes are less "automatic" than here, and we let our admins loose with a good dollop of common sense rather than unleash bots that just go ahead and do things.

We have the space to do this, and the server horsepower to do this, so it is not an enormous task for us, if the consensus here suggests it is a good thing to do. We are a similar look and feel to WP, but funded by advertising revenues from the on page adverts rather than by donations. That is the sole difference users would see (apart from substantial additional facilities, that is). We work as an informal companion wiki on rail matters.

The offer is there. EdJogg is also one of our admins, and I will take my cue from him over what should happen, rather than checking back here for replies. My rationale is that I do not feel I should do more than make the offer in case it is perceived as spamming. Fiddle Faddle 10:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussions are continuing with Fiddle Faddle at TrainSpottingWorld (TSW). The current idea is to drag the entire realm of WP:THOMAS over to TSW, thus preserving its current form, with pictures, etc. The future shape of WP:THOMAS at WP would then be discussed with project members, but would, for example, allow further tightening-up of the detail provided for the TV series characters.

Other members' thoughts welcome! (Otherwise I shall have to determine a concensus on my own!)

EdJogg 13:18, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I think EdJogg and I forgot to mention that he organised that we took a snapshot of a load of pages with their attendant images and placed them here (well, linked from there, anyway. This means that they are, where they contain POV or OR, safe from the valid WP actions or serious editing. We do also have the same policy of needing Fair Use Rationales for non free images, but are somewhat gentler in our application of policy (our admins do this manually, no bots are involved), though no less rigorous (copyright is a serious issue, after all, and breaking it, especially with intent, is unlawful). Fiddle Faddle 06:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The snapshot sent to Train-Spotting World was done mid-June, but included an earlier snapshot of the 'List of Railway Series books' page, complete with images. Almost all images were transferred across, and so may be retrieved for re-inclusion on WP, if required, provided a suitable Fair Use Rationale (FUR) can be provided.

On that same subject, several (new) project members have been making valiant attempts to add a sort-of FUR to the screenshot images. Time will tell whether the FUR is acceptable by WP standards, but it should be sufficient to avoid speedy deletion.

EdJogg 11:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Content for Skarloey Engine Pages

I've noticed that the five Narrow Gauge engine pages (Skarloey, Rheneas, Sir Handel, Peter Sam, and Rusty the Diesel) have been left with some thrown together info from The Railway Series. They were left without even one image (minus the Rusty page, which retains a picture of the large-scale model).

Seeing as the pages for Thomas, Gordon, Toby etc. have combined details from the TV series and books, and since these NG characters are just as important (these engines have existed about as long as the Steam Team ones have), I figured that the pages should have more than RWS information. After all, that's the original reason we had them. Otherwise, we could simply merge the pages into the RWS character page.

These are important characters that have survived the test of time, and I think they deserve to share their history with Wikipedia. I propose that the following tasks be re-instated:

• Create a page titled Duncan (Thomas the Tank Engine), matching the other old NG characters, and the title we used for Emily.
• Add the images used on the page Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends)#Narrow Gauge Engines. There are good quality and correctly depict the characters as they look today.
• Add summaries of the histories in the show. Perhaps we should write it not based on how the RWS originally told it, but how the TV crew altered it. And since the pages describe some adventures from the RWS, it would seem appropriate to do the same for the recent plots of their TV counterparts.

I'd be willing to begin the assignment post-haste, and keep the page top-quality. The pages can be prone to vandalism, but I check the pages at least once a day. With that said, I think it's safe to upgrade the pages. Do you?

--Rusty5 00:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I think I'm reasonably happy with your proposals. The only thing I would say is that the articles should follow a similar pattern to the other major characters, ie, start off with character/story from RWS and then have a separate section describing the TV Series and the differences. How ever long the TV series goes on for, these characters appeared first in the books...

There's more rationalisation needed, I think, but it's a long time since I looked at the issues involved.

What is the status of the Fair-Use Rationales for the images you want to use? You will probably need to update them alongside your other changes.

EdJogg 07:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It was also recently recommended that the NG engine summaries on Railway engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends) be split into a separate article called [[Narrow gauge engines (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends). That way, Bertram, Smudger and Proteus could be transferred there as well, making a page for only that range of characters. --Rusty5 18:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Umm, I think I suggested that! Not sure where the discussion has got to though.

(BTW -- I am on WikiBreak at the Great Dorset Steam Fair until the weekend, so won't be able to offer any opinions for a few days.)

EdJogg 07:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't make a pointless page on a character like Mighty Mac. After all, he's a brand new character (when I say new, I mean not enough appearances.) So it needs to be a MAJOR character. Keep watch, dudes.--S.C.Ruffeyfan 16:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Images scheduled for deletion

Earlier this year, when the furore over fair-use images erupted, I added the bulk of the 'Thomas' screenshots to my watchlist. Since then, nothing much has happened...until now.

Someone has spotted that certain 'Thomas' images do not meet WP requirements, and have flagged them as such. Images flagged in this way may be deleted (automatically?) after seven days if no action is taken. WP is quite strict on this, and hence the 'Thomas & Friends' pages may lose all their screenshots if urgent action is not taken very soon.

The following images (at least) have been flagged as having no Fair Use Rationale:

• File:AlfieExcavator.jpg
• File:AnnieandClarabel.jpg
• File:Bertie3.jpg
• File:Bertramtheoldwarrior.jpg
• File:Brakevan Toad.jpg
• File:Breakdown Train.jpg
• File:BryonTTTE.jpg
• File:Bulgybus.jpg
• File:Bulstrodebarge.jpg
• File:BusterTTTE.jpg
• File:Butchtowtruck.jpg
• File:Calling All Engines.jpg
• File:Carolinecar.jpg
• File:CityoftruroTTTE.jpg
• File:CrankyCrane.jpg
• File:Diesel10.jpg
• File:Emily's New Coaches.jpg
• File:Georgesteamroller.jpg
• File:HaroldHelicopter.jpg
• File:HenriettaCoach.jpg
• File:HorridLorries.jpg
• File:IsabellaTTTE.jpg
• File:JackFrontLoader.jpg
• File:Jeremiah Jobling.JPG
• File:Jeremy.jpg ("this is a possibly unfree image")
• File:Jet Engine TTTE2.jpg
• File:KellyTTTE.JPG
• File:LadyTATMR.jpg
• File:Miss Jenny.jpg
• File:Mrs Kyndley.jpg
• File:NedTTTE.jpg
• File:NelsonTransporter.jpg
• File:Oldslowcoach.jpg
• File:OliverExcavator.jpg
• File:PatrickTTTE.jpg
• File:ProteusTTTE.jpg
• File:Scruffey.jpg
• File:Splatteranddodge.jpg
• File:TerenceTractor.jpg
• File:Thediesel261.jpg
• File:ThumperDriller.jpg
• File:TigerMothTTTEAF.jpg
• File:TrevorTraction.jpg
• File:TrevorTraction.jpg
• File:TroublesomeTrucks.jpg

I must stress that this list only includes images that were used on the 'Thomas' pages on some specific day in June. Any which have been added since, or those I haven't seen -- and hence are not on my watchlist -- may also be targetted for deletion.

Project members familiar with (and, dare I say, 'passionate about') the TV Series need to address these issues, in accordance with the appropriate WP policies and guidelines, as a matter of some urgency. (I'm afraid that I cannot help with this task, although I can offer pointers towards official guidance if help is requested.)

Guidance for writing a Fair Use Rationale may be found at Talk:Non-rail vehicles (Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends)#Pictures. Hopefully this will be sufficient to comply with the WP policies, but it may be necessary to add additional information, specific to the character, to ensure that the FUR's are seen to be different and not just duplicated.

Good luck! EdJogg 10:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletions (PROD and AFD)

• Thomas and Friends – Season 13 (via WP:PROD on 7 October 2007) Kept
• Thomas and Friends – Season 13 at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas and Friends – Season 13 (7 October 2007)
• Thomas and Friends – Season 14 (via WP:PROD on 7 October 2007) Deleted

--User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 10:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

• Thomas and friends video – release by AfD today Fiddle Faddle 23:26, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Well done Fiddle Faddle. S.C.Ruffeyfan--17:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC) 17:35, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Up and coming T&F releases

We have a problem, people. Now S11 is almost over, spammers will start to make up junk and rubbish stuff. All sorts of 'characters' like 'Cosmo the Sonic Engine' and fake info on The Great Discovery like 'The Mountain Engines make an appearance' or 'Thomas's driver's name is Fred Roberts' could appear. So keep your eyes peeled! S.C.Ruffeyfan 14:47, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Use of images on 'Thomas' pages

All the screenshot images have now been removed from the combined-character pages. This is exactly as I predicted a few months ago (see WP:THOMAS fair-use image crisis above).

As is explained at User:Durin/Fair use overuse explanation, this deletion is entirely in keeping with WP policies, and is really not worth contesting. Individual character pages, however, may be alright...

The question is, what, if anything, are we going to do about this?

NOTE: The pages, as they were in June 2007, were rescued -- images and all -- to the companion wiki: Train Spotting World, where there is a growing group of enthusiastic editors, er, 'looking after them'. So, in one sense, it does not matter if the pictures are absent from the WP pages.

Thoughts, please?

EdJogg 12:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I think we should bring the images back. S.C.Ruffeyfan 11:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

You are completely missing the point. As explained on the link above, screenshot images may not be used on multi-character pages. Single-character pages might be OK, but only if they have a suitable FUR.

EdJogg 01:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

OK.--S.C.Ruffeyfan 16:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

We could show links to a picture of a character. It means that I'll need a lot of help. --S.C.Ruffeyfan 11:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Rumour

In my sandbox, someone said Thomas was cancelled in 2002. Is that so?--S.C.Ruffeyfan 16:56, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Lists of 'Thomas' Videos – DO NOT CREATE!!

Please do not even consider thinking about creating lists of the videos of 'Thomas' episodes that have been released.
Such pages are not appreciated here at WP.
If you don't believe me, follow these links to see what other editors think...

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/10 Years of Thomas and Friends -- (AfD log entry: 6 Oct 2006)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas and Friends video releases -- (AfD log entry: 7 Aug 2007)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas and friends video – release -- (AfD log entry: 9 Oct 2007)

Be warned, I will not hesitate to support the deletion of similar unverifiable lists of Thomas videos and merchandise.

EdJogg 00:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Talk:The Great Discovery

Should I add a template saying the talk page for TGD is within the scope of the project--S.C.Ruffeyfan 17:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. Any pages that directly relate to TtTE&F/The Railway Series should be noted. They should also be included on the page of links (see somewhere else on this talk page for a link to it). However, any Fan Fiction pages should be highlighted for deletion.

EdJogg 17:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've done it now --S.C.Ruffeyfan 11:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Section headings==

A large number of pages on the lists of characters seem to be using =H1= styles rather than starting with ==H2==. This is contrary to the advice at Wikipedia:Section#Creation and numbering of sections and Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings etc., and the pattern of use elsewhere in Wikipedia. I have changed a couple, but got tired [1] [2] --Rumping (talk) 00:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

A new wiki specially for Trains...

Hello readers of WikiProject Thomas!

I just wondered if any of you would be interested in joining up to Train Spotting World, a wiki just for railways and similar things! We are also in the process of setting up several "Workforces", similar to WikiProjects, and were wondering if anyone wnated to help!

Various wikipedians have goine over there, including myself, User:Tbo 157, User:Slambo, User:EdJogg, User:Timtrent and User:S.C.Ruffeyfan.

If you want more info, or have joined up and want some guidance, let me know here or there on my talk page!

Thanks, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluegoblin7 (talk • contribs) 19:52, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Articles in need of sources

All of the Thomas and Friends season lists are unsourced. This means there is no way for readers to verify the information they contain. It also means that it is very hard to distinguish valid edits from vandalism and erroneous additions. I have tagged all the articles from Thomas and Friends – Season 1 through to Thomas and Friends – Season 12 as unsourced. Could members of the project please start citing proper sources for these. Unsourced information in articles can and will be deleted, so these articles are at risk. Thanks, Gwernol 22:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This is something I've been asking for all along. I guess that most of the information is gleaned directly from the programmes concerned. Obviously, this makes it difficult for non-fans to verify, and it's also the reason that I don't get involved with these pages!

How are other television programme episode articles sourced?

EdJogg (talk) 00:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Season 12 Details

I recently got into an editing conflict with S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. over a morsel of information in some of the recently-released details of Season 12 episodes. On the subject of the episode "Steady Eddie" (which has only a title and no summary, adding to the confusion), some parties are debating that "Eddie" is the name of a new character and not just a variation of "Edward". S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. took the viewpoint that we should consider the title an indication of a new character until we have information saying otherwise, while I argue that we should wait to post anything until we have definite information. We decided to take it up with more experienced editors who are more in tune with Wikipedia's guidelines. Starkiller (talk) 16:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I would certainly advocate leaving everything out until the Season is aired, or at least until some WP:RELIABLE sources can be used (proving the existance of another character). Of course it might just be a pun... :). Remember WP:CRYSTAL too. –MDCollins (talk) 23:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There is no argument here. We go through this issue every time a new series is broadcast. NO EPISODE INFORMATION to be added until the series episode has actually been broadcast (unless the information is available from a RELIABLE source (which essentially here means HIT Entertainment, or a TV channel official site, but NEVER a forum!)). This particularly applies to episode summaries and new characters, and is one of the main reasons why the pages are protected in advance of broadcast dates.

Remember that the more unverifiable information that is added to the 'Thomas' pages, particularly Season pages, the more likely they will come under closer scrutiny from other WP editors. The result of this could be the wholesale deletion of large chunks of Thomas coverage.

Just be patient!

EdJogg (talk) 16:05, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The episode title in question did come from a PBS affiliate, but they later removed the individual episode titles in favor of episode themes, so now it's not really an issue until broadcast anyway. Starkiller (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Character Merges

As you'll notice, I have suggesested merges for the character articles (Except the Main 10). My reason? They lack sources, and are rather un-needed. If we can provide information to make good, cited articles, that's great, but, untill then, we should merge all the character articles into 1, titled "List of Characters in Thomas & Friends". It can have all the characters, so long as we cite them. I'll be more than happy to help. I hope that you all agree, and that we can get this work completed soon. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. 01:54, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

That's probably a good call on those short individual articles – I think even some of the shorter engine articles would fare better on the character lists – but I think a single article for all characters might run kind of long (I remember seeing such articles plagued with edit warring and arguments over format). If we can condense all the information and make it really neat, though, it might work.

Starkiller (talk) 14:30, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

The present arrangement of character articles was developed by the founders of the WP:THOMAS project, some two years ago. The major changes since then have been the removal of most of the pictures as 'non-free', and the rationalisation of the TV Series Narrow Gauge characters onto one page.

What exactly are you suggesting doing this time? (You start this thread with "As you'll notice", but I have been away from WP for two weeks, and may not have the pages in question on my watchlist.)

Please do not make major changes to the character articles without first disucssing them here.

EdJogg (talk) 16:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

UPDATE Please do not even consider merging character pages for any character that appears in the Railway Series books (such as Duck, Donald & Douglas, Terence, etc (three I picked at random)). Merging Railway Series character details to a TV Series page is wholly inappropriate and the merge banners should be removed immediately. (Especially since the merge destination page is not marked as such). Most information about the TV Series characters is unreferenced, whereas the majority of book character information can be referenced to published sources (even if citations are not provided yet.)

The character summary pages provide a SUMMARY of the information on the individual character pages (where they are sufficiently notable to have their own page -- see long-ago discussions elsewhere!). Therefore you might be able to reduce the detail on the grouped character summary pages, but not on the individual pages.

EdJogg (talk) 16:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

As for the characters, look at one you cited yourself – Terrence – you have a brief character description and then a bunch of lists. I don't see much that makes it distinct enough to have its own article. Even Duck isn't that expansive – you could redistribute the TV/RS info into their respective articles and not lose much. Harold and Emily are similar, while Trevor, Donald and Douglas are strangely articulate, but still fairly short for distinct articles.

I don't think we're just arbitrarily trying upset the establishment by rearranging things – we're throwing around ideas to condense the information and make the articles look more presentable to the public. Starkiller (talk) 16:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks EdJogg for your reply. To those suggesting merges, it should be made clear that when these guidelines were drawn up and an extensive discussion of 'character articles' took place, one of the strong bases was for the distinction of material from The Railway Series and Thomas and Friends. It was decided that only the very main articles should have their own pages, with the differences in portrayal between the books and the TV medium clearly defined there. All of the other characters were merged into grouped articles according to the medium (resulting that some of the minor characters have differing articles in the [[Railway engines (Thomas and Friends) and Major characters in The Railway Series groups (for example). I remember that EdJogg and I were of the same persuasion when discussion this, because confusion arouse from editors adding characterisations from the TV series into a Railway Series perspective, and so information was getting muddled. Hence the need to delineate between RS and TV.

I feel that from a RS perspective (where my knowledge lies), the character groups still work rather well (albeit that the pictures have now been lost), and I don't really know how things are from the TV. Emily is a strange example, as she doesn't appear in the RS books. As to how 'major' she is on TV, I don't really know, so can't really comment on whether she deserves her own article. As for the Scottish twins, that article looks well written containing useful information, although it could (along with most of the others) do with some hard referencing.

I'm still not sure that the Skarloey engines all need separate articles (EdJogg and I were proposing to deal with this a long time ago!), the summary descriptions are often better written than the individual articles (c.f. Duncan (Thomas the Tank Engine) and Narrow gauge engines (Thomas and Friends)#Duncan).

Therefore, I would oppose any merging of the characters who appear in both the books and TV (the main 10 or so), especially if the merge was to a TV series orientated article. If you can see a way forward to merge/reorganise the TV series articles, you would have no disagreement with me, provided that all of the redirects are in place.

Bear in mind that if you merge Railway engines (Thomas and Friends) and Narrow gauge engines (Thomas and Friends) for starters, you have a pretty hefty article.

Some links for you:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas/Article List#Characters—contains all of the redirects

Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas/WPThomas Links

Best wishes, –MDCollins (talk) 17:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

This all happened fast...

The reason as to why I want these merges is that, the articles currently don't source anything, and seem very sloppy, and are full of un-nesecary things, like "Merchandise". Is that really needed? Then, a list of book appearances. Something else we really don't need. We can describe their role in each book though. I think, however, we should merge all the character articles, into just "Major Characters" (The main characters, and major recurring one's like Duck, Oliver, etc.), and "Minor Characters" (For rather minor characters/one off's, or characters who only appeared in one season. This would contain Duke, Old Slow Coach, 16, etc.) Anyone who has enough information to warrant an article, we'll give them an article. However, let it be noted that this will most likely just be the main characters (IE: Thomas, Percy, James, Toby, etc.)

Any questions? I think that this could really be used to help improve the articles, and possibly, get them to GA status. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 19:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Something like this....

Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 20:57, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

First, let me apologise if I have trodden on anyone's toes. When MDCollins alerted me to the merge suggestion I felt I needed to act quickly to prevent a lot of editing effort being undone without appropriate discussion. As a result I may have typed harshly; however, it was the character-sorting of the Railway Series characters that got me into WP editing in the first place, and I have a natural inclination to maintain in good order what was developed over the space of a year of discussions between editors. There is also the simple matter that there were no details provided here of the suggestions -- that has since been rectified, and I will respond accordingly...

1. Railway Series (RS) vs TV Series (T&F) – (i) – The Railway Series characters pre-date the tv series by forty years (or more), and therefore in any article they should take historical precedence.
2. RS vs T&F – (ii) – The whole basis of creating WP:THOMAS was because the character articles were in a big mess and needed rationalising. There were tens of TV-character pages that were only a few lines long and contained nothing more than fan-cruft. Probably the most fundamental guideline was that RS and T&F characters would be handled separately. The second guideline being that only the most significant characters would have their own article pages, all others would be grouped together in an appropriate form. (I believe we have reached a stable state with these, although there is still a question mark about the Skarloey locomotives.)
3. Structure – the article structure (grouped pages, separate for RS and TV) was developed over a number of months through consultation between many 'Thomas' fans, on both sides of the book vs TV divide. The grouped pages are already very large and need LESS information, if anything, not more. But in most cases, little needs to be done, once the information is cited.
4. References – WP requires that all information may be verified. I think that, given enough time, I could provide references for 80-90% of the information relating to the RS characters. I could also reference the early history of TtTE&F (since it is covered in Rev Awdry's biography) although this would only cover the first few series, and then not an a per-episode or character basis. The majority of the TV Series text, by contrast, is quoted from the TV programmes themselves, and is not covered by reliable sources. If we followed WP guidelines, and removed unverifiable text, very little would remain about the TV series characters, etc.
5. Quality – I do not dispute that some of the articles could be better written (particularly the TV series coverage). I have been working elsewhere in WP and have not given them the attention they deserve. Nevertheless, to say that the book information is unnecessary is a Point of View that is as biased as me saying that the TV series details are not needed (although I think many impartial editors would probably agree with both of us and remove it all!!)
6. GA Status -- I admire your ambitions, but I have worked on a number of GA and FA articles, and I have to tell you in the nicest way possible that we don't stand a chance! There aren't enough references available (as far as I know) for any of the articles to get past first base. The only possible exceptions are The Railway Series, Thomas & Friends (with a LOT of work, assuming the references may be found), and possibly Thomas the Tank Engine itself, although this would need to borrow heavily from the other two. Please don't let this stop you from striving for the highest quality in the articles.

I hope the above gives you an indication why MDCollins and myself have emerged on the defensive, although partly this is because between us we have clocked-up many tens of hours pulling this stuff into shape.

This project has been quiet for the past two years as most of the basic restructuring had been completed, and only polish was needed (from the Railway Series POV). The TV Series articles needed rather more work, but that was beyond our knowledge and we had to leave this to other editors. You two are the latest in a series of editors trying to pull the T&F articles into line. Please can I respectfully request that you concentrate in your sphere of knowledge, on the TV Series aspects. We can then assist you, where appropriate, in linking to book-related information, etc. As I have said several times already, what is most missing are adequate references for the TV Series stuff. If you can provide these, then that will create the greatest improvement to the articles for the least amount of work.

Regards – EdJogg (talk) 21:11, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

...*Eye twitches* That was...ALOT. I can kind of understand the point you're trying to make, and we can possibly divide it up a little better to make things neater. After alot of work, I'm sure that this will turn out alot better. That was simply what the first design is. It can be changed at any time, to solve issues. Just try to consult me first. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 21:21, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry it was a lot to take in at once, but you're coming into this project quite late, so there's a lot for you to catch up on.

And when you said "Just try to consult me first.", you did mean "I'll consult the other project members, give them time to respond/react, and obtain consensus, before doing any major changes.", didn't you?

Where it is clear that something is wrong and needs fixing, and you have an appropriate fix, you can be sure of my support. However, some of the suggested changes are likely to degrade the quality of the articles, and I will not be supporting them.

EdJogg (talk) 00:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I meant if anyone wants to change that sandbox template. (People have a habit of changing my sandboxes..., and deleting them whenever I leave for more than a few hours...)

However, I will demonstrate what I have in store in that sandbox template (Be aware, I won't be sourcing things) ,and I think that once I finish, they could improve the articles, if you guys think it won't, no big deal, I'll scrap the idea and we'll all move on. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 01:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Season article merge?

I was also thinking recently that maybe all the separate Season articles should be merged into one "Episodes" article – since the Season articles have been basically reduced to summaries now, and don't take up much space, I think they could be reasonably condensed into one article (one like this). Starkiller (talk) 14:30, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Season articles probably don't need to be merged. There's no need to cover all the episodes on one page, as WP is not short of space. This just seems to be work for the sake of it. It is far more important to provide references to verify the information contained on these pages or else they may be challenged and deleted. (See earlier comment on this page.)

EdJogg (talk) 16:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Editing the seasons together might run too long (I tested in the sandbox), but what I was getting at is that the content of the individual season pages doesn't seem too distinctive. Maybe we could cite some info on the production of each season, or talk about how the content was adapted from the books, just to give each page some kind of distinction. Also, part of my reasoning was with episode numbering confusion – where On Site with Thomas or Engines and Escapades fit in the series is kind of iffy (especially since E&E episodes are starting to pop up in Season 12 descriptions, and in a different order).Starkiller (talk) 16:56, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Starkiller, not a bad idea with the episodes. Just merge them all into "List of episodes". Just about every other tv seris has done that. Only two come to mind that don't Lost, and Desperate Housewives. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 19:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind too much what you do with these pages, providing it follows WP guidelines. May I suggest you prototype your suggestion in a sandbox, and ask for opinion here. (I promise we won't shoot you down in flames!) Bear in mind that it is better to have twelve "short" pages than one enormous one that people take years to scroll through. WP is not limited for space like that – either in page size or number of pages – consider useability and user-friendliness first.

The suggestion of adding production details and the like is very good. This would help fill out the page with verifiable facts. You may find that there is a suitable infobox template available that will guide you towards the necessary data.

Before you go too far with re-arranging what is already there, may I recommend that you spend some time seeking out appropriate reference sources? The TtTE&F pages are almost unreferenced at present, and this makes them very vulnerable to deletion. It would also be worth investigating whether it is permitted to use the TV programmes themselves as a reference, and the best way to do this. You will have to seek advice at the Village Pump, as I am not an expert in such matters.

EdJogg (talk) 20:25, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have much knowlege on the situation due to he recent mishaps at the Sonic articles. I'll try demonstrating what I think should be done in a sandbox like I am with the Sonic characters. I agree that the production details are good, and even a reception section, but, we just need to find proper source, to prevent a possible deletion, and neaten up something that seems like a spread out mess at the moment. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 20:44, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I did test in the sandbox, but decided it'd be better to just expand on the individual articles, for the same length reasons you specified. I might try to create a neater index on the TV series' main page. Something like this:

Season		Original Release	Episodes
	Series 1	1984	26
	Series 2	1986	26
	Series 3	1991–92	26
	Series 4	1994–95	26
	Series 5	1998	26
	Thomas and the Magic Railroad	2000	-
	Series 6	2002	26
	Series 7	2003	26
	Series 8	2004	26
	Calling All Engines	2005	-
	Series 9	2005	26
	Series 10	2006	28
	On Site with Thomas	2006	13
	Series 11	2007	20
	Engines and Escapades	2007	6
	The Great Discovery	2008	-
	Series 12	2008	20

I think some of the changes in recent seasons may even be covered in HIT press releases (i.e. Season 11's change to hi-def, Season 12's implementation of CGI, etc.) There are some interviews with various TV staff on http://sodor-island.net/ - would that site's information be considered reliable? Starkiller (talk) 23:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunatley, no, we can't source/cite SIF due to the fact that it's a fansite. Though, merging all season's into just "List of Episodes" is a better idea. It's not like we have all the details like this does. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 00:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah. The interviews would have been good sources for production info. I guess the episodes could do as a single article, although with the rate HIT's producing the show it could get very large very fast. Starkiller (talk) 00:17, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

True, true. Very true. If we could dig up as much info as hey have for Lost articles, then, by all means, we can pull off a GA article for each season. Unfortunatley, all we have are just, listing the episodes, their summaries, and a long list of characters for each season article. We don't have any information telling about the production, and all of that other stuff that makes a good article. Any proposals? Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 00:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

You could try a little research trick to get round this. Find information on the forum, eg production team member names, and then Google for it elsewhere. You never know, you might strike lucky! EdJogg (talk) 00:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a good point, Ed. I hadn't thought of that. I jut gotta do a quick errand on SNN, and I'll look around. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 00:29, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

User Box?

Does this project have a userbox? If not, I will happily provide one. Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. 01:55, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes – see the project page. EdJogg (talk) 16:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at the project page, and I don't see a userbox for it. Unfortunatley, if I make any userboxes, I will be indef blocked... -.- (Long story)

Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 19:17, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I was referring to {{Thomas-project-member}}. Admittedly this is a large box rather than a standard size box, but it's what we have for now. If you fancy creating the template for a conventional userbox in a sandbox and pointing the code at me, I can create it for you, so you won't be blocked. EdJogg (talk) 20:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

How about something like this?

File:Thomas the Tank Engine Rug (Cropped).jpg

This user is a member of WikiProject: Thomas

I tried using colors matching the main cast, but, the hex triplet has been de-activated on me... -.- Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 20:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll try and keep this constructive!

1. You won't be able to use that image. We used to use it (it's my picture!) but I was reprimanded for using a picture of a 'Derivative Work', which is covered by Copyright. As such it would need to be declared 'Free Use' (and follow the related regulations), but as a Free Use image would not be permitted as a UserBox picture anyway. (I'm not certain that the current project picture is permitted either, but while we can get away with it... I suggest you use the same one, as it will be a simple matter to change all three at the same time if needed.)
2. It's "WikiProject THOMAS", NOT the "Thomas & Friends Project". The project covers the Railway Series books, the spin-off television series (remember that fact!), and related matters. As you will have now found, project members tend to fall into one camp or the other!!
3. The colours are hideous, but then I think that's what you were trying to tell me... :o)

Hope that helps.

EdJogg (talk) 00:42, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I fixed what it says, I'll switch the image in a few minutes, and the colors, I don't know. You can change them to whatever you want, since I can now only do the basic colors...(IE:Yellow, green, blue, red, magenta, purple, black, and white.) Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. Soul 01:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Media franchises

Dear WikiProject Thomas participants...WikiProject Media franchises needs some help from other projects which are similar. Media franchises' scope deals primarily with the coordination of articles within the hundreds if not thousands of media franchises which exist. Sometimes a franchise might just need color coordination of the various templates used; it could mean creating an article for the franchise as a jump off point for the children of it; or the creation of a new templating system for media franchise articles. The project primarily focuses on multimedia franchises. It would be great if some of this project's participants would come over and help the project get back on solid footing. Also, if you know of similar projects which have not received this, let Lady Aleena (talk · contribs) know. Please come and take a look at the project and see if you wish to lend a hand. You can sign up here if you wish. Thank you. LA @ 21:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Franchise naming convention discussion at WikiProject Media franchises

Dear WikiProject Thomas participants...WikiProject Media franchises is currently discussing a naming convention for franchise articles. Since this may affect one or more articles in your project, we would like to get the opinions of all related projects before implimenting any sweeping changes. Please come and help us decide. Thanks! LA (T) @ 23:04, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like my thoughts came true. Just to give you all a fair warning, my merging ideas are probably right around the corner! I have a feeling that this will be the whole Sonic Character dispute all over again! ^Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. _Soul 01:19 23:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

A heads up

I've just completed a merge of Minor characters from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends to the Visiting Engines section of Railway engines (Thomas and Friends). However, there are a large number of now-double redirects athat need to be fixed. To complicate the matter, they should not all aim to the one place, instead they should be spread amongst the various character lists to point at the relevant information. I've done the ones I know and can easily track down, but the rest can be identified at [3] -- saberwyn 00:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

May I politely remind you that it is the job of the person carrying out the merge to sort out the double redirects, especially if they may be problematic ones, rather than leaving them for other people?–MDCollins (talk) 14:11, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I see that I jumped at the nick of time. May I point out, that the articles should be sorted out similar to this template that I created...

It'd be alot neater than our current state. _Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. ^Soul 01:07, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Please remember that consensus needs to be agreed to perform major overhauls of articles and their structure, help and advice is available at WP:MERGE–MDCollins (talk) 14:11, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know. That's why I haven't done this yet. If it were up to me, I would've done so by now. I'm just waiting for what everyone thinks. _Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. ^Soul 20:01, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem about the merge of minor characters to railway engines, as has just been completed. The 'minor' page had ended up quite stubby, so it sort-of makes sense to do this. It does mean that the destinction between 'major' and 'minor' characters has been lost now, but I guess this is the price of progress (and it is much harder to define for the hundreds of TV Series characters, anyway). The double-redirects should be sorted out by those doing the merge. The redirects should ALL be anchored to the appropriate characters, rather than just pointing to the overall page.

As for the template you are proposing, I do not see that there is a need for it. The existing template is quite adequate (if, admittedly, rather large) and covers ALL aspects relating to the 'Thomas' articles. The only (major) modification I might consider is the splitting of the Railway Series and TV Series links into two templates. However, since the articles for Thomas, Gordon, Edward, etc will cover both TV and books, they will be present in both templates, and both templates will need to be present on their pages. This will just add unnecessary duplication and will look rather silly, so I would prefer to stick to the one.

I am still not clear what problem you are trying to address by your proposed work, SLJCOAAATR. Could you please start a new section here and detail the issues you are trying to address, and the solutions proposed, so that we can discuss them properly. Thanks EdJogg (talk) 10:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Thomas template – to split or not to split??

Following on from the other merge proposals on this page, I was wondering whether it might be appropriate to break-up the {{Thomas}} navi-template? I'm not convinced this change is actually needed; however, there is an argument for simplifying the template, and the obvious way is to split it along TV series/books lines. To achieve this we would need FOUR templates:

1. The existing Thomas template would be for use on pages relating to both books and TV Series -- if we're clever, this can incorporate the other two templates (although this may not be possible in practice)
2. A new template to be recreated for Railway Series -only articles
3. A new template to be recreated for TV Series -only articles (I think this is what SLCOATRR???? is after)
4. A new sub-template to list all the major characters, to be incorporated in the other three templates

Now this is an awful lot of work for very little gain (remembering that all the articles that use the templates will also need changing!) but if there is an overwhelming need for a change, then this is what I would suggest is appropriate.

EdJogg (talk) 11:37, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not convinced of the need yet, but will listen to all proposals...–MDCollins (talk) 12:18, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Some of my problems are simply,

• 1. RWS, and TV articles bassically duplicate for the characters who appeared in both. There's no need to duplicate what's already there seeing as some of the TV eps. (Specifically, S1-4) are based on the books, and this just retcons the whole thing.

Except the whole purpose of the Character Page Rationalisation was to split them to avoid debates between the two perspectives. The reason some of it looks duplicated is that nobody has really touched them since the split. (MDCollins)

• 2. Most of the characters who have seperate articles (IE: Trevor, Bertie, Harold, etc.) really don't add to Wikipedia in any way, and an easily be merged into an article about all of them. I'm still on th iffy side on weather any character really needs an article. If they do, then they need lots of work to improve them. Let's take a look at say, Martin Keamy. If we can try to model our articles after his article, that'd be great! (MDCollins)

Wikipedia is not under any space issues, so this is not really an issue. If Trevor, Bertie and Harold don't add anything, perhaps they could be better written?. Unless I'm missing something, what has Martin Keamy got to do with it? Other than being an example of a referenced article? And why mention it if you propose to remove all individual character articles? Excellent, well written and referenced articles are something we all aspire to. (MDCollins)

• 3. Very little is actually sourced. How are people who don't know much about the series suppossed to know if it's true, or not?

Exactly. Which is our point all along. Why don't we spend time referencing things rather than juggling all of the information into different pages? I'm not sure you understand quite how long it will take – EdJogg and I remember it took months to sort it all out last time. And we still didn't finish the Skarloey engines.–MDCollins (talk) 00:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to through my example out here:

I personally think that if we tried pulling of the articles like that, they could be great articles! We just need to source everything. Any questions? _Skeletal S.L.J.C.O.A.A.A.T.R. ^Soul 17:58, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Another point to make for the existence of dual-character pages was the amount of young editors who would attack the characters from an unbalanced TV series perspective, (some not realising that there were even books) so that they all looked like they were created for/by TV and not based on printed (easily sourceable?) material, i.e. the RS. If well-written articles are what you aim for, why not start by referencing some of the material on the 10 major engines.–MDCollins (talk) 00:59, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

(after edit conflict)

• 1 – Not true. From what I remember there's very little overlap within the articles. But, if you reckon that S1-S4 are just retcons, you'd best delete the Season 1 – 4 articles. That was not a serious suggestion. You are clearly completely unfamiliar with the book characters and the many differences that were introduced in the TV series – take Oliver's rescue, for example – check the entry for Rusty from about a year ago which discussed the stupidity behind that story line! Oliver is standard gauge, Rusty is narrow gauge -- how could Rusty rescue Oliver? (I was going to refer you to the actual text, but it seems to have been lost in the meantime.)

• 2 – Notice the references in the Martin Keamy article. How many of them refer to the series itself? Now compare the Thomas & Friends TV Series coverage. How many such references are there? Can you find ANY within WP??

I have a copy of all 41 books in the Railway Series, plus a copy of all three of the reference works you will see mentioned from time-to-time. (Have a look on Culdee Fell Railway: I made sure that all three were ref'd on that page to save me some time later.) I can add references for all genuine incidents in the Railway Series books, plus some background taken from the reference sources. However, I cannot provide the appropriate references for the TV Series.

• 3 – True. See 2 above.

NOW what are we going to do about this?

First let's see on what we agree: (i) the character coverage is patchy and needs some re-work; (ii) the majority of information is unsourced and needs referencing; (iii) some of the separate character pages can be absorbed into group pages (having seen the 'Rusty' page, for example)

What do we disagree on?: (i) TV Series descriptions overlap Book descriptions; (ii) There is no place for individual character pages on WP; (iii) all TV/Books characters should be merged into two pages, one per genre; (iv) there is a need for a new Thomas template

How do we move forward? I think that the two most important points that you highlight are the lack of references and the patchy text. I really do not believe that there is much in the way of restructuring that is needed -- at least at this stage. So, what do we do? I suggest we tackle each character in turn, updating the text according to available references and generally polishing them up. Once this is complete it will be clear to see, from the level of text present, whether we should consider merging any more characters. I can tackle the Railway Series characters (hopefully with some help from MDCollins!) while I trust that you can tackle the TV Series aspects. I suggest that you start with the characters that do NOT appear in the Railway Series, while I will tackle the Skarloey Railway characters (the only bit that has never been fully completed from the original WP:THOMAS proposals) -- at least from a Railway Series point-of-view.

Please note that I have work to do on other articles within WP (for example, there are several railway-related articles aiming for GA status that I am helping proof-read), so this is not going to be a 5-minute job -- rather I see it as taking a number of months. This need not matter, as WP 'has no deadline'.

I trust that you'll agree to my suggestions, as they do not conflict with your basic concerns. After we're done, it will be much easier to see what should be merged, and where, and that will address your other concern.

Regards -- EdJogg (talk) 01:44, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I think I'm going to largely agree with EdJogg's suggestions here. I agree that the lack of references is a problem, and I'm ashamed to admit that it's one of those things I keep meaning to do something about.

I don't think we really need to merge any more – at the absolute minimum, there's a justification for keeping engines 1-7 (because this is a huge, worldwide, 60-year-old franchise of which these characters consistently form the nucleus) and the Fat Controller (ditto, plus his major pop culture impact outside the serieseses)

Overlapping is a slight worry – perhaps the articles should be reconfigured to:

1. Basic introduction

2. Character in the books

3. Character on TV, movies

4. Background info

I say most of the trivia and technical detail could be scrapped entirely. Maybe I'm being a bit too blunt here, but I don't really think it matters if a character has a slightly different running plate in series 9 or they've crashed four times or in one episode they have the wrong whistle sound. HonestTom (talk) 22:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Conclusion

Since the previous discussions I have heavily modified the template, having discovered that I could. It is now sub-divided into groups internally, each of which may be hidden. Hence much of the previous discussion is now redundant.

EdJogg (talk) 02:20, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Railway Series articles slated for deletion

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arlesdale Railway

Basically it covers the various individual railway articles and the individual locations (Dryaw, etc)

Has been raised by someone with an axe to grind (?) and few edits to his name thus far.

Urgent assistance would be appreciated!

EdJogg (talk) 02:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Matter resolved (hopefully 'for good'!)

Nominator was found to be a sockpuppet, hence the AFD was closed as 'Speedy Keep' for procedural reasons. According to the nom's talkpage he was a self-confessed vandal (and sock puppet) out to cause disruption to 'Thomas' articles. He has since been blocked.

Nevertheless, this serves to remind us that the articles are largely unreferenced (in-line) yet, and to watch for / avoid 'in-universe' writing.

EdJogg (talk) 23:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Invite

Hello fellow Thomas the Tank Engine WikiProject members!

I would like to post this as a formal invitation to the users here to join my new forum, which can be found at this link:

The NEW Tugboats and Thomas Forums

There are many different discussions and room for plenty more, just follow the rules and have fun.

Several users here have already decided to join and I hope more will. Check it out and enjoy!!!

ZEM (Hankengine) (talk) 02:27, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Pierce Brosnan update

Just noticed on the Season 12 page that (apparently) Pierce Brosnan is NOT going to be narrating seasons 12-14 after all.

1. Do we have a citable reference for that (it would be useful, as we have a citable ref saying that he is going to do it!)
2. Ditto for whoever actually is narrating these series
3. Has anyone systematically updated all mentions of Pierce Brosnan with regard to T&F?? (The news was added to numerous pages). This needs doing.

Cheers EdJogg (talk) 17:30, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I've checked it out here in the States, Michael Brandon narrated "Thomas and the Billboard" and "Steady Eddie" yesterday morning! Very strange, has anyone checked Brosnan's website?

ZEM (Hankengine) (talk) 18:38, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Season 12 episode "Tram Trouble"

If someone wants a little something to do (!?), it looks like the episode listing for "Tram Trouble" (between "James Works It Out" and "Don't Go Back"?) went missing on 30 Sept, and hasn't been seen since! Next TV showing appears to be on Fiver this coming weekend (Sat 8 Nov). Kwerty (talk) 20:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Season 13 – here we go again...

Someone has (re)created Thomas and Friends – Season 13.

At present it is not categorised, nor identified as a project page, but more to the point, there are no references for the information.

What is the current status of Pierce Brosnan, etc?

EdJogg (talk) 10:24, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Oliver and Duke – character pages or redirects??

Recently, new pages were created for Oliver the western engine and Duke (Thomas the Tank engine). Another editor (not me) proposed them both for deletion (PROD) on the basis that it was "...against WP:THOMAS/FAQ#Guidelines for character descriptions". Despite this reason, the PROD was turned down because "...with articles on all other Thomas the Tank Engine engines and characters, there is a good chance someone will want to keep this".

Now, both pages are essentially copies of articles at the Thomas & Friends wiki at Wikia (Oliver and Duke), and there is no real textual content within the pages at Wikipedia as they stand that is not already present on the various grouped character pages.

So, what do we do now? Oliver and Duke are both 'borderline minor' characters: both have their own books in the Railway Series, but don't appear much beyond them, and neither appear very much in the TV series. On this basis they have previously been considered 'minor'. On the other hand, Duke turns up in at least four pages (Railway Series – Minor, TTE&F – Narrow Gauge, Skarloey Railway, Mid Sodor Railway) so there is some justification in pointing all of these to a single main article.

Regardless, Oliver the western engine is an incorrect page name and needs to be converted to a redirect. The question is, should the current redirect (Oliver the Western Engine) be made into a character page or not. And as for Duke, he is only a very minor character in the TV Series, so surely his character page (if created) should be Duke the Lost Engine (rather than the new Duke (Thomas the Tank engine))?

Thoughts, anyone?

Aside -- I have noticed that the Project page and the FAQs are both somewhat out-of-date now, so I need to revisit these to bring them up to scratch... Comments welcome.

EdJogg (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

A central place for Oliver might seem nice, but of course there is no reason why they can't all point to the 'Minor characters' page. I see no reason for Duke to have an individual article, and if we allow Oliver in, that opens the can of worms to allowing exceptions for anyone. A lot of discussion went into the original rationalisation and I haven't seen any real argument why any more than the main 10 should have separate pages. I don't think they need "PRODDING", a simple merge back into the "correct" place (keeping any vaguely useful information for the time being) citing the project rationalisation discussions, and to invite strong discussion here incase a different consensus arises. They were probably created by editors who didn't realise there was a scheme in place, so a point to an updated FAQ is probably fine.

By the way, I'm not convinced that prod removal (somebody might want to keep it) is valid – of course, some people might want to delete it. It could go to AfD, but that seems a bit extreme. Slap some merge templates on it and see if any discussion turns up.—MDCollins 23:06, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I thought that the PROD had followed the correct course of action, although the reason for keeping was a bit dubious. Normally I would place a merge banner on the article, but there isn't any content worth merging, so I haven't, in case someone tried it! EdJogg (talk) 01:10, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The PROD probably did, but is open to swiftly removing. My thinking was if the merge templates were up, it would invite discussion if anyone's bothered, and just gives a bit of notification that something will be done. It might save the hassle in the future if they get re-created. I wasn't saying there was anything worth merging, in which case it simply gets redirected, but some of our younger editors might want to say something.—MDCollins 13:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I guess it's the Right Thing To Do, although no-one has yet commented about the Whiff merge proposal I mooted on 29th September. (I note from my ToDo list that that merge needs resolving after 14th November -- thanks for the reminder!) I usually reckon to leave 4-6 weeks before acting on a merge proposal I have made, so flagging them as such will allow me to put off doing anything until after Christmas!!

EdJogg (talk) 14:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Finally bothered to do it. Oliver the western engine was redirected to new page Oliver (Thomas and Friends character) in the meantime (about the fourth such redirect!)

Since the official RWS titles (Oliver the Western Engine and Duke the Lost Engine) already redirect to the RWS 'Major' and 'Minor' character pages, respectively, the new redirects (which mention T&F in the name) have been redirected to the 'Railway engines' and 'Narrow Gauge engines' character pages for Thomas & Friends instead.

EdJogg (talk) 13:42, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

References for TV Series characters

These are hard to come by. As mentioned previously, "The Thomas the Tank Engine Man" book includes refs to the first four series, although I don't think this has been quoted on WP yet.

At last, HIT have provided links to the characters on their website. For example http://www.thomasandfriends.com/uk/fergus.asp describes Fergus (and also provides access to the other characters in the "Engine Depot"). I think we should include links to all of these as references from the appropriate character descriptions. However, do watch out for inconsistencies: Duke is described as the oldest engine, whereas Skarloey and Rheneas are both older (although, of course, the TV Series never did pay much attention to the characters' real history!)

Interestingly, the US and UK sub-sites have different pages -- for example, the "Oliver" page lists 'brake van' in the UK and 'break van' in the US. (I think the US page must be a typo, surely? The Americans don't really refer to brakes as 'breaks' do they??) Surprisingly there is no page for Boco, Duck, Trevor or Terence. Nevertheless its a worthwhile addition to the pages.

Anyone care to take this on as a task?

EdJogg (talk) 11:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

PS – correction, there IS a page for Duck, but it is not included in the scrollable list!! - worth checking for other characters, although Boco/Trevor/Terence are still not there. (Worth an email to the HIT webmaster, anyone?) EJ

WP:TUGS would like to say hello. Hello!

Hey hows it going. I'm SteelersFan_UK06, one of the editors on the front line of WP:TUGS, and i wanted to say a few things. You would think that two projects which are so closely linked would have more .... communication, but oh well. Anyways!

Firstly, I recently created Clearwater Periscope lens system, the television camera used on both TUGS and, from what sources say, the early series' of Thomas. I thought I should alert you lot of this, in case you wish to integrate it into your articles, and possibly – more importantly – expand upon it! As you can see with it only being a few lines, it does need a bit of work, yet it is still notable. According to a press pack released by the makers of TUGS, there were only two cameras ever made (Which suggests one for Thomas and one for TUGS, unless they filmed at different times) which makes them pretty unique. The only information i have on them is from a couple of websites used as references on the page just now, but any more information which could be added would be amazing.

Secondly, i was looking through the history of this talk page to try and find out the history of WP:TUGS (i figured it must have started here) and all i could find was Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Thomas/Archive 2#TUGS project. As far as i know, Driveus (the creator) seemed to leave on a bad note (unfortunately here and here...), seemed to not handle things very well (ahem...) as well as having a few ownership issues, which I think personally wouldn't have been the way i would have went about things. As I looked through your archives i could see that Gonzo, MDCollins, and Ed (Amongst others not forgotten!) were all making very significant improvements to the Thomas articles in a very encyclopediac (sic methinks) manner, work which i could only dream of taking place over at TUGS. You deserve a lot of thanks, which i give from myself and those at our project. And sorry about him.

And lastly, since about early to mid-2007, our TUGS WikiProject seems to have been deserted somewhat, with a number of its editors dissapearing to other waters (Driveus in particular). All i'm going to say is that anyone here who feels they could contribute in any way to our project, they would be more than welcome to join the club. I'm sure a lot of your editors would probably know quite a lot about TUGS, as they started around the same time.

Thanks again guys, and keep up the good work. --^{SteelersFanUK06} ReplyOnMine! 22:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Greetings. There has always been a bit of a tense relationship between the two projects. Part of the reason is that some of the 'Thomas' editors are mainly from the original books -side of the topic, and know little about the TV Series (nor TUGS), and hence could not really contribute. Personally I always had the impression that WP:TUGS had been set up by fans who were more interested in fancruft than the encyclopaedic value of material. It is good to know that it is now in capable hands.

Hopefully there are WP:THOMAS participants who feel they can help you. Hopefully, also, the collaborations will unearth new reference sources that can be used to back-up the article text -- this is sorely lacking in the TV Series pages at present.

EdJogg (talk) 00:23, 30 December 2008 (UTC) (sorry for delayed reply -- been 'offline' during xmas preps...)

Sodor's connection to the mainland (UK)

In reference to the suggestion on the Island of Sodor page that Sodor doesn't appear to be connected to the mainland in the television series, here are some considerations to make, although it is never specifically mentioned.

When Toby arrives on the Island of Sodor, he and Henrietta appear to travel by the mainline to meet with the Fat Controller at Tidmouth.

In season 1, in the episode 'Dirty Objects', James is performing a shunt at Knapford Junction (Elsbridge in the television series). Beside him on the siding, an open wagon can be seen with the "L M S" lettering, suggesting it has strayed from the London Midland Scottish railway. If Sodor was not connected to the mainland, it would be unlikely for trucks to be shipped to Sodor, which belonged to another railway.

When Henry is returning from Crewe, he does so along the mainline and under his own power, suggesting he has travelled home from Crewe via rail and not via ship. Should he have been transferred by ship, he'd have been collected by another engine and returned to The Yard.

The Fat Controller controls all the engines on Sodor (mentioned in season 1). If he had known of Oliver as a viable locomotive to restore for use, he would have done so. Oliver would not have been transferred to Sodor by ship if he was intended for scrap. He must have travelled with Toad by rail before running out of coal.

When numerous diesel electrics arrive (or depart), they do so by rail. If they have come to work on the Fat Controller's railway (or are leaving) the must travel to beyond its limits, in this case, back to the mainland. When they depart, the do so by rail.

Although there is no definitive point that suggests it is connected to the mainland, I can't see how the article can suggest that it isn't with the above in consideration.

Toxation (talk) 15:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

This was 'addressed' by an anon editor some two weeks later (who just deleted the sentence!). The points you make are valid. I have further modified the article to indicate that the link to the mainland must be there, but is (presumably) never actually featured in the TV Series. (In the books it is clear that there is a link, although it is never specifically pictured.)

EdJogg (talk) 13:25, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

New User Box available

This is loooooong overdue.

Project participants may be interested to know that I have finally got round to creating a standard user box:

   This user is a member of
    WikiProject THOMAS

Feel free to use this in place of the existing wide box, or to start using it if you haven't already done so.

The choice of text background colour is arbitrary, but seems OK to me. "NWR blue" is usually darker, but using something like it causes readibilty problems by reducing the contrast vs the text colour. The choice of picture is simple: any photo used must not be 'non-free use', which pretty much excludes ALL photos/graphics of Thomas etc. This photo of "Duck" is not really a photo of "Duck", right? It is a GWR Pannier tank loco wearing a face mask, and the resemblance to "Duck" is purely co-incidental... (You do understand, don't you....? It's really not "Duck", OK?)

EdJogg (talk) 13:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks great! ZEM talk to me! 13:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

User:Hankengine

For anyone who knew me here, I'm not going to be editing with this project much for a while as I'm seriously busy with projects on Wikia. ZEM talk to me! 13:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. I predict that a major cull of fiction topics will take place at WP in the next few years, and much of the 'Thomas' material (being, at best, unreferenced) will be swept away. Having thorough coverage at the Wikia site will be a good alternative (although you'll have to keep a close watch for the continued adding of fan speculation stuff!)

EdJogg (talk) 12:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Movie Characters

Hey, all. I've been swooping through the TV articles lately, trying to see what I could clean up, and I eventually came to the "Film Characters". Well lately I've been wondering if the distinction between the TV series and the movies exists, or if it's more of something that the fans invented. One of the big arguments for the separation was that events in the movies/specials had no impact on the show, but that line's starting to blur.

One point to get out of the way: continuity in the TV series has always been shaky at best. Character development in Calling All Engines may not have carried over completely, but the sets have appeared since (the airport and the sheds). Great Discovery set up the following season with Stanley and Waterton. At the least, the "Calling All Engines," "Great Discovery," and "Hero of the Rails" sections don't add anything that isn't covered in other articles.

The only problem I can see in merging is the Shining Time characters creating crossover issues. But I'd like to open this point up for debate now. Starkiller (talk) 18:59, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Surely the problem here is that the article has been messed-up. Thomas the Tank Engine film characters is clearly the correct place for the characters from Thomas and the Magic Railroad (unless there is space for them in the film's own page). The other "films" are more like feature-length episodes of the TV Series (AFAIK), and the text in these sections could (mostly) be lost without any negative impact on the encyclopaedia.

Having been dealing with some Featured Article reviews recently, the correct action for this page is to remove completely the sections "Calling All Engines", "The Great Discovery Characters", "Hero of the Rails Characters", replacing them with links under 'See also'. The next stage would be to set about finding references for what is left...

• The character coverage in Calling All Engines, and The Great Discovery is more than adequate for Wikipedia, so these lists may be safely deleted.

• Note that Hero of the Rails is entirely unreferenced, and is liable for deletion if nothing is found soon. (Its presence here would be regarded as fan speculation, as is the character list in the Film Characters article.)

I don't watch the 'Thomas' TV-series pages in general (a) because I am not knowledgeable about them, but mainly (b) because the quality of information/editing is so poor. Look at the edit history of the film characters' article and you will see that of the SEVENTY-or-so edits in the eight months between Sept 2008 and May 2009 only ONE has been by a registered editor (ignoring vandalism reversions).

So, if you remove the TV-Series additions you should find that the article becomes rather more cohesive once more.

EdJogg (talk) 09:12, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. The TV series is more my area, and I try to come in and clean up when I can. I'll see what I can do with the movie chars. page. Starkiller (talk) 22:10, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, Victor at the Steam works is missing. He is mentioned in the articles but he is NOT LISTED in the cast of characters. It's like he was dumped into the sea and forgotten. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.94.65.64 (talk) 15:08, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Series vs. Season

Since the show is (or at least was, at the beginning) primarily a British production, wouldn't it be more appropriate to use the term "Series" in place of "Season?" I noticed a discrepancy on the Thomas and Friends page, which uses both. I think in part since pages in this project insist on using Commonwealth spelling and terms, "Series" would be more appropriate. Starkiller (talk) 17:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I have no personal preference, although now you mention it, 'Series' is probably more normal to British ears! The decision may have been to avoid the collision between series descriptions and the phrase "TV series" (ie "Season 1 of the TV series", rather than "Series 1 of the TV series").

You'll need to canvass wider opinion (have you asked at the SiF forum? what do they use?) as I have simply gone along with what's written in the WP:THOMAS/FAQ. (The FAQs were adapted from writings by the WP:THOMAS founding members who were far more versed in aspects of the TV series than I.) Hope thath helps a little.

EdJogg (talk) 00:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Not really familiar with the forum, but I've seen on their main site they say "Series." Plus Amazon UK lists the boxsets as "Series" and HIT press releases like this have used the term "series," which is good enough for me. Starkiller (talk) 22:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

If HiT press releases use 'series' (consistently), then we should follow suit. -- EdJogg (talk) 12:26, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Episode Count / Identification

In my browsing of the Thomas episodes I've noticed

(a) the info box episode count is given as 323, but I can only find 321 (Series / Seasons 1 through 12 come to 308, including the 6 from "Engines and Escapades", + the 13 from "Jack and the Pack / On site with Thomas / Thomas' Trusty Friends"). Note: this is sort of consistent with the HIT poster not long ago which refers to 288 episodes, + 20 more on the way (series 12) = 308

(b) the episodes are numbered throughout the series / seasons by the episode number (e.g. 143, 245 etc), and not the number within each series / season (e.g 1, 2, ..., 26). The main exception to this is series 1 (obviously) and series 11, which has been referenced 1 – 26 (including the "escapade" episodes) rather than 263 to 288 (series twelve reverts to "normal" with numbers 289 – 308)

(c) The episode numbers given to the 13 "Jack and the Pack" episodes are 235 – 247, which is the same as given to the first 13 (different) episodes in the series 10 list.

(d) Would it be better to include all the "Escapade" and "Jack" episodes "fully" in the main list rather than separately, with an appropriate annotation that they were / are DVD only as appropriate (particularly as the "Escapade" episodes have now been broadcast in the US)

Kwerty (talk) 02:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you talk to User:Starkiller about this, as he has been doing some good work providing episode references for the characters, etc. Personally I have no problem about the suggestions you make, especially if you can find references. At the very least if you make sure everything is covered consistently this can provide a reference point to revert back to when anon editors come and change things.

However, I am not knowledgeable about the TV series, so there may be other editors with differing viewpoints you should consider.

EdJogg (talk) 10:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say that the episodes from "The Pack" and "Engines and Escapades" should go towards the episode count of the series. I think, for example, some kind of footnote at the beginning of the Series 10 article (or any article affected by the episode count) would be good enough.

As for solving the numbering format, I see that on this page, they have both listed side-by-side (OT: they have a category for writers – I think that could be useful for Series 6+ episodes). Starkiller (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Try something like this:

#	Total	Title	Writer(s)	Original airdate	TV order
1	209	"Percy & the Oil Painting"	Abi Grant	4 September, 2005	201a
Percy shows an artist around Sodor to inspire his next painting, "The Spirit of Sodor", but the artist doesn't think any of Percy's places are special.
2	210	"Thomas & the Rainbow"	Abi Grant	4 September, 2005	201b
Edward tells Thomas about the rainbow he just saw, and he spends his trip trying to find the end of the rainbow to see what's magical there. But he also ignores what he should be doing.
3	211	"etc"	etc	etc	etc
etc

Starkiller (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Images of book covers in articles on book series

There is discussion on how best to use cover art to "significantly improve reader understanding" for book series, without going overboard on non-free content images, both at WT:NFC#Requesting comment about galleries of book covers for book series articles and at Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2009 July 23, where a very large number of book covers has been nominated for deletion.

Please do pass this on to relevant other WikiProjects whose members may be interested. Jheald (talk) 23:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

WP:THOMAS members are encouraged to contribute to these discussions if they wish.

The List of Railway Series books was originally designed to include a thumbnail of each book cover (and this layout can probably still be seen at the TrainSpotting World page). The page appearance was effective and informative since the book cover illustrations have remained constant throughout and the thumbnails would aid identification. However, at nearly 50 images, this fell foul of the NFC criteria, and the whole lot were deleted when the NFC rules were actively enforced.

If the result of the discussions is the retention of book cover illustrations, this list would benefit from their re-instatement (although this is more than a little work to do!).

EdJogg (talk) 13:53, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment on Biographies of living people

Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people

Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, nearly all wikiproject topics will be effected.

The two opposing positions which have the most support is:

1. supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
2. opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect

Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.

Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced BLP articles if they are not sourced, so your project may want to source these articles as soon as possible. See the next, message, which may help.

I have not contributed to the discussion as I have no wish to become involved. Obviously this project will abide by the findings. In the mean time... The following is a list of articles in the project's scope which could fall under this category:

• Christopher Awdry -- one reference (and not yet using TTtTEM)
• Peter and Gunvor Edwards -- unreferenced stub (although there's nothing contentious within!)
• Clive Spong -- unreferenced (very long) stub

These articles, alas, are no longer BLP:

• Wilbert Awdry, Clarence Reginald Dalby, John T. Kenney

These articles are in the Thomas template but not in the project article list:

• Johnny Morris, Willie Rushton, David Mitton -- not BLP
• Ted Robbins (BLP -- referenced)
• Michael Angelis (BLP -- unreferenced -- all the other narrators are not in the list but are referenced)
• Britt Allcroft (BLP -- three references now (incl. TTtTEM) plus some unused ext links)

We will need to look into these unreferenced ones fairly quickly!

EdJogg (talk) 14:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Also:

• Angus Wright (producer) (BLP -- only one (IMDB) reference) -- formerly married to Britt Allcroft + sometime producer of the series

EdJogg (talk) 11:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people

List of cleanup articles for your project

If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here

Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"

If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip

Watchlisting all unreferenced articles

If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip

Ikip 02:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the invitation. The prospect of the information is a little scary (since it is mostly ignored at present!) but I have requested the updates as suggested.

EdJogg (talk) 14:32, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Just to let other project members know, Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas/Cleanup listing is now available to help focus our editing efforts. Makes interesting reading. I suspect that the number of unreferenced articles is greater than the number tagged. -- EdJogg (talk) 02:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

<gulp>I was going to tackle somethings the other day, but don't have a copy of tTtTEM, Reading between the lines, or "Sodor, it's history" etc.<shame on me> I keep looking, but haven't found a viable outlet (at a reasonable price) – if you come across any EJ, please let me know!!—MDCollins (talk) 22:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it's just a case of persevering on eBay -- set up the search emails and wait. You won't get them for 'nothing' but you should get them at a reasonable price, eventually! (Took me a year or more to get tTtTEM! However, I got my copy of 'Sodor...' when it was originally published.) -- EdJogg (talk) 14:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Home Videos

What do you know? Thomas has two articles for videos, both listed as the "main" article on the Thomas and Friends page. Now let's forget that the original videos article was deleted a few years ago, is there anything worth salvaging on THESE pages? At most, it's pretty much the "Series" articles, but in a different order and WITHOUT the summaries. All anyone has to do is go to Amazon or some other site to find out which episodes are on which videos, I don't see the point of devoting an article here to a list of them, let alone two. And if these articles ARE to be saved, they're going to need a major overhaul. They're full of bad grammar and poor formatting. Starkiller (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Ah-ha! I think I recently bumped into the second article and mischievously added it to the T&F page. (Sorry!) If you can face it, I would suggest having a quick look at the Thomas Wikia to see whether the info is available there. If it isn't, we can get them involved in case they wish to copy it. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about saving anything, unless it's referenced -- as straightforward lists they can be redirected in the same way that we deal with all the other merchandise articles.

Good to know you're still on the case!

EdJogg (talk) 00:32, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Three. Separate. Pages. I just realized.

I know for a fact that the Thomas Wikia (shudder) has individual pages for each video from each region, if that eases the decision on nominating the (all unreferenced) lists for deletion.

I've put merge tags on these three pages, but I gotta brush up on the procedure about how to justify merging/deleting articles. It's all pending. Starkiller (talk) 15:44, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for taking this on. WP:THOMAS/FAQ item 1.6, which covers merchandise lists, may give you some help. Unfortunately, in this case there is no obvious page to redirect them all to (except Thomas and Friends perhaps).

We've been here before! Previous pages include Thomas and Friends – Video Releases, which was renamed Thomas and Friends video releases (the third one you found!) and has been redirected to the T&F page (several times – the page history is mind-boggling for a redirect!). There has also been an AFD listing (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas and Friends video releases), which it survived (No Consensus), so you'll have to take it to AfD again, although you might be able to WP:PROD the other two. Note that that AfD was in 2007, and the article was redirected and unredirected since then. Check the article histories. The criticisms levelled at it then have not been resolved. Remember to mention the individual Season pages, which are so much better than they were. You should be able to cite that the wikia has all the info and more. If we can get a definitive reason for deletion, we can add it to the FAQs for future reference.

As for merging, having put the banners up, if there's no counter arguments you can go ahead and merge them after a length of time (say 6 weeks). But you might be better off trying to delete them outright so we can get a proper decision. The fact that there are now three parallel articles should support your case.

Hope this helps you get started. -- EdJogg (talk) 17:08, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced living people articles bot

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project. There has been a lot of discussion recently about deleting these unreferenced articles, so it is important that these articles are referenced.

The unreferenced articles related to your project can be found at >>>Wikipedia:WikiProject Animation/Thomas & Friends task force/Unreferenced BLPs<<<

If you do not want this wikiproject to participate, please add your project name to this list.

Thank you.

I think it makes sense to take advantage of this bot, even though the number of articles found is likely to be small. If we don't do anything, then the project will be added to the bot list automatically, so I shall just let that happen. -- EdJogg (talk) 11:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

A good plan. That is assuming that any related articles are project tagged, which they all "should" be...—MDCollins (talk) 22:36, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

See #Request for comment on Biographies of living people above. All of these are tagged for this project -- I've just tagged Michael Angelis and Ted Robbins, although for the latter T&F is only a very small part of his career, but his article is completely unreferenced.

EdJogg (talk) 00:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments, Wikipedia:WikiProject Thomas/Unreferenced BLPs should be a blue link shortly.

EdJogg, to expand the number of articles in your project with another bot, see Category talk:WikiProject tagging bots.

I appreciate all of your dedication to the project. thanks. Okip 04:34, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: Wikipedia:WikiProject Animation/Thomas & Friends task force/Unreferenced BLPs has been created. This list, which is updated by User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects daily, will allow your wikiproject to quickly identify unreferenced living person articles.

There maybe no or few articles on this new Unreferenced BLPs page. To increase the overall number of articles in your project with another bot, you can sign up for User:Xenobot_Mk_V#Instructions.

If you have any questions or concerns, visit User talk:DASHBot/Wikiprojects. Okip 23:09, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Poor linking on character pages

Could someone review and correct the character links on the season pages please? In particular, Thomas and Friends – Series 4 and Thomas and Friends – Series 5 both have vast numbers of incorrect links, pointing to generic name pages rather than the TV Series characters. There are poor links on some of the other season pages too, with incorrect 'Henrietta' and 'Stanley' links both seen.

Thanks. -- EdJogg (talk) 13:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

I've created a barnstar for this project, to reward those who have made excellent contributions to Thomas-related articles.

{{subst:Thomas barnstar|message ~~~~}}

		The Troublesome Tank Engine Barnstar
		message name (talk) date/time

--Gyrobo (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

LOL! It never occurred to me to create a barnstar. Pity that most of the contributors (to date) who deserve it are no longer on WP... -- EdJogg (talk) 13:26, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Book 42

Just a heads up that on BBC Breakfast today Christopher Awdry all but confirmed book 42 would be released in 2011 to commemorate the 65th anniversary of WVA's birth (June 2011). He also implied that "he was to be discussing this later on" [presumably with the publishers...?]. Obviously we should add the information into articles until we have concrete reliable sources.

We'll need to keep an eye on the IP merchants. —User:MDCollins (talk) 07:52, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Is there a BBC Ref available? That would be really useful!

(Sorry to steal your thunder slightly, but this was announced on SIF back in April -- see Christopher Awdry and The Railway Series for the 'ref'.)

So far the IP merchants haven't been adding much, but we'll need to keep an eye.

BTW, since Christopher Awdry himself is 70 this year, I think you mean the 100th anniversary of WVA's birth, but it's also the 65th birthday for Thomas.

Of course, this probably means that thee and me should be working on getting all the articles up to scratch by next year. :o(

EdJogg (talk) 13:34, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi – sorry for not picking up this reply earlier. You're probably right on all counts above (100th anniversary/this year being 65th of TRS). To be honest I thought that I knew about the new book previously, but couldn't find it mentioned here – must have been wrong! Not sure there is a BBC ref as it wasn't a text article. And yes, I should find some more time to do some editing. The big drive on Toby was great seeing how much we can get done in a few days; since then, I've done pretty much zilch :-( —User:MDCollins (talk) 20:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Project

Since Thomas and friends airs on PBSKIDS in th US> I Included it in the PBSKIDS project. So all Thomas pages will need the PBSKIDS project tempeltes as well. If you are not a member of the PBSKIDS project please join. Thanks

Hello WikiProject Animation, thank you for your contributions on articles related to PBS Kids. I'd like to invite you to become a part of Wikipedia:WikiProject PBSKids, a WikiProject aimed at improving the quality of PBS Kids articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page for more information. Thanks!

Checker Fred (talk) 18:20, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Remember that this should only apply to the TV series -related pages. -- EdJogg (talk) 13:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Project banner template renamed

The banner template identifying articles as falling within the scope of this WikiProject has been renamed to be consistent with other projects.

{{Thomas-project-page}} has been renamed {{WikiProject Thomas}}

Please update any pages that still use the old name when you edit the talk page, but please don't edit just to rename the template. (This unnecessarily inflates the edit history and wastes reviewing time of other editors.) Thank you.

EdJogg (talk) 13:14, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

You could always commission a bot to do it – otherwise it'll probably get forgotten about (I expect I will next time I edit a talk page...)—User:MDCollins (talk) 23:34, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

It's no big deal, either way, but not really worth a special edit. Just apply it when you see it / remember (as I am doing with the Wilbert Awdry links). Happy for a bot to do it, but won't pursue myself. Will probably happen one day when someone decides to clear up 'redirects to project banners'.... -- EdJogg (talk) 23:54, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

My Thomas Story Library as canon?

Just seen these two edits to the Minor characters in The Railway Series article. They add fairly superficial information regarding original book characters being illustrated in My Thomas Story Library publications.

Is this something we want to actively discourage? These books blur the boundaries between the original books and the TV series and including such references could make it difficult to maintain the clear separation between the characters.

Anyone know what the SIF view is of this book series? Is it considered an off-shoot of the TV Series?

EdJogg (talk) 08:57, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering what you were going to say about those edits – that's why I left them. I would argue that details from them aren't merited in the TRS off-shoot of articles, as most of the details I would imagine refer mainly to TV. The MTSL books are not directly part of TRS, although they may be considered part of the Thomas universe (aimed at the even younger market?), so additions to TRS articles aren't strictly accurate or required. As they may contain detail from the TV series, maybe it is more appropriate there. I noticed that the MTSL article has the quote "some stories taken from TRS, but adapted for new usage, with reference to centralise on the TV series characters" (paraphrase), and has a minor list of errors as a footnote to that page. I would argue that the edits are sufficiently non-notable not to occur in either set of articles. It would just get out of hand.—User:MDCollins (talk) 10:50, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your final points; I just wanted confirmation.

I have fought to retain that article (and in a sane format) as I think it lists a significant set of books. If you go to the publisher's website, they've sold a huge volume (millions?) and they are (confusingly!) based on stories from the books and the TV Series -- I don't know if there are any stories that have not appeared on TV, but they are all new adaptations (often combining two stories). It would be useful to have more references, but the publisher's website isn't stable enough to use.

-- EdJogg (talk) 12:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject cleanup listing

I have created together with Smallman12q a toolserver tool that shows a weekly-updated list of cleanup categories for WikiProjects, that can be used as a replacement for WolterBot and this WikiProject is among those that are already included (because it is a member of Category:WolterBot cleanup listing subscriptions). See the tool's wiki page, this project's listing in one big table or by categories and the index of WikiProjects. Svick (talk) 20:50, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Tidmouth for deletion

Copied from User talk:Penrithguy -- EdJogg (talk) 14:40, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

The article Tidmouth is being discussed concerning whether it is suitable for inclusion as an article according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tidmouth until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on good quality evidence, and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 13:46, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Slate article on imperialism

I found:

• Roake, Jessica. "Thomas the Imperialist Tank Engine." Slate. Tuesday July 26, 2011.

It talks about imperialistic views in the Railway series WhisperToMe (talk) 04:20, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Not sure I'd want to use it as a reference of any kind. It's mostly about the television series (although this isn't really made clear) but the sections relating to the books ignore the fact that they were written up to 60 years ago when opinions, etc, were somewhat different (and also its a US publication commenting on a British creation). I've read many more-interesting articles. -- EdJogg (talk) 22:39, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thomas & Friends GA push and some questions

@EdJogg: @Penrithguy: @Redrose64: Hi all – not sure how many watch this page, but hopefully their are some – I'm pinging all project members listed as active, which isn't many (though incidentally, that list needs to be updated, one of many jobs!). Whilst I know it's a long way off, I've decided that this year I'd like to at least try and get Thomas & Friends to GA status, or at least significantly improve it. It's of course top importance for us, high importance to WikiProject Television, WikiProject British TV and WikiProject Trains, mid-importance on WikiProject Animation / Computer and even part of WikiProject Beatles; the page currently gets 32,000 views a month and is in a pretty shabby stage for a pretty important article. This will be my first 'big' project, so I'll need all the help I can get! So, some questions:

• Any good suggestions for sources? I don't have any books or offline sources (like The Thomas the Tank Engine Man), but if someone else does that'd be great! Can we consider some parts of the [4] site (like the news, announcements and interview pages) a reliable source – I don't know who runs it, but it looks pretty authoritative.
• This project itself needs a bit of work as well – we've got quite a lot articles now (171 pages tagged), most with varying degress of quality and different issues. I think we should, like most other WikiProjects, implement the WP 1.0 quality rating scheme and assessment, which would see where we need to focus our work on. This page could also serve as a kind of hub for questions and co-ordination. Do other people support this?
• Lastly, I think we need to do a spring clean our our articles – quite a few need serious work, deleting or merging. We can make Wikipedia a serious, encyclopedic resource of TTTE information, which has had a massive impact on British and other cultures worldwide, especially the Railway Preservation Movement. A suggestion: let's try and work with other WikiProjects more – a lot of our articles are tagged under multiple projects, so collaborations could work I think?

Thanks in advance for help and support, I'd be really interested to see if this project can be revived a bit :) Acather96 (click here to contact me) 12:43, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Anyone here? Acather96 (click here to contact me) 20:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for not seeing your request here. My watchlist is still at its peak of 2050 pages, and as I rarely visit WP, I have stopped checking it. (You need to check daily and react quickly -- I don't have time for that these days, and in truth, I never really did!)

I think I was the last of the really active Wikipedians remaining at WP:THOMAS, of those who were present when the bulk of the article organising was done.

I had a ToDo list as long as your arms (assuming, that is, that you were a giant squid) and fully intended to provide proper references for all the (book) characters and incidents mentioned. I have all the Railway Series books and TTtTEM , plus the other 'reference' works: "The Island of Sodor" and "Reading Between The Lines". All of these will also be available on eBay, at a price, of course! Researching such is fun, but VERY time-consuming.

I stopped for several reasons: (1) I was spending far too long on WP work, and my real life was suffering (over 22000 edits to more than 4000 articles (not all Thomas-related!) and within the top 2000 editors by number of edits); (2) There was no-one else remaining here to work with me; (3) 'Thomas & Friends' fans make myriad changes, and policing these is a tedious and near full-time job; (4) There are many more important articles on WP that are in more need of help. Consequently I was off-WP for well over a year before I ventured back, and now I usually only Wikignome articles I encounter while using WP for reference. (The temptation for serious editing is too great!)

I am quite happy to help, for example with GA reviews, which I have done for other articles, but I don't know how much other support I can provide.

I would strongly suggest NOT changing the project/article structure, and certainly not merging articles on individual (book) characters. There were long and hard discussions about these in the past! But moving towards a more 'normal' rating system would be a good idea, if a large one!

You may well find articles in the 'TV/Film' realm that are surplus and appropriate for merging -- new ones were always popping up and were the bane of our lives! (If you want help on specific article merge/delete cases, please ask, and I'll see how I can advise you.)

Personally, I DO regard www.sodor-island.net as authoritative -- I don't know how the current WP guidelines would rate it. You will see on many pages how the authors have applied corrections in response to user input, so in a sense it is peer-reviewed. You MUST make sure the reference pages are persistent though, for example using WebCite to preserve a copy.

The biggest problem you will have is providing references for all the TV series and film characters and events. I'm afraid you are on your own there. I have no access to them, and little interest, although you can sometimes find episodes on YouTube.

Phew.

Hope that helps. Comments left on my talk page will trigger a personal email alert, so I'll know you're asking.

Regards -- EdJogg (talk) 14:33, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, I've just looked at your user page! Your activity makes even my stats look small! Will be unusual to have an admin actually on the project team. In the past we had to call on the services of some railway-friendly admins.

EdJogg (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

AfD notice

Just a notification that an editor has nominated Hero of the Rails for deletion at Articles for Deletion – interested editors can comment here. Thank-you. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 20:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thomas Collaboration on heWiki

Everybody look at this! On the Hebrew Wikipedia, we now have a Thomas & Friends and The Railway Series project under Hamikbatz HaShvu'i. It is set to launch on August 24 this year. Will any of you wanna participate? Lior (talk) 08:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:48, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Oliver Island

See Talk:List of Thomas & Friends railway engines#Oliver Island. TIA Andrewa (talk) 22:06, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

List of Railway Series books

There's a discussion at Talk:List of Railway Series books#Notability and primary sources tags in which I'd like some input. TIA Andrewa (talk) 05:04, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Active again

I would like to revive this project... anyone else interested? Andrewa (talk) 20:02, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

New Logo

Would anyone prefer this to the photographs currently in use? Robin S. Taylor (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Turn this WikiProject into a Taskforce?

I invite editors to join the discussion at WP:WikiProject Television to convert many inactive WikiProjects into taskforces, including this one. – sgeureka ^t•c 14:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

General deletion of Thomas articles

Be aware there indications and mutterings at a couple of ongoing AfD's that articles relating to Thomas are to be deleted. Early results will likely form a basis for future nominations. It may be people are happy for these to go or check key article are robust. Articles affected certainly include Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Duck the Great Western Engine and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Thomas & Friends railway engines. Thankyou. Djm-leighpark (talk) 04:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Pinging active members as alert system did not run yesterday as you may not be aware:

• @ACase0000, Acather96, Andrewa, Bakeshutwait, DDandT6, EdJogg, JeffreyLoeber, Penrithguy, Peter SamFan, Robin S. Taylor, Stevensonmachine, and WT79:

Also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arlesdale Railway (2nd nomination); Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mid Sodor Railway; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Culdee Fell Railway; Talk:North Western Railway (fictional)#Merge proposal. Skarloey Railway seems likely to be deleted soon, given that it had a declined PROD recently. WT79 ^{(speak to me | editing patterns | what I been doing)} 08:24, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

thanks WT79, I notice relevant discussions at Talk:North Western Railway (fictional) but these need to be had here to determine the best may to proceed or if any merges etc are appropriate for the future shape of the project. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 09:03, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Articles to remain

It is becoming pragmatically apparent most Thomas related articles will be deleted and it is important to concentrate on the between one and a handful that might remain. Please list any suggestions for retention, or even new articles, below (please note I intend to use account Bigdelboy (talk · contribs) rather than my usual Djm-leighpark (talk · contribs) so I can leverage some automation over mass articles ... I may for instance use it to bundle remaining Thomas articles for deletion in one go ... I am certainly minded to do so. Thankyou. Bigdelboy (talk)

• Thomas the Tank Engine

• Core article that certainly look as a glance to have. Bigdelboy (talk) 09:50, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

• Thomas the Tank Engine exhibitions

• Potential new article to describe the rise of Thomas day Out, Thomas theme park and other visitable exhibitions. Bigdelboy (talk) 09:50, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

.....

Disband?

It seems that this project is barely active and that of the articles we curated the vast majority are being junked. Is there any point in having this Wiki Project anymore? Robin S. Taylor (talk) 12:16, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

It may be just worth keeping at a place to oversee a collaspe to aa handful of articles; thereafter it likely becomes mostly redundant. That may mean 6 to 8 weeks. Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:34, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Seems a great shame that so much work has been trashed, but it was always an uphill struggle trying to keep anything vaguely appropriate for Wikipedia free of fancruft from young fans of the TV series. The original books are notable and various elements could be referenced to published works, of which there are several. (They are rare, but I have sourced copies.). Some years ago I was highly active soon after the start of this project, and fought valiantly to maintain editorial standards within the articles, but there was too much work for one person, and my ToDo list grew exponentially. Subsequently, to maintain my sanity I have had to keep away from the site, except for minor edits when I refer to articles, as I discovered that Wikipedia editing was dangerously addictive. -- EdJogg (talk) 23:03, 17 October 2020 (UTC) (best to message on my Talk Page as I don't watch my watch list)

Sudrian Heraldry

I have illustrated coats of arms for entities in the franchise. Sadly, there isn't really a place here for most of them to be used since the proverbial Beeching axe was taken to us last year. Perhaps they could be used on the fan wiki, but I can't be bothered to set up a Fandom account just for that purpose. If there's anyone reading this who already has an account (or knows someone else who is active on that site), perhaps you could pass these along?

• 
  Crovan's Gate
• 
  North Western Railway
• 
  Tidmouth
• 
  Suddery
• 
  Robert Norramby

For more details, see here: [5]

Robin S. Taylor (talk) 17:57, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Should we bring back more individual character pages?

I feel like this might be a good idea. As Thomas has a massive legacy to it and most of the characters are well known. Thomasfan1000 (talk) 19:18, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Sources for Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie article

If Big World! Big Adventures! The Movie gets an article (I think it is more notable than Blue Mountain Mystery) I found some sources which would be good:

• (https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/thomas-friends-big-world-big-adventures-the-movie) This source would be good for a "Reception" section.

• (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2097185793/weekend/) Box Office Mojo is usually reliable for statistics, not for notability though.

• (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/film-review-thomas-friends-big-world-big-adventures-themovie-2lz69g70z) Very basic film review and I don't know how reliable The Times is (although it is a notable newspaper).

The Gaurdian also did a review (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jul/18/thomas-friends-big-world-big-adventures-the-movie-review-peter-andre), but it is very biased and wouldn't work as a source.

So it may just be enough to get an article, but one would take some time to write. RanDom 404 (talk) 01:22, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

I still don't get why Blue Mountain Mystery still doesn't have wikipedia page. NintendoTTTEfan2005 (talk) 03:05, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Awdry Geneaology

Coat of arms of Sir John Wither Awdry

At Talk:John Wither Awdry I've tried putting together a family tree of the Awdrys based on what can be found in Burke's Landed Gentry and Fox-Davies's Armorial Families. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 17:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)