Archive 105 ← Archive 107 Archive 108 Archive 109 Archive 110 Archive 111 → Archive 115

iOS Game Articles

The coverage of iOS games on Wikipedia is sadly lacking, so I've been scouting the Metacritic pages with the mission of filling in the gaps. Each individual article may be relatively bare atm but there's a lot to get through and we've got to start somewhere I suppose. This is just to give you guys a heads-up that a series of stubby articles are coming your way.--Coin945 (talk) 15:33, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Please remember to put ((WikiProject Video games|class=stub|importance=low)) on the talk page of articles you create, and to make infoboxes when you create the articles. Hot Wheels: World's Best Driver, for example, is lacking both. --PresN 20:09, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Monty Python's Cow Tossing, on the other hand, is so lacking in sources supporting its notability that I'm tempted to just PROD it/AfD it right away. Please make sure your new articles are at least filled out enough to meet the notability requirements. --PresN 20:11, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
I've played around with the article today. Not so sure your assertion is true.--Coin945 (talk) 13:04, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
It's much better now, but as mentioned below, when all you say is "Monty Python's Cow Tossing is a thing that exists. Source: Mobygames.", it doesn't prove much in the way of notability. --PresN 17:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, keep in mind, Coin - sometimes, articles don't exist because no ones gotten to it yet, or because that respective fanbase doesn't have much interest in article creation. Others don't exist because reliable sources don't cover them enough. I think bothapply here. I've dabbled in some ios game article creation. Some were easy to create (Sonic Jump), some were hard to create (VS. Racing 2) and some were impossible to create (Bar Oasis). Please don't try to force it. Sergecross73 msg me 21:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
It's worth noting that just because I haven't included the sources in the article, that does not mean they don't exist. I found evidence of notability for every single one of these games. I just decided to cover breadth over depth. But if you have done extensive research on any of the games and have not turned up anything, I trust your judgement. (P.S. a badly reviewed game can still be notable).
I'd strongly recommend you build up articles one at a time, rather five at a time, extremely brief 1-2 sentence articles, for this very reason. People are going to challenge them, because a lot of people create articles like these, and then never revisit them. Even if the sources are out there, they're going to look like likely merge candidates if it seems like all someone could muster up was a single sentence. I'd re-adjust your approach if you don't want constant opposition working against you... Sergecross73 msg me 12:43, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I've done some research, and I think a combined article on Bar Oasis and Bar Oasis 2 (or maybe even individual articles on the 2 games) would have a very welcome home here: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13].--Coin945 (talk) 14:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I think its still a close call. Kotaku, Destructoid, 148Apps, and TouchArcade are all useable, but the rest of those are random obscure websites that may not hold up to RS standards. And two are Metacritic links, which, while usuable, wouldn't count towards notability per se. I'll leave it to you if you want to create it. Sergecross73 msg me 14:24, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I created the article. What are your thoughts?--Coin945 (talk) 15:46, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Its pretty rough, but it looks like there's enough coverage between the three titles that I think it would survive an AFD. Sergecross73 msg me 16:51, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
The prose needs some major tidying up, no question. But at least the data-dump stage is over and as you said, it looks like the game is notable.--Coin945 (talk) 17:02, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

If you decide that an article should not be on Wikipedia, at the very least please AFD it to allow for a community discussion? Recently 5 of my articles were prodded, and only AFDed after I requested so. They have all had keep votes by people who claimed the reviewer didn't Google Search and find the obvious sources available.--Coin945 (talk) 11:30, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's what happens when you create these "2 sentence, 1 source" articles. There's nothing wrong policy-wise with PRODding them. Also, MobyGames is not a useable source. Much like Gamefaqs, its all user-generated by random people. It violates WP:SPS - it doesn't meet the definition of a reliable source. There's consensus on this at WP:VG/S. Sergecross73 msg me 12:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
"2 sentence, 1 source" articles are totally fine as articles are judge on their potential, not current state. The reason they are so bare is because they're stubs.
Mobygames in its own right isn't a notable source. But it includes reviews from notable sites. That's the only reason why I would site it. Oh and maybe also if it has a very good explanation of the gameplay. I haven't played any of these games before so will rely on someone else's explanation.--Coin945 (talk) 13:07, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, deletion discussions are based on the potential of sources out there, not just whats in the article, so much of the time, the article may end up being kept in the end. But if you only bother to put one source in, then you're just inviting yourself into unnecessary redirect/merge/deletion discussions because you're doing such a sloppy, half-assed job in making these articles. Right or wrong, they're going to keep happening if you keep making such small stubs with unreliable sources. Its up to you on how easy or hard you want to make your Wiki-life. Don't complain here if you keep choosing the hard route. Sergecross73 msg me 13:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Don't forget to categorise your articles after you create them, and as PresN said, tag the WPVG template. I've done a few of them (might do a few more in a few days or so); though I'm only going by the information already present in the article, so the cats are nowhere near complete.
BTW the articles in their current state are hardly helpful to the reader, many only stating "X was a video game" and providing some basic information. You know what they say, quality over quantity... Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 12:08, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the handy advice. Though each article is bare bones, each links to a Metacritic article which shows at leas 4 game critics have evaluated and analysed the work, which proves their notability. I'm satisfied for these articles to begin their lives as a stub in this state.--Coin945 (talk) 12:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, keep in mind not every source MetaCritic uses is necessarily a source Wikipedia defines as reliable. There's a lot of overlap, but they're not the same. Also, the sources "just being out there" may keep it from deletion, but not necessarily a redirect or a merge. Sergecross73 msg me 14:53, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I didn't realize the notability criteria varied between deletion and redirecting. Tezero (talk) 15:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd have to look it up to see if its a "hard policy" or just something "Serge observes a lot", but sometimes articles get redirected when they have enough sources, but they all pretty much say the same thing, and they don't really say very much, but also have a logical/likely redirect target. Also, I mean, redirects/merges can technically be done without formal process, unlike deletion. Judging by how many of these iOS games were created years ago, but haven't even had articles even attempted to be made of them, makes me wonder how much attention they'll get after Coin's brief article creations - there's clearly not a ton of interest in editing these games. These article's could be subtly redirected pretty easily too. Sergecross73 msg me 16:59, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Compare to when those masses of stubs on animal species were created. Or when all those two-line articles on cities/villages/places were written. It had to be done. It had to start somewhere. Every article I made could easily become a fully fledged feature article if enough TLC was put into it. There's no reason why they won't get that attention. That's not so farfetched, especially with all the amazingly talented people working in this Wikiproject.--Coin945 (talk) 17:54, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I know this wasn't the bulk of your point, but not every article can become featured. Most if not all can become GAs if their subject is deemed notable, but FA requires greater comprehensiveness that flat-out may not always be available. I've had people caution me about this on two of my pages that ended up becoming FAs, but still. Actually, I can't recall the circumstances exactly, but someone explained to me once that this is why WP:ANIME has so many GAs and so few FAs - information on things like development just isn't easy to come by. Tezero (talk) 18:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
No need to get caught up on technicalities. What I was getting at what these articles are destined to be more than the 2 line stubs they currently are. Utilise every available source on any of them, and you will end up with a pretty neat article. I don't think any of the articles I've created are not notable, i.e., unable to be improved to the point where they stop facing AFD.--Coin945 (talk) 19:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
JOOI, How *did* you get a Sonic fan-made game up to FA? That's really quite an impressive achievement! :)--Coin945 (talk) 19:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
The game got lucky, I guess; a few critics just happened to pick up on it at the same time, some of them probably noticing it from the others' sites. I'd gladly put in the work for pages on other Sonic fangames like Sonic Worlds, Sonic Robo Blast 2, Sonia & Silver, and an in-development one based on the Sega Forums that actually has me and one of my fan characters playing roles in the story, but they haven't attracted any attention from third-parties. (Of course, per my Objectivist sympathies, those games probably just weren't good enough to.) If the sourcing and coverage are there, FA is a possibility for any article - actually, AtS may not be the only FA Sonic fangame for long... Tezero (talk) 23:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm sure you've already thought about this, but a List of Sonic fan-made games perhaps?--Coin945 (talk) 01:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Coin945, I've actually never thought of having an actual separate list, although I've considered adding a section about fangames (possibly a subsection under a wider "fan works" header) to the series' main article. I'm not sure enough games would have a single piece of third-party coverage to make the list worth it, though, and it would be an invitation for people (heck, I might fall victim to this) to add their own fangames or ones that they like - in good faith, sure, but they probably wouldn't be appropriate for Wikipedia. Tezero (talk) 01:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Hatoful Boyfriend Peer Review

A Peer Review has been made for Hatoful Boyfriend if anyone is interested in reviewing it. The article can be found here. Normally I wouldn't make a new thread here but seeing how many Peer Reviews aren't actually reviewed, sometimes a little shove is necessary. GamerPro64 23:27, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I've never heard of this game, though I'm guessing it's an eroge visual novel or a Persona-like game that draws heavily from that kind of storytelling, so my eyes will be fresh. Yell at me by tomorrow night if I haven't left comments. While we're at it, heheh, Tony Hawk's Underground just closed with no comments and I just nominated Czech language, so... *paws ground optimistically* Tezero (talk) 01:55, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
Uhhh, not really. It's a dating sim where you date birds. Not quite Persona'. But yah, I can try to look it over some time too. Sergecross73 msg me 02:15, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Possible future activity on GLaDOS

I noticed that GamerGate rumblings are occurring on Reddit, and some of it has leaked onto the talk page. I just want to make sure that potential vandalism or canvassing doesn't get too out of control. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 12:25, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Amazing. What's next, Mother Brain!?!? ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 22:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
That wouldn't surprise me, but Samus, Princess Peach, Lara Croft, etc. especially wouldn't - basically, anyone who's well known as a female video game character, not just any female game character who's also well known (e.g. Palutena, Misty, Jynx). I wonder if there's a way to remind users across the board that Wikipedia isn't saying these things are true, only summarizing the opinions of critics who do. (And if Wikipedia is trying to make a point about the state of female characters in games, there's a serious problem.) Tezero (talk) 14:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I'll give them that it isn't a very well-written article (GLaDOS that is), but it's just another case of them trying to find something to be offended by - a gargantuan irony considering so much of their movement discusses people who make a point of trying to be offended. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 22:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

There's an interesting discussion at Talk:Sleeping Dogs (video game) where it is apparent that some regular editors of video games think there is an "unspoken standard" wherein all articles on video games are written using American English. This seems rather weird to me and indeed a sampling of Grand Theft Auto articles seems to show that they are (correctly) in British English, as games developed in the United Kingdom. Can we discuss this please? --John (talk) 06:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

As the one who originated that phrase, my words are being taken out of context. I was describing the use of American English for video game articles in two situations: when the national ties of the game to the United States outweigh those to other Anglophone countries (e.g. Lego Star Wars II, because Star Wars is recognizably American despite Traveller's Tales being British) and in the absence of national ties to any specific Anglophone country (e.g. most Japanese games) because American English is the most widely spoken dialect of it in the world. Though I'm not emotionally invested in the cause either way (I find American English a little lazy in some ways), I'm perfectly fine with complying with national ties to any given Anglophone country insofar as they're actually the strongest ties. Tezero (talk) 07:10, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
To be honest, both the discussion page and this read to me as if you're saying, the default language for Wikipedia articles should be American English. - X201 (talk) 08:40, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that is what I'm saying, but that's not the same thing as "all articles on video games [should be] written in American English". Tezero (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I noticed: "dialect variations default to American if the pertinent country is non-Anglophone". No, there is no default dialect of English used on Wikipedia, and for articles not strongly tied to any brand of English, it's up to the first major contributor to establish the dialect. My Japanese articles are written in Canadian English. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 00:45, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
My mistake; it must just be that American contributors dominate those kinds of articles. My point was that there's no reason to actively switch to British in the absence of national ties to any Anglophone country; I'm not interested in forcing American, either. Tezero (talk) 01:02, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Hmm. Citation please for "American English is the most widely spoken dialect of it in the world". --John (talk) 11:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I think British English is the most widely spoken as it is the official language of most countries in Africa, the Caribbean and some parts of Asia. Countries from Belize to Kenya and India to Hong Kong still uses UK spelling. But regarding actual population I wouldn't be sure (not all parts of India's 1 billion people use British English). WP:ENGVAR and MOS:TIES contradicts its own self, stating that if something had strong national ties to something it should be in its language of origin but on the other hand it dictates that neutral articles (ie. Norway) should be written in the language that it started from. Grand Theft Auto has always been based in fictionalised US cities (with the exception of GTA II in London), with the main cultural aspects being American, thus it is in American English despite Rockstar being a British developer. Well what I'm trying to say is that ENGVAR in itself has its flaws and could probably do with some updating... ☠ Jaguar ☠ 12:34, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Keep in mind that India's Anglophone status is largely a formality; not much of the population actually speaks it well, which is why most things there are written in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati, etc. - English's potential status as a lingua franca there doesn't even win out. And I'm not an expert on language education, but in my experience, students in, say, China, Japan, and Latin American countries are routinely taught American English as opposed to other dialects. Tezero (talk) 20:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't see the contradiction there. This is actually one of the most successful and least challenged conventions on the project. I also didn't see (though I didn't look exhaustively) any GTA article that was written in American English. Which one were you thinking of? Glad I raised this. --John (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I should have made myself clearer. Grand Theft Auto III, San Andreas and Vice City are currently in American English. I forgot what part of ENGVAR contradicted the other, but something in it seems like it went around in a circle but I can't remember what. Maybe I'm too traumatised from that ANI discussion that I'm not thinking clearly! ☠ Jaguar ☠ 19:47, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
San Andreas has instances of both, which isn't recommended and would need sorting before any sort of peer review. So would a lot of things on that article. --John (talk) 21:54, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that the Sleeping Dogs discussion was characterized properly. My argument is that a developer's (or any manufacturer's) nationality doesn't constitute strong national ties. (I think that if there was consensus that it did, there would be at least one such example of a product on the strongnat list.) John, I've only seen strongnat enforced in the video game space on GTA and Rare articles (British English), and mostly through the argument that all other articles in the series are in BritEng (this is a self-perpetuating cycle), without a defense of why the game has anything to do with British culture/language so as to constitute a strong national tie. There is no unspoken standard that all game articles are in AmEng, but there is a standard that if I approach a video game article written in Australian English with no strong national ties to America or GB or Australia or whatever, I retain the existing arbitrary variation if I want to contribute. I'll add that the strongnat argument for GTA easily goes the other way—it was developed in the UK but is universally known to be satirical of American culture (and uses AmEng), but that's for another time. czar ♔ 14:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Czar that makes sense. Two things; the variety of English used isn't actually all that important as users of each can readily read the other, though obviously it should be consistent within a given article (and probably as you say within series of articles). Secondly, I am again glad I raised this here as I think it is ripe for discussion. --John (talk) 15:03, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
ENGVAR was written to cut down on arguments/discussions like this. We know that the British camp and the American camp will never agree for all of Wikipedia to be in the other dialect of English. So we compromise. Each article must be consistent within itself - I think we have already agreed to this. Articles with strong national ties to a language should use the matching language (eg an article about London, England should use British English and an article about New York should use American English. Articles with no real ties to a variety of English (eg most Asian articles) are left to the free choice of the first major contributor or by consensus on the talk page. There is no default to American English unless the article article has strong national ties to America. Articles with weak national ties by being based on a franchise from America (eg Lego Star Wars) or a racing game that is set in America (but developed by a non-American company) in my opinion don't count as having strong national ties but in grey areas they can be thrashed out on the article's talk page.  Stepho  talk  03:23, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
ENGVAR seems adequate to cover this area if it is properly applied. Perhaps an analogy with books or movies will be helpful; a book has an author and a publisher, and a fictional book has a setting which is usually identified. Likewise a cinema film has a director, a distributor and a setting. On Wikipedia as far as I have seen the ENGVAR determination is usually made on the nationality of the writer of a book or the director of a movie (or the development team to follow this analogy) and the nationality of the publisher and certainly the setting are disregarded. By this logic, al of Rockstar North's games should be in UK English, as the development team constitutes a strong national tie, analogous to the author. Any other thoughts? --John (talk) 19:29, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I really doubt that anyone would allow articles on Canadian cartoonist John Byrne to be written in Canadian English—even Alpha Flight appears to be written in American English, even though it was created by a Canadian and features Canadian characters in a Canadian setting. The work is identified with its American owner. Not that I'm saying it should or shouldn't be that way, just that I don't think it's as clear-cut as John's saying.
Just to stir the pot—what variety of English does the game in question use? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:36, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

With this game, you could argue that it's presented in American English (AmEng subtitles) and designed for a primarily American audience. There's little evidence that the developer's nationality strongly influenced the product, nevertheless created a strong enough tie to rephrase its entire encyclopedia article. czar ♔ 15:57, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
— Talk:Sleeping_Dogs_(video_game)#WP:ENGVAR

Discussion about the specific game is likely best kept on its talk page. I think this discussion is more about ENGVAR in video game articles and whether developer nationality alone constitutes strong national ties. czar ♔ 02:05, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
The publisher and distributor are lower down the influence ladder than the developer. The developer is the creator of the work, the developer is the person(s) who creates the feel of the game and its its outlook on the subject. To take GTA again as an example, its location is a fictitious version of the USA but heavily based on the way Britain and the rest of the world laugh at the USA and Americans, obviously to do that it needs to be based in a fictitious version of the USA. But the location shouldn't govern its ENGVAR region or we could end up with the situation of every video game being written in Chinese English in the next decade. The best solution is for us to develop a consensus that we fight against the ENGVAR land grab of video game articles and instead work to use a version of English that leaves the reader in the position where they can't tell what ENGVAR it was written in. - X201 (talk) 09:05, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand WP:ENGVAR. One of the first things it emphasizes is that we should strive to use words common to all varieties of English. So saying we should "fight against the ENGVAR land grab of video game articles and instead work to use a version of English that leaves the reader in the position where they can't tell what ENGVAR it was written in" doesn't make sense because ENGVAR already emphasizes that goal. But sometimes there are words that are spelled differently and it's unavoidable to have to choose a spelling. For instance, parts of some of these articles describe color schemes and torturing the articles to completely avoid using the word "color" seems unadvisable. We can clearly all sit around debating whether and to what extent a fictional video game might have a national tie to some country and based on what criteria (creator of content? setting of content? country whose pop culture influences themes?). To me that means there is no clear answer and the "ENGVAR land grab", as you unflatteringly call it, is in full effect. AgnosticAphid talk 17:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
My comment to X201 was deleted for some reason, so I'll restate it (even though it mostly duplicates AgnosticAphid's point).
What land grab is this? ENGVAR dictates an English dialect only when there are strong national ties. In all other cases the dialect is chosen by the first major contributor. Of course, writing it in a form that is dialect neutral is the ideal solution to aim for but that's not always possible.  Stepho  talk  16:03, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, "land grab" was his term, not mine, but in the absence of "strong national ties" as you say the spelling is determined by the first non-stub contributor, so it is kind of a land grab insofar as that creates an incentive for people to go around making non-stubs ASAP to lock in the spelling. I think it's unflattering because I don't think it's bad to give people a reason to write non-stub articles ASAP! AgnosticAphid talk 17:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I've got no problem if some Yanks want to start up a lot of non-stub articles and bestow upon them US-English status. Likewise, I've no problem for the equivalent by Brits. As you say, more (non-stub) articles can only be a good thing.  Stepho  talk  09:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Potential GTs and FTs

I've fallen into the habit of creating templates for topics that I find interesting, then watchlisting the articles inside. It lets me keep an eye on potential GTs and FTs for WPVG, so I can provide sources if necessary. In the process, I've noticed a few topics that are reasonably close to GT status—a push would send them over the edge.

edit | discuss
LucasArts adventure games
17 articles
Labyrinth: The Computer Game
Maniac Mansion
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Day of the Tentacle
Grim Fandango
The Dig
Full Throttle
Loom
The Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
The Curse of Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island
Sam & Max: Freelance Police
Sam & Max Hit the Road
edit | discuss
List of Revolution Software video games
11 articles
Lure of the Temptress
Beneath a Steel Sky
In Cold Blood
Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado
Broken Sword
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars
Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director's Cut
Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror
Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon
Broken Sword: The Angel of Death
Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse
edit | discuss
List of Obsidian Entertainment video games
10 articles
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords
Alpha Protocol
Fallout: New Vegas
Dungeon Siege III
South Park: The Stick of Truth
Pillars of Eternity
Neverwinter Nights 2
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer

And this topic is one FA away from FT:

edit | discuss
Capcom Five
5 articles
P.N.03
Viewtiful Joe
Resident Evil 4
Killer7

Is there any interest in pursuing one of these? I'd be more than willing to provide assistance with sources: I have a ton of magazines, and I know my way around video game research. If none of them sound interesting, does anyone know of other topics that are nearly complete? I think it would be great for WPVG to have more GTs and FTs—we'll never match MILHIST, but we could at least get closer to them. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:38, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

  • If you want to take that article through FAC, I'll be there in a heartbeat to copyedit it. I helped GIB and Axem Titanium bring it up to GA back in the day. I could have a look through my magazines, too, if you wanted to expand the Development section at all. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I've got one that's even closer- it's actually a former GT:

edit | discuss
Star Wars: Jedi Knight
6 articles
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Though you might want to add Kyle Katarn. --PresN 23:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I would be happy to help out with Dragon magazine as always; on this list that looks like some of the older LucasArts games. BOZ (talk) 23:44, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

This former FT is also pretty close to getting back to it:

edit | discuss
Final Fantasy titles
16 articles
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy III
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy V
Final Fantasy VI
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII (subtopic)
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XII (subtopic)
Final Fantasy XIII (subtopic)
Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XV

Just one away! --PresN 23:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

  • It'd be great if Jedi Knight and Final Fantasy were relisted. Jedi Outcast is in fairly poor shape, but it could probably be fixed with just a few hours of work. FFXIV looks like it's a long, long way from FA, though. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I found these as well. Two topics could be relisted if Half-Life 2 passes GAN:
edit | discuss
The Orange Box
6 articles
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Portal
Team Fortress 2
edit | discuss
Half-Life 2 titles
6 articles
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Half-Life 2: Survivor
Codename: Gordon
  • Unfortunately, Half-Life 2 is not the best article in WPVG's library. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 00:01, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
  • It looks like a lot of the major work is already set in place for Half-Life 2 to at least make GA, but it also looks like the prose needs a major overhaul. Half-Life 2 was a game I quite enjoyed; I may be interested in taking a look at it later on. Red Phoenix let's talk... 23:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
edit | discuss
List of Sega video game consoles
11 articles
SG-1000
Master System
Sega Genesis
Sega CD
Sega 32X
Sega Saturn
Sega Pico
Sega Game Gear
Sega Nomad
Dreamcast

I thought I should bring this one up as well. We're getting awfully close to having this ready; List of Sega video game consoles is at FLC and Master System is at FAC; we could certainly use some more feedback for both. Sega Saturn is also an FAC-quality article, and I have been trying to encourage the primary contributors of its highest quality form to renominate it for FA status; I wouldn't feel right doing it myself, but can't anyway because Master System is my current nomination. Dreamcast is the odd man out; I'm working on that in my sandbox, but it promises to be a lengthy project that will take a lot of restructuring and rebuilding to complete. That being said, I'm certainly welcoming feedback and assistance, and volunteer up WT:SEGA for discussions of the rebuild in progress. Red Phoenix let's talk... 23:14, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

To add another Sega one, this potential topic includes all the Sonic the Hedgehog characters that weren't guillotined away a few months back and the list encompassing the recurring cast. I haven't had the motivation or time to work on them lately, but I do want to get back eventually. It's currently jogging pretty far behind the finish line at 3/10 GAs, but I've done some work on the Knuckles article too, and Amy's page, which has been copyedited, will be one of my next FACs after Tony Hawk's Underground closes. It's a niche topic and not one I see too many getting attached to, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Tezero (talk) 22:30, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

edit | discuss
Sonic the Hedgehog video game characters
10 articles
Sonic the Hedgehog
Doctor Eggman
Tails
Amy Rose
Knuckles the Echidna
Big the Cat
Chao
Shadow the Hedgehog
Rouge the Bat

IIRC, the Mega Man original series isn't too far off, either. Tezero (talk) 22:30, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Is Tropes vs. Women considered notable for reception inclusion?

I can't tell you how many times this argument has come up and gone unresolved, so I profoundly want a firm conclusion to be reached. I don't care that much - its use in individual game articles to me is limited to (1) reiterating that SJWs have a large and vocal presence in gaming journalism and (2) cluing readers in to how repetitive and tired Anita Sarkeesian's arguments are - but I very much disdain the apparent current reality of having it removed from some articles while it stays in others. Tezero (talk) 14:38, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Can you clarify your question? Do you mean 'Should Anita Sarkeesian's opinion be included in the reception sections of video game articles'? Sam Walton (talk) 14:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, sorry, it's that. Tezero (talk) 15:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I've only watched one of them fully, but I would say that Tropes should only be used if the specific game already has a larger discussion from other sources on the issues that the Tropes videos touch on for that game (so that the Tropes bit would be adding to, and not creating, that), I would not include a section based on what Tropes says if that is the only source talking about that. (eg, one I did watch she talks about issues in BioShock, which I can see her point on, but it also is the only source for that I've ever seen, and so would be a WP:FRINGE problem to include). --MASEM (t) 15:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not necessarily talking about a section; it could only be a couple of sentences. Tezero (talk) 15:22, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Going off what Serge describes below as good examples, even a few sentences about the Tropes commentary would be undue and FRINGEy if that is the only place where sexist (or other issues) are raised about the specific game. I will note that if those videos get further commentary by others (for example: while she hits on sexism in BioShock in the recent one, I remember seeing a few RSes mentioning "but some of that was what it was like at that time..."), that would be make it appropriate for further commentary within the game. Basically, if it is just her voice on that issue, you shouldn't include it. (And to be clear, this is not because it is Sarkeenian - this applies to all commentary people including, say, Zero Punctuation, TotalBiscuit, Markiplier, etc.) --MASEM (t) 16:04, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
My view seems to mirror Masem's. I wouldn't use it unless it was commentary on a bigger issue. If she complains that Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is sexist because you can only play as a man, or something like that, I don't think it belongs. Its more of a WP:UNDUE voice, the game itself isn't fundamentally sexist, and that really wasn't what most reviewers got out of the experience. Now, if its something more like Lollipop Chainsaw, where the game received a lot of commentary in their portrayal of women, then I think her comments would be more appropriate. I wouldn't create a whole section just for what Tropes says, but if it was a big enough deal, I could see it being a whole section, with Tropes contributing to it. Sergecross73 msg me 15:38, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Be sure you aren't conflating your own views on the subject with critics'; for example, perhaps others do think only playing as a man in certain games is sexist. (On a related note, to clarify, I don't mean to edit POINTily here; I was just listing what I think the most likely outcomes of Sarkeesian inclusion are. And I actually do think there's a lot of outright sexism - as well as the problem of just not thinking about female characters and gamers - in the industry; it's more of a Don't Shoot the Message issue.) Having said that, a consensus of your larger point does seem to be forming. Tezero (talk) 16:16, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not. The concept itself is rooted in WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE, and the example was merely meant to be a "tame/family friendly/generally in good standing with the press" type game versus an "extreme, obviously trying to be edgy" type game. If there were a ton of reliable sources clamoring about how sexist LOZ was...I wouldn't personally agree, but I wouldn't object to a consensus supporting its inclusion. I'd probably just stick around to maintain it, to make sure people don't get carried away with it. Sergecross73 msg me 16:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Was this in regards to your slow motion edit war going on over here? Sergecross73 msg me 18:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
That was the tipping point, yeah. In a practical sense this discussion doesn't seem necessary for that, as a few other critics have called out similar issues as Sarkeesian there, but I still want to reach some kind of general communal decision. Tezero (talk) 18:49, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Exactly. After two reverts I decided to search consensus at Talk:Amy_Rose#Bonasio_and_Sarkeesian, with more elaborated arguments on my point of WP:SPS than would fit in an edit summary. After this,Tezero brought the issue here (which was the correct move to make). The final anonymous edit of the (with the flaming summary) on Sarkeesian and Bonasio was not mine, by the way. I just wanted to tell this, before someone would suspect that the IP is part of an organized edit war from my side.Jeff5102 (talk) 12:07, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Allow me to throw my ball. I think it would be best if the series discussed the game at length as opposed to a passing reference. Example: Mentioning Shadows of the Damned in the way she did does not warrant inclusion. Going on for over five minutes about how silly Ms. Pac-man is might warrant a mention to me. Context and depth matter, as when we use Zero Punctuation on some of our reviews. Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 19:18, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll agree here - if she spend the entirety of an episode on one game, that itself probably means it could be included (and add to the fact each video so far has had commentary from RS to add to that , so you'll get more there). --MASEM (t) 19:20, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

No. She isn't an expert, she's not even a passer-by in the field of video games, she's someone specifically looking to complain about aspects of games. I don't see what her unfounded and intentionally biased opinions can add to articles. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 20:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Come on. You're free to disagree with her, but that sort of thought process is comparable to just covering you ears and saying "lalala I can't hear you!" Her viewpoints are pretty prominently covered in the VG world these days. She's not just "GamerFanattic207", the 12 yr old who just started their first YouTube account last week. Sergecross73 msg me 20:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
To be fair, DWB does capture her job pretty well: she decides first that games are sexist and then picks out everything that can possibly be used to support that conclusion. That's honest journalism like the Everything Wrong With videos are real reviews - it's just that Sarkeesian is at least covered by the media, if not always in a positive light. Tezero (talk) 20:58, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
She's prominently covered because of the type of criticism rather than the quality. She's covered because her videos stir up lots of alpha male anger, and websites cover her to counter that in a self-promotional, self-serving, self-indulgent manner. You can watch her videos if you want, but her opinion is directed to produce a conclusion, not find it. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm well aware of what she does, and how her videos work. I never said I supported her stance or her thought process. I'm saying she's a prominent figure and you can't just go "No, I don't like it, stay off my Wikipedia". I don't especially like Polygon (website), the stories they write, or the viewpoints they express. But I still recognize that they meet the definition of a reliable source. You need to be able to separate your personal viewpoints from things. And again, if you read what I actually said, I only support her use to flesh out a "controversy" that is already there to begin with. Sergecross73 msg me 21:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
But if the controversy already exists, it's already sourceable without resorting to citing someone merely capitalizing on those sources. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:18, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
"Capitalize" is a bizarre word choice, but beyond that, because she's widely referenced in the industry and journalists. Sergecross73 msg me 02:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
Actually, she IS an expert- she has a masters degree in the topics she's discussing. She is also a part of the video game industry- she contributes professionally to the field, which means her contributions are valid. She's exactly the kind of source (an expert source) that we should be drawing on when we add information to pages. I agree with the rest of the discussion that states if she discusses a game at length, it's worthwhile to include her contributions to the article. You may not approve of her work personally, but that doesn't make her critiques or her contributions to the field any less important and worthy of recording. Misrepresenting both her AND her work in discussions like this is degrading to the entire purpose of Wikipedia.Sothewind (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
She has a master's degree in Social and Political thought. I'm representing her involvement in video games and self promotion fairly accurately. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
The Tropes vs Women videos that she writers are about the reproductions of social and political thought in video games, thus making her masters degree completely relevant. Additionally, she works as part of the industry, so she also has professional expertise. Suggesting that she has no expertise, and attempting to degrade her work as though its only purpose is "to complain" is completely inaccurate.Sothewind (talk) 02:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Er, you realize things like gender roles and feminism fall under that "social" aspect, right? Sergecross73 msg me 12:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Honestly, both of you are missing the point. Putting aside personal opinions on the validity of the work, Tropes vs. Women is self-published and therefore governed by WP:SPS. Simply put, if Sarkeesian has been published by reliable third-party sources on this subject, then her self-published work can be used as a source on wikipedia, but should only be used judiciously and with careful attention to WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE as others have pointed out. If she has not been published on this topic by a reliable source, then she is not considered a reliable source no matter what degrees she may have or how shallow and self-promoting some people believe her work to be. Wikipedia policy is pretty clear on this point, and attacking or defending Sarkeesian's series on its merits contributes nothing to answering this underlying question. Indrian (talk) 04:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Consensus?

Alright, this has been running for weeks now, and it seems like the consensus is that she's usable, but only in a limited/situational capacity:

  1. It cannot violate WP:FRINGE or WP:UNDUE - she cannot alone be creating the issue at hand.
  2. It should be covered by a third party as to not violate WP:SPS.

Just confirming before making a note of it at WP:VG/S. Sergecross73 msg me 13:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the consensus on the first part is clear, the second part less so. Personally, I think it's unrealistic to expect other sources to cover her opinion on it, just like you never see, say, Game Informer talking about Joystiq's opinion, and a few users here just haven't chimed in on the second part either way. Having said that, if the turnout really is in favor of the second part as well, I won't object to it. Tezero (talk) 14:07, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
It happens a lot more often when you're talking about an individual person, not 2 very similar websites. Websites cover individuals more often. (Like that Michael Pachter, Jack Thompson, etc.) Sergecross73 msg me 15:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, as to part II, SPS first requires that we establish her as an expert by demonstrating that she is published on this topic in reliable third-party published sources. Is she so published? If so, then Tropes vs. Women can be used as a valid source, if not, then it cannot, period. SPS does not explicitly require other sources to cover the same topic, though it does suggest care in using a self-published source. I think that your second point is redundant with your first, since the need for coverage in other sources is exactly what UNDUE and FRINGE are about. I heartily endorse point one, but no one in this discussion has yet proven she satisfies SPS as a published author on the topic of video game criticism generally or women in video games specifically. If she is published that evidence needs to be presented here. Media coverage coupled with a master's degree does not make her an expert under Wikipedia guidelines. Indrian (talk) 14:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Roger Ebert posted plenty of reviews on his own website. I seriously doubt that Wikipedia only includes them because secondary sources did, if secondary sources did at all. Rather, he's a famous guy and secondary sources care what he thinks in general. Tezero (talk) 15:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Well yeah, but he was a nationally televised critic well before his website was around. Not sure if that's really a good comparison... Sergecross73 msg me 15:35, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
No, Tezero, no one cares about what Roger Ebert said because he was a "famous guy." They cared about what Roger Ebert said because he was a published author who was an established authority in the world of film criticism. Is Sarkeesian a published author? Are her theses echoed by other reliable sources in game criticism? If the answer to the first question is no, then Tropes vs. Women is not a reliable source under SPS, period, full stop. If the answer to the second question is no, then even if she is a reliable SPS, then her views run afoul of FRINGE and UNDUE. In this discussion, no one has bothered to present evidence that she has actually been published, and all these other arguments are irrelevant until that basic threshold is met. If she does meet that threshold, than Serge's proposal on handling her work is proper under the applicable policies, but his contention that SPS is controlling on matters of coverage as opposed to matters of publication is in error. Indrian (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • They wouldn't be redundant in certain scenarios. Let's say there's a controversy that says Mass Effect 4 is sexist. It's gets media attention, AS makes a comment, but the media ignores her commentary. Point #1 would allow her input. Using both points together would render it unusuable. Both basically makes sure her viewpoints have continued relevance in the industry.
  • How would using both points together allow it to be usable? The second one explicitly states that the media has to comment on her statements. Tezero (talk) 15:38, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • If she satisfies SPS, which requires her to be published, not for her views to be commented upon by others, then adding her views to an article is always valid under SPS. If she is the only one expressing a particular view, then it would be disallowed under UNDUE or FRINGE. Your second point is a misapplication of SPS and is therefore a redundant statement regarding fringe theories and undue weight. Indrian (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant UNusuable. I fixed it now. ((I've been trying to fix it for 5 minutes but I've been edit conflicted over and over again. Sorry. Sergecross73 msg me 15:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Third party sources definitely publish her work. It gets less clear if we decide how much they look at it matters though. I feel a lot more websites go "Here's a link to her video where she's scathing video games gender roles" than actually discussing it or breaking it down on any meaningful level. Sergecross73 msg me 15:31, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • No, third party sources discuss her work. Linking to a video she makes is not publishing her. To be published, a third-party source with reliability for fact-checking and accuracy would have to commission a piece by her on the topic of women in gaming, or a book publisher or academic journal would have to print a manuscript she wrote. What matters is if an independent and reliable organization serves as her initial outlet to get her ideas into the world. How much other sites comment on her work has nothing to do with the standards for SPS. That is an UNDUE matter. Indrian (talk) 15:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I'll have to look around some. Anecdotally, it seems like most of the coverage falls somewhere between the two scenarios. Sergecross73 msg me 16:05, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
I understand where you're coming from Seargecross73 and agree with this consensus. --ProtoDrake (talk) 15:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Pretty much what Indrian said, but the second statement doesn't make sense. We would be violating WP:SPS if we used an SPS in which the author does not have sufficient credentials. I think, as stated above, we need to establish whether she is a recognised expert on the topic: this would preferably be via having work published in actual RSs. Media referencing of her blog may sufficient but this would, IMO, have to be citing her as an authority, not merely coverage (because it's controversial, or whatever). The master's degree is just not enough (how many editors commenting here have one of those? Quite a few, I'd have thought); if one is going by qualifications alone, it would have to a PhD, and someone with a PhD is likely to have published in an RS anyway. If she is a reliable SPS, then she can be used. There seems to be a consensus leaning towards feeling that her opinions are generally too situationally tenuous; WP:FRINGE maybe, though I also think that looks a bit like IDONTLIKEIT. bridies (talk) 16:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, but "preferably" conflicts with Indrian's sentiment that she is simply an unusable SPS otherwise. We can't work out whether she is a recognized expert (or, rather, it may not be worth our time) until we work out whether she is a reliable, sufficiently documented source, which there is far from being a consensus on at this point. Tezero (talk) 18:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
It's not my "sentiment," its directly and unambiguously stated in the policy: "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." Bridies position also in no way contradicts mine, as even after we determine she is "published" we still must determine if she is an "expert," which should be determined along the lines that Bridies has suggested while keeping in mind WP:UNDUE when examining specific statements and positions. Indrian (talk) 18:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it does; bridies' use of the word "preferably" implies that it's possible for Sarkeesian to be acceptable without being published, which is absolutely at odds with what you have said. Or can you just never stand agreeing with anyone? Tezero (talk) 19:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, I agree with the majority of Serge's position and 100% of Bridies' position, so I am leaning against your last theory up there being accurate. There are two requirements for an SPS to be useable as clearly stated in the policy: the author of the source must be an expert in the field, and the author must have been published in the field by a reliable third-party entity. Birdies would prefer that her expert status be established through being published rather than through media coverage. That said, She still has to be a published author before we even get to a determination of her expert status. There is no contradiction between the policy and the criteria Bridies wants to use to establish Sarkeesian's conformity to said policy. Indrian (talk) 20:34, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
Point 2 wasn't my stance as much as it was my attempt to summarize the sentiments above. If you, or anyone else, want to reword it or take it out, that's fine. It was just me trying to summarize the "She's usuable but only if..." stance that basically all but one person in the discussion that started 2 weeks ago. Honestly, I just didn't want this to be archived away without a conclusion. With all this GamerGate ruckus going on, it's going to keep coming up, so I think it's best we come up with a stance. Even if we don't allow her, that's fone, as long as we've got a policy based reason. Blakes opposition is too close to IDONTLIKEIT for me to enforce in the future. Sergecross73 msg me 16:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Third party sources

For the record I am not advocating for her views or stances, but rather, just trying to figure out if in any circumstances she counts as Wikipedia's definition of a reliable source. So far, I'm finding plent of sources that are covering her and her views in great detail, but less about her specific claims. (Ie Amy Rose is a poor female character, etc) Sergecross73 msg me 23:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm fine with this. Sergecross73 msg me 14:20, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

iOS Game Articles (part 2)

(I recently decided to fill in the gaping lack of coverage on iOS games on Wikipedia. I went for breadth over depth so created short stubs on maaaaany articles). Despite my belief in the sanctity of the Wiki-stub, an administrator has ordered all of the iOS game article I've recently created to be buffed up beyond a 2-line succinct stub...or they face deletion. This is a very big task, and I have already invested a lot of time and energy into this for it to be a major blow if that happened. [Insert "i told you so" comment]. If anyone would care to pick one or two of them - even if all you do is copy/paste the review excerpts at the Metacritic page - it would make my life a lot easier. :)--Coin945 (talk) 18:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

@Coin945: Can you please please put infoboxes on the articles that you are creating? I'm trying to clear out Category:Video game articles needing infoboxes, and I'm going backwards when every day there's 50 more tiny stubs that don't have an infobox added. It doesn't take much, just... take 10 seconds to make an article, instead of 5. And while we're at it, please put ((WikiProject Video games)) on the talk pages- right now you're forcing poor User:Salavat to run along behind you, tagging the articles. --PresN 18:38, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I like to think of Wikipedia as ebing a production line. In this case, fiddling with an infobox would cost me lots of extra time, whereas I assumed someone who was adding infoboxes to articles would do a much swifter job as they were already in the right frame of mind etc. Also, since all the info I'd end up putting in an infobox would have been in the article anyway, I guess I didn't see infoboxes as priorities. They *are* priorities though, aren't they. I'll get on it.--Coin945 (talk) 18:53, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I think a better metaphor would be a plant- you don't need to grow an entire tree every time you plant a seed (start an article), but if you don't set up some fertile ground (tag it, put an infobox, fill out a section or two at least a little bit) then nothing is going to grow. If we had legions of people who would drive by and add to barren articles in a reasonable time frame, we wouldn't have 13,500+ video game stubs. --PresN 19:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, I'm glad someone got through to you, even if it took an ultimatum. Even beyond the notability concerns, these two sentence articles are pretty pointless for readers anyways. Sergecross73 msg me 19:14, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a work in progress, Wikipedia:Give an article a chance, Wikipedia:Potential, not just current state. Wikipedia is not about having perfect content for readers immediately. You start with a stub, and it grows over time. Some people don't like to invest a great deal of their time to bring one article up to GA/FA. Some people like to fill in the gaps. And teher's nothing wrong with that. I still don't understand why someone would want to delete a stub article on a notable topic. It boggles the mind.--Coin945 (talk) 19:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Because notability isn't assumed- it's proven (WP:NOTABILITY). That's why AfD exists- dozens of articles get deleted every day because they don't/can't prove notability. A two-sentence stub does not show that the subject is notable- that takes citations to third-party sources that specifically talk about the subject of the article. We're not asking that you not create stub articles- we're asking that you put enough into each one to give a bit of context and show why the subject deserves an article. Without that, we'd be better off with a e.g. List of Chillingo games list or something- which isn't a half-bad idea, if you'd rather break it up like that into a list of redlinks instead of making substubs on every single one. --PresN 20:06, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Enough with the essays. There's a reason why you're running into so much opposition on this. Your articles are sloppy, minimally sourced, and virtually contentless. I'd usually be more sympathetic, but you've been advised by countless experienced editors and dismissed them every step of the way. Try slowing down and considering what you're being told. Sergecross73 msg me 20:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
I accepted the request to buff up those articles so I don't think I can be accused of "dismiss[ing experienced editors] every step of the way". And now I am asking the VG Wikiproject for their assistance. I take that as a "no" to the question "can you give me a hand"?--Coin945 (talk) 02:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)--Coin945 (talk) 02:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
@Coin945: Might I suggest maybe doing a WP:DRAFTS or WP:USERFY to help develop your articles until you're ready to get them started? That would give you the necessary time for full preparedness for new articles. Red Phoenix let's talk... 00:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm fine with stubs, like PresN mentions, I'd prefer them with infoboxes and talk page templates, an external link would be nice too. Creating a stub means that unregistered users can add to them. Maybe limit your creation criteria to require more than just a metacritic score, metacritic can use sources that we deem unreliable. And with only 4 reviews required for a metascore, the game still might not be notable. - hahnchen 20:26, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
  • It's not mass-quoting from Metacritic. But it's mostly small quotes from a wide array of reviews. This is very common in Critical Reception sections. Are we supposed to paraphrase what critics have written? What I have observed is that Wikipedia users tend to keep the words as original written. It just so happens that Metacritic has compiled a series of these reviews. Is one able to copyright the final paragraph of someone else's game review...? o.O I wouldn't consider myself violating Metacritic's copyright for this reason.--Coin945 (talk) 09:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
  • The main point that editors have been trying to make is "is what you've written useful to a reader?". In the case of a list of quotes, it really isn't. Reception sections are typically "Aspect X was received well, writer Y said this about X and writer Z commented that about it." not "Writer X said something, Writer Y said something else, Writer Z said something else." - the latter gives little to no context and just isn't useful or very readable. Sam Walton (talk) 09:44, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
We are not *just* trying to have perfect impeccable content for readers. This is a work in progress. there is nothing wrong to have a stub. That is the point. I fear these articles are being analysed by people who are so used to Good/Features articles that they forget articles are allowed to be this bare. would they pass a GA review? Of course not. But would they pass a stub test? Of course. If any of them aren't perfectly servicing a reader, then I guess that's what collaborative editing is for. Am I the only one who still holds this core philosophy of Wikipedia involving stubs? There seems to be an air of "GA or GTFO" air around here... :(--Coin945 (talk) 10:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
No one is saying these need to be anywhere near GA, but that these one sentence articles are unlikely to attract anything other than cruft in the future unless they are given a good foundation. So perhaps instead of stubs, a minimal effort towards an "ideal stub" would be better worth everyone's time. czar ♔ 14:34, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • P.S. Userfying/drafting would be a terrible idea because they'd never see the light of day again. How about instead of all this conversation about why these notable articles shouldn't exist because of the way they've been written, we all WP:Be bold and actually improve the articles? Well in any case that's what I'm doing.--Coin945 (talk) 09:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
They will see the light of day again if these are actually informative and other editors don't have an issue with them. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 12:41, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, and some don't even bother with capitalizing first and last names of the creators. I've found several of those. Sergecross73 msg me 12:49, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


I got bored with finding these while stub-sorting so I've used AWB to trawl through and sort 30 of them. @Coin945: (1) When you're creating a lot of stubs on similar topics, please take a moment to check the best stub template for them, and then add, in this case, ((videogame-stub)) rather than plain ((stub)), to save other editors' time. (2) Please remember that when you create a stub with a title like Out There (video game) you need to add it as a link in the dab page at Out There so that people can find it. (3) Please be less cryptic: obviously you and other members of this project know just what "an iOS game" means, but this is an international encyclopedia, and with luck it will last for years: how about "a video game running on Apple Inc's mobile devices under the iOS operating system"? (That's a rough first draft - I know nothing about these games). AWB is suggesting tagging most of these stubs as "underlinked": why don't you even link iOS? PamD 18:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


Thanks :)

I just wanted to say a big thankyou to every user who has given me some great advice, or added templates to articles/talk pages, or fixed up wikicode/spelling/grammar, or added an infobox, or added content. It has helped make the coverage of iOS games on Wikipedia so much better. :)--Coin945 (talk) 17:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Please do not stop going back and fixing these articles- out of the ~150 that you created, over half of them are still 2-sentence stubs without so much as an infobox or a mention of what type of game they are. We don't expect you to write GAs, but we do hope for something that is closer to Start-class than a directory listing. --PresN 19:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, Coin945, maybe try to make your articles a little bit closer to Terra Battle. Its a stub iOS article I created yesterday. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a good example of showing the status we're suggesting to at least aim for, that falls somewhere between your "1 metacritic link" articles and "GA status". 10 refs, wiki-links, infobox, categories etc. (I haven't seen what you've been up in the last week, so this isn't commentary on your more recent efforts, but rather, what we were talking about a week ago.) Sergecross73 msg me 17:02, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

October 2014's TFA

We will have Drakengard be October 12th's Featured Article on the Main Page. Never played the game so it might be an interesting read. GamerPro64 21:54, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations to ProtoDrake for the TFA. He's done great work on the Drakengard topic (it's close to GT now), and this is a well-earned feather in his cap. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:14, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Ingrained misogyny in gaming culture

This proposal has already been rightfully closed on the video game culture talkpage, so there's no point in continuing it here. Not sure if this is an attempt at trolling or just plain ignorance/POV-pushing, but it obviously won't pass, is unproductive and a waste of everyone's time. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 07:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have introduced a suggestion at Talk:Video_game_culture#Proposed_change_to_introduction.

Essentially, it has been communicated at Gamergate controversy (via restricting editing to admins who remove references which contradict their viewpoints) that hating women (misogyny) is an ingrained component of the gaming community and thus inherent to video game culture.

Since a single reference (in spite of existing counter-articles) is apparently enough to support this allegation, then surely this shining truth should be reflected in the introduction to the VGC article in addition to its glowing introduction in the GGC article.

Should I boldly make this change as people have done, or does anyone disagree with the proposal? This guy named McLaughlin wrote that hating women is built into gaming so, well, Wikipedia ought to reflect this consistently on all major gaming articles and not limit this wisdom to the GGC page. Ranze (talk) 00:52, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

To be clear the article correctly says that the issues are ingrained in the culture (emcompassing all sides in the issue) and do not speak to anything about the community, which would be a very different issue. --MASEM (t) 01:09, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I think WPVG shouldn't get too involved with the GG shenanigans, it's a distraction away from videogames, and editors should continue to write games articles as usual. That GG article's talk page is extremely toxic, as is anything on the internet related to the associated disputes, not naming any particular side. Joining in is a waste of time and effort, the whole thing's a shouting contest. --benlisquareT•C•E 07:01, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
  • It'd be unwise and hypocritical for us to take vocal positions on Zoe Quinn's or the online community's actions amongst the IP editors, I agree, but the GamerGate page is on Wikipedia and part of our project, and it covers a current, hot-button issue, so we do have a bit of an obligation to keep that page's affairs in order. Tezero (talk) 07:11, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Assessing DYK nom pages

A few video game-related DYK nom pages were assessed with ((WPVG)) templates recently. I've seen this periodically (though not with all noms). Do we assess DYK nom pages? czar ♔ 09:32, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Are DYK nom pages even supposed to have WikiProject templates? For something this meta, I'd assume that it'd be unnecessary. --benlisquareT•C•E 10:42, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I've never heard of DYK noms being tagged any more than FAC noms are tagged, which is to say, they shouldn't be, for WPVG or otherwise. --PresN 16:16, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Book:EarthBound series vs Book:Mother series

A few years ago, I created Book:EarthBound series. A few days ago, someone else created Book:Mother series (which I've edited some more to fix formatting and such). The question here isn't which of the books should survive (the current Mother series seems the better of the two versions), but rather where should this book be located? Most of the games are titled Mother ..., but the series article is at Earthbound. My opinion is that Earthbound is the most well-known title in English so that the book should be at Book:Earthbound series. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

This is under discussion at Talk:EarthBound_(series)#Requested_move and would likely follow its result czar ♔ 14:57, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm gonna be honest: I haven't once heard it referred to as the EarthBound series outside Wikipedia. Tezero (talk) 15:01, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Either way I don't particularly care. I agree that the book should be located at wherever the RfC decides the series article should be. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:21, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
True. Regardless of which one is preferred, there oughtn't be two. Tezero (talk) 16:31, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Are unsourced topic sentences in Reception paragraphs OR?

JimmyBlackwing and I disagree on this front. I have argued to him that it's not necessarily OR because in many cases the critical consensus on a given aspect of a game is quite clear, and that even if it is OR, going with a jumbled mess instead of having topic sentences isn't worth it. He disagrees, pointing out that while most VG FAs don't follow his rule, he's becoming stricter about it. You all know me, I can't stand inconsistently applied standards for VG articles, so here we are. Should these things stay or should they go? Tezero (talk) 03:35, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The story was well received.

The graphics and art received mixed opinions.

The alternate gameplay modes were received very well.

  • I don't think they are, really- we do the same thing in the lead, right? Give a summary that we later back up with sourced specific examples? I do prefer, from a style point of view, to try to avoid having the sentence be on its own, and do something like "The graphics were well received by reviewers such as A, who said 'X'.[1]" Even without that, though, I'm fine with topic sentences, as long as it's immediately followed by sourced statements backing it up. --PresN 04:15, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Yeah, that discrepancy immediately jumped out at me: why is it okay in the lead but not the body? I mean, sure, citations are discouraged in the lead, but that's only because the information is presumed to be cited below. If it's OR, isn't it OR no matter where it appears? Tezero (talk) 05:46, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi 23W, thanks for thinking of me! Yeah, I find this stuff interesting. And frustrating, and I could probably ramble about this for hours. :) Apart from my hatred of the meaningless phrase "Reviews were mixed" (aren't all reviews mixed?) or the other meaningless phrases "mixed to negative" or "mixed to positive", I don't think these are the sorts of statements we should be making as they are most commonly supported by cherrypicked reviews and require us to act as aggregators of opinion, which we are absolutely not. We already have critical aggregators for Film and TV: Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and these sources are not always in sync. It is always best to present the evaluations of these aggregators in a clinical way "Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 70% rating with the summary: 'It was okay.'". To make these statements of our own interpretation is a combination of general WP:OR, and more specific WP:SYNTHESIS. The latter, because we are looking at whatever sources are available to us and drawing a conclusion that may not be expressly stated in any of the sources. In addition to TV articles, these summaries are often attempted in film articles, usually by inexperienced editors, and they are typically reviled. I've been a part of a few of these conversations at WT:FILM. Here's one among many: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Archive 52#Summary statement for "Reception" section. I don't see how there's much difference in video games. Addendum: Look at what I'd noticed this IP had contributed after I'd finished writing this post. He apparently found references that supported his worldview that the show isn't good, and contributed his assessment to the (absurd) article List of television series considered the worst. This is exactly the problem with such summary statements. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:46, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Response to addendum: I'm not advocating for allowing individual reviews to constitute admission to that list. I think that list should be limited to games with commentary on their critically reviled status or maybe with a Metacritic/GameRankings score under a certain threshold (say, 30 or 40 percent). Claiming that a certain aspect of a game was generally poorly received, when the sources clearly indicate this although none of them says it explicitly, is not the same as claiming that a game is one of the worst-received of all time. Tezero (talk) 02:56, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm not saying your statements are without merit, but they overlap very closely with JimmyBlackwing's so I don't feel the need to respond to them again. As a minor note, "mixed" in the context of reviews means that the entire pool of reviews was mixed, i.e. there was no clear consensus for or against. "Mixed to negative", accordingly, means that the reviews leaned negative but there were significant positive comments. Tezero (talk) 06:08, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
I haven't read the other user's comments or your responses. Mebbe I'll try to find those. Respectfully, I think your definition of "mixed" is interpretive. I believe Metacritic uses mixed as equivalent to "average" but I don't think Rotten Tomatoes uses this word at all. As linked above, I don't think the WikiProject Film community quite sees eye-to-eye with you on "mixed to negative/positive". One editor despises the phrase "with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns". Neither RottenTomatoes nor Metacritic make this determination, so at best users are mashing the two opinions together and synthesizing a conclusion, or they are trying to reinterpret Metacritic's phrasing, which is just stupid. Either a project is received well, or it is received poorly, or the response was neutral, or maybe we let the ratings speak for themselves without summarizing either, since they both use different methodologies that aren't always consistent with one another. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 06:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
While obviously, everything challenged needs to be discussed, ultimately, Tezero's sentiments on this are correct. If the sources back it up, it's fine to make statements like that. Sergecross73 msg me 00:46, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
The sources do not back it up. Not one reliable source describes the totality of critical opinion on a given feature in THUG. To summarize reception without such sources is blatant synthesis, per Cyphoidbomb. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:47, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Okay, then, in theory, Tezero's idea is plausible, but if what you say is true, then no, it shouldn't be done. It all depends if we're talking about a "hypothetical" or a particular situation. (I think this is why many just essentially paraphrase or quote Metacritic rather than jumping to more ambitious conclusions.) Sergecross73 msg me 01:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
No disrespect intended, but I don't think I understand your answers or your position. Time is the best filter for determining the prevailing critical attitude toward a thing. If a bunch of sources think it sucks now, maybe that's not the way history will look at it. In which case, by editorializing, we are committing a not-yet-ripe opinion as fact. There is no reason why we cannot just include what the various sources say in their own voices. Why do we feel it necessary to attempt to tell people that a video game sucked or was great? Let history decide that. In the interim, just write what reliable sources say, and find other opinions to balance it for WP:NPOV. An encyclopedia does not exist to document opinions. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I could write a book on the glory of NPOV; I'm totally not advocating for Wikipedia to purport that critics' prevailing opinions are factual. You may want to consider, though, that actively seeking out differing opinions where they aren't really significant runs afoul of WP:UNDUE. Documenting opinions is one use of an encyclopedia - otherwise, not only would we not have Reception sections at all, but pages like Anarchism, Feminism, Humanism, and Determinism wouldn't exist because they're opinions by their very nature. Wikipedia is supposed to cover opinions, like everything else, with a fair and undiscerning eye. Regarding the history issue, it's worth noting that very, very few games ever have anything written about their reception in the future. (Those that do are usually ones that fall at one of the extremes, e.g. Final Fantasy VII or Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing.) If something ever is written about a game's reception, I think it's absolutely fair not only to include it, but to give it priority here. It's just that that's not a very reasonable expectation - and the less "classic" a game is, the more hopeless the situation. Tezero (talk) 16:21, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Not well thought out, and poorly phrased on my part. Yes, encyclopedias do document some opinions. The broad intention of my diatribe is that we shouldn't be promoting one opinion as the zeitgeist. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm not, either; I think these articles should summarize as many reliable sources' opinions as feasible, not one. Remember, summarizing what people say doesn't mean we agree with them, or else articles like Holocaust denial and Intelligent design wouldn't exist in Wikipedia's highly analytical and self-affirming hivemind. Tezero (talk) 22:59, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Let's not get distracted. We aren't talking about article subjects, fringe science or sourced summaries of critical opinion. We're talking about unsourced summaries of critical opinion on specific aspects of a work: the synthesis of multiple reviewer opinions into a "consensus view" that no extant source describes. Obviously, if such a consensus view is mentioned by a reliable source (e.g. "Big Rigs was universally panned", "Wind Waker's art direction divided critics"), then it may be included in the article. That isn't what's under debate. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 00:13, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't think its practical or enforceable to try to remove these summarizing statements. (As mentioned by PresN, to follow things as strictly as you suggest, wouldn't even allow for the writing of a lead statement.) And one of the things people love to know when reading about something, is how well it was accepted by audiences, so its going to keep being re-added into article whether a few of us here like it or not. Here's my stance: I'm saying what Tezero is trying to do, is much of the time, rather uncontentious, and fine. But if it is contentious, then it should be removed, and potentially replaced by something more objective, like a directly quoted summary. (ie "Review aggregator Metacritic showed Hyrule Warriors having a normalized rating of 75, based on 65 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".) Sergecross73 msg me 14:20, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Sure it's enforceable. All you have to do is change it when you see it. And film articles, for instance, aren't of a lesser quality simply because they don't describe a film with flowery "critically acclaimed" language. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
No? Are you sure? It sure didn't take long to find some GA films that do... Sergecross73 msg me 17:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure what that is an example of. An article that received a GA because it has a summary statement? Or an article that received a GA, and "Hey, lookit, it has a summary statement!" If we remove that summary statement, the article isn't going to lose its GA. Anyhow, I was arguing that cutting such statements aren't likely to impact the quality of the article. The other content (aggregator data) would still be there. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 17:31, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
You seemed to be insinuating that film articles don't use such flowery "critically acclaimed" language. I was showing you that this wasn't true in my experience. "Difs" or links usually drive this point home. ^_^ Sergecross73 msg me 18:02, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Of the people who have expressed an opinion at WikiProject Film, the majority don't like to include these summary statements. That doesn't mean the statements don't exist, only that they are not the preference of the vocal Film members. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I am in the stance on this that you need a source explicitly stating the opinions. Who are we to write a topic sentence for the reviews, when our view of the given reviews might be different from another reader's? That's why I try to steer away from the "X received <degree> to <degree>" sentences, unless I can find sources that tell me such. An example from the Film project: at Thor: The Dark World, users found this source from CBS News, stating the film got a "mixed" response. Thus, in the lead, it is stated and sourced the film received a mixed response. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 03:23, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Theoretically that can happen, and it sometimes does when reception of a certain aspect really is "mixed", but when 80% of the critics are slamming the graphics, I don't see how you're going to get "positive" or even "mixed" out of that. This is why I generally prefer to avoid editorializing beyond "mixed" when the overall critical preference is unclear. (As a note, it's much easier to find sources summarizing reception of an entire work than of parts of it - even Metacritic and Game Rankings can suffice for that.) Tezero (talk) 09:41, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Mmm, while we need to have guidelines that apply to all cases, this thread was started with FAC in mind- presumably, the article is using all the major RS reviews, so any summary statements should be a summary of everything relevant. Anyways.
  • I really don't think that saying, for a boring example, "Reviewers felt that the graphics were bad.", followed by "IGN said bad, Gamespot said bad, Eurogamer said bad, etc." violates WP:SYNTH. At some point, we have to inject some sort of framework and actual editorial work into the process, or else we might as well just make the reception section a bulleted list of quotes. I'm also a bit confused by what bridies is saying- so if we have 5 sources in reception saying that the graphics were great, we can say "reviewers thought the graphics were great" in the lead, but we can't say "the game was well received by critics" unless we have a source explicitly saying that? Because in that case, we might as well make it a commandment: "thou shalt explicitly quote and cite metacritic in all articles", because pretty much the only possible source for an explicit review aggregate statement... is a review aggregator. I'm not really fine with that. I don't see the issue with saying "The game was well received by critics" in both the lead and at the start of reception for a game with a 95% average (on metacritic) when it's followed by three paragraphs of glowing reviews.
  • Agreed. Honestly, if we can't summarize critics' reviews, why can we, for example, summarize that a game received "several" or "numerous" awards? Not everyone has the same definitions of "several" or "numerous". There is, however, a general understanding that one or two awards is not "several", but ten clearly is. Likewise, a 45% on Metacritic isn't a positive reception, but an 85% clearly is. Tezero (talk) 22:35, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I do see a parallel discussion going on above, though: is "mixed", in any format, a good word to use as a summary word, even when quoted from Metacritic? Personally, I'd only use it in the context of, say, "Reviewers were mixed in their opinions of the slashing mechanic; while some, like IGN, said it was "awesome", others, like Gamespot, said it was "awful". Then Jimmyblackwing would take issue with a rambling sentence like that, and it would get broken up, but hey. --PresN 21:29, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, I wouldn't use "mixed" when the overall critical consensus on an aspect of a game is that it is average; that just doesn't happen very often. When some like it, some dislike it, and some just don't mention it one way or the other, I will opt for "mixed" (because that's what "mixed" means), and this is far more common. Tezero (talk) 22:35, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
"Several reviewers..." is fine IMO and is what I usually do (in the lead). If one is using Metacritic as a source for "generally good reviews" or whatever, it should be "generally good views according to Metacritic" (or whatever source; for old games sometimes a history article will sometimes make these statements); yes, again just because of WP:DUE and so on. bridies (talk) 02:39, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand the problem. None of you are saying that we can't summarize individual reviews, right? No one's saying that the reception section should contain only the complete quoted text of each review, right? So if it's fine to summarize every individual review, why are folks worried that a summary of all of them together is going to be a huge problem? It's the same exact content that's being summarized. And as PresN says, at some point we have to take an editorial hand to create a framework and structure. WP:SYNTH isn't mandating that articles consist solely of content quoted straight from the sources. I agree it is important to take care with these generalized statements (in several instances, I've removed the statement "The game received generally positive/negative reviews" from articles where only a single review was cited), and I like Thibbs's suggestion of saying "Several reviewers" to avoid the implication that Wikipedia's coverage is comprehensive. But I don't see any problem with summarizing well-sourced facts.--Martin IIIa (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

You put very well into words what I thought of one day while I was out but had forgotten by the time I got back to my computer. In fact, Reception sections are very often criticized (see what I did there?) for being too quote-heavy. I can see the rationale behind "several" reviewers a little more, although if the most important reviewers (basically, the ones we keep when an article has too many reviews for the table, e.g. IGN, GameSpot as opposed to Sega-16, NintendoLife) agree on something, I don't think it's out of line to prioritize them over the lesser-known ones, since we're prioritizing the lesser-known ones over random people's reviews on the Internet anyway, and in this case "Reviewers generally praised" could be appropriate. Tezero (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Martin: the issue is described succinctly at WP:OR.
"The phrase 'original research' (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources." (Emphasis added.)
The conclusion "feature X was received well/badly overall" is not stated in typical reviews. Those reviews state only their own opinions; they do not comment on the consensus. Unless a source backs up the claim about the consensus specifically, then you've engaged in synthesis. The rule does not apply to the lead quite so extremely, however. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 22:17, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
That's not what he's saying. Why doesn't it count as original research to summarize an individual source, which you're doing whenever you describe their opinion without quotes? Why doesn't it count as original research to say, for example, "Joystiq, Game Informer, and IndieGames.com expressed negative opinions toward the camera"? None of these sources ever say outright that their opinions are negative, and there certainly isn't one that mentions the sentiments of all three. Tezero (talk) 22:33, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Because each of those reviews explicitly makes the claims that you're summarizing. IGN says: "I didn't like this"; Wikipedia reports: "IGN didn't like this". Let's say IGN publishes the following sentence: "Unfortunately, the camera really doesn't work all that well." You could without synthesis write: "IGN found the camera flawed." Why? Because it's the same information simply rephrased—that's all Wikipedia ever puts out. On the other hand, if IGN published a review that was positive about every aspect of a game, but it never gave it a high score or explicitly said that "this game is good" or "I love this game", then you could not write, "IGN enjoyed the game." You'd have to summarize what they liked about it without making the wider claim. Similarly, you can include a hundred individual comments about a game's graphics, but you can't jump to the wider claim that the game's graphics were well received. You need a separate source for that. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:42, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Ah, but that begs the question by assuming that "IGN found the camera flawed" naturally follows from "Unfortunately, the camera really doesn't work all that well." They never said it was flawed; they said it didn't really work all that well. In fact, it's very rarely as clear as "I didn't like this", and if we rely too heavily on the cases when it is this way, we'll be pushing copyright boundaries. Confused? I hope so. Tezero (talk) 00:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm not confused. It's very simple: if the IGN line can't be translated in the way I suggested, then Wikipedia is fundamentally incapable of following its own paraphrasing policy. That kind of translation is what it means to edit Wikipedia, though, so I'm not too worried. The thing is that no one here has explained how it's translation rather than synthesis to combine multiple reviews into a consensus view. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:19, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Is it really that unfair to simply make a statement about the general interpretation of reviews, though? Usually it is very clear and backed by a referenced metascore in the next sentence, as well as the reviews table, and disputes in this regard can easily be discussed within the prose, and on the talk page. Wikipedia is essentially constructed from its authors' interpretation of sources, as English always has some ambiguity. If we wanted to truly avoid all OR, we'd have to only ever quote our sources, which might start to push our Fair Use boundaries, and take away from the value of Wikipedia... What I'm trying to say is, I don't think a summary like a topic sentence is really OR in Wikipedia's sense, as it isn't really a personal theory about the quality of the game and/or why, but simply a summary of the general thoughts of the reviews sourced throughout that paragraph, which should be perfectly acceptable in this context, and use of consistently negative adjectives obviously makes for a negative review. (If an article published in 2013 made reference to "last year" it wouldn't be OR to deduce 2012 and source that as information, for example...) DarkToonLink 00:26, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

This isn't intended to detract from the above point, but in that specific example (2012 deduced from "last year") there is a direct policy exception to NOR. See WP:CALC. -Thibbs (talk) 12:59, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Completely agreed. A certain degree of liberty is needed all the time when writing, or articles would just consist of direct quotes strung together. Beyond that, as I somewhat alluded to above, the alternative is just too strict for practical purposes. It's high enough of a hurdle to get people up to Wikipedia policy and standards. There's no way it'll be taught or enforced if the project is split on it like it is. Sergecross73 msg me 00:57, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Obviously the list of quotes is an extreme example, but surely it is not unreasonable or an overly personal conclusion to begin a paragraph listing reviews that spoke highly of a game with "The game received positive reviews." This is not bringing together the sources to say something like "The game had very good controls and the A button was fun to use", which would be synthesis to create an opinion, but simply a general comment about the content of the sources presented in the article, which itself is non-subjective. I learnt to stick to fairly vague language in this sentence in my very first week as an editor, actually, haha... DarkToonLink 11:32, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
For that example, I wouldn't say it's unreasonable, or original synthesis, but pretty pointless. bridies (talk) 12:23, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Summarizing the views of sourced reviews isn't "adding original claims"; it's simply summarizing and collating. And again, I still see no explanation for how one can say that it is perfectly okay to summarize an individual review (in the process omitting select statements at the WP editor's personal choosing, summarizing multiple statements into single blanket statements, and altering wording in a way which may or may not alter the reviewer's meaning), yet still claim that doing the same for the reviews as a group is "original research". Like DarkToonLink says, the consensus of reviews is almost always very clear and indisputable, and in the rare event of a dispute that can be worked out on the talk pages. It's actually much easier for an individual review to end up being misrepresented than it is for the majority opinion to end up being misrepresented; I've certainly edited enough Reception sections in the past month or so to learn this.--Martin IIIa (talk) 14:13, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Because WP:SYNTHESIS does not apply to single sources. On the other hand, it is synthesis to jump from "X and Y and Z liked the graphics" to "the graphics were well received", because the latter claim is not contained in or entailed by the former. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:56, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Summarizing the views of sourced reviews isn't adding original claims. Deciding what "the consensus of reviews is" and then writing about it, is adding an original claim. bridies (talk) 01:22, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Summarizing an individual review can be problematic. Make no mistake about that. Though I didn't come with a real-world example, I have seen numerous edits where users cherrypick complaints from an otherwise positive or neutral article and call it a negative review. And here's a real-world example of someone attempting to summarize critical response of a TV series off one review. Moving along, statements like "the graphics were well received", suggest that this was the predominant opinion when it may just be the result of an editor's personal bias, their laziness to find conflicting sources, or that they don't subscribe to X, Y & Z magazines. Were the graphics also negatively received? If so, we should include that information for balance, and if so, that would affect the summary. We are not critical response aggregators. That's why we like sites like Metacritic and RottenTomatoes, who have access to hundreds of reviews written by hundreds of reliable sources, and aren't just using the same three websites to draw conclusions. Metacritic and RottenTomatoes, however, aren't always in agreement though. Hey Arnold!: The Movie, for instance, has a 29% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but a mixed/average score of 47 at Metacritic. So I don't know how it can be argued that "the consensus of reviews is almost always very clear and indisputable" when even the aggregators sometimes don't agree. And unless you've personally culled through all the video game reviews from the hundreds of reliable, suitable video game magazines, websites, podcasts out there, and you can say with 100% confidence that "critical response was overwhelmingly positive", then the statement shouldn't be in there. Oh wait, culling through those resources and arriving at a conclusion would be synthesis, so it still shouldn't be in there. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:34, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Killer Instinct (2013)

(As if I didn't think Payday 2 was enough of a silly pet project...) I've been on a bit of a kick with this game and it sorta occurs to me the article we have on it is sorta lacking. Unless I'm complete missing it, this seems like the first professional fighting game that is attempting a free-to-play model (DoA5:U:CF sorta does it, but doesn't explain if it compatable with the full game) at its core and it feels like the article is not bringing that idea across. It is also weak on story and could use some post season 2 reception (whenever that comes out). I thought about putting this up for peer review, but I didn't think it was ready for that. Anybody care to take the dive with me again? Zero Serenity (talk - contributions) 14:19, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

GA project goal challenge

One current goal is to get 533 GA-Class articles. There are 578 B-Class articles and the top competitor in the GA Cup stated that would be able to review 100 articles per month. In ten days, the user has done 32 reviews.[14]

If WikiProject Video games is willing to offer a video game trophy to this editor, the GA goal could be achieved in six months. I suggest this challenge: 578 GA reviews without quick failing or 533 GA passed nominations, whatever happens first. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 22:38, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm wondering. Why are you asking us this? We only have one article that's part of our project at GAN now (amazing I know) and by looking at his submission page, none of his reviews are for video game articles. GamerPro64 23:48, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
I have one VG article I'm gonna put up for GAN within a few days, but I don't know of any others. Wouldn't surprise me if czar had a few in the pipeline, but if you're looking for a ton of video game GANs to help your goal, I'm afraid you may have to leave empty-handed. Tezero (talk) 00:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Do not worry about nominations. This editor has enthusiasm and that energy can be channeled to improve Wikipedia. Video games is the only project I am working with that has enough articles. I am not promising 500 good articles, but 500 GA reviews that will help future editors.
It looks like this user is willing to work hard and recognition would be a good payment: that seems fair to me. I only need the project's endorsement and a gift image to offer; that is, if the user accepts and completes the challenge. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 01:40, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I just checked on their submissions page again. It seems that they withdrawn from the cup and has retired. So I believe this whole conversation is moot. GamerPro64 02:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Hey everyone, I'm a judge for the GA Cup and it appears that this IP and Jonas may be the same person (as suggested by GamerPro64). To save all of you time, if this IP ever proposes another idea, just shoot him down....don't allow his idea to progress (their all bad ones anyways), as the saying goes....don't feed the troll! :) --Dom497 (talk) 13:37, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Why should we reject ideas solely based on whom they come from? Why is this idea even a bad one? Tezero (talk) 14:44, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Apparently this belief that I and some IP user is the same person has became popular. As I said everywhere else this is being discussed, I'm NOT and have NO connection to the IP user. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 15:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I would like to ask Dom497 not to interfere, since this is not about the GA Cup. This is about improving a WikiProject that has specific goals. The challenge is valid; nevertheless, if it is deemed inconvenient, there are two ways to end it:
  1. The project states that it is not interested in 500 GA reviews, statement that will be implicit by a lack of answer. GamerPro64 has mentioned Jonas Vinther's withdrawal, so he does not seem to have understood the proposal; that can hardly be considered an answer from the project.
  2. Jonas Vinther declines the challenge expressly, which has not happened yet.
However, Jonas Vinther should not be afraid and should resume editing. No one is going to shoot anyone down. I once wrote: the Wikipedia method works. I trust the community to do the right thing. If Jonas Vinther wants recognition for a well-done job, this is the place and this is the challenge: no delays, no disqualifications, just reviews. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 22:32, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't quite understand what your saying or what your point is, but it seems to matter no more. Jonas Vinther (speak to me!) 22:49, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I see. Let us give Jonas Vinther some of weeks of rest, to think about it. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 23:21, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The point is that your challenge doesn't make any sense- the project doesn't have 500 GANs to review (it currently has 0). The bottleneck isn't finding reviewers, it's writing the articles to get reviewed, which takes a lot longer. Additionally, while I like the idea of WPVG putting up a barnstar award to whoever does the most VG GAN reviews throughout the cup, 1) the cup has already started so that's a bit late, 2) we don't have a surplus of GANs to review, and 3) it wouldn't make sense to target the award towards a specific individual, especially not one that you have apparently no right to speak for. I'm quite confused on that last point- why are you speaking on behalf of Jonas Vinther, or exhorting other people to make challenges for him? --PresN 22:51, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Let me try again, more slowly: 500 good articles are offered, does this project want them? 84.127.80.114 (talk) 23:21, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I would love for us to have 500 more, but I don't see how one person, or even a decent-sized group, could get 500 with any efficiency. Tezero (talk) 23:25, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Let me try again, slowly as well: this project does not have 500 GANs, and therefore cannot accept any GAs that are "offered". Additionally, no one is offering- you are not Jonas, and Jonas is not reviewing anything. --PresN 00:02, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I wonder if this discussion topic isn't salvageable. 578 B-class articles is a lot, and if that rating is worth its salt, most of them could get to GA without a huge amount of effort - I know GLaDOS, which was mentioned somewhere recently, probably could with a copyedit. Of course, this brings the question up of whether it's worth the effort to GA them... Tezero (talk) 00:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Seems like that would be about the fastest way to achieve the "5% GA or better" milestone. -Thibbs (talk) 01:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
This thread baffles me, but a drive to go through B-class articles sounds promising. I know for a fact that some of them are GAN-ready: I recently nominated one (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis) myself that hadn't had a major edit in about two years, and it passed with no issues raised. I'm sure there are other free GAs out there. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:50, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd add that most of our A-class articles are probably FAC-ready as well. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:53, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
I will take it as a yes; this project wants 500 good articles. JimmyBlackwing has pointed out 18 B-class articles; let us say 100 are ready to pass. What happens to the other 400? An example would be easier to understand. So, one random B-class article could be named and Jonas Vinther would review it (after reading the guidelines).
However, it looks like Jonas Vinther is resilient and working again; that is good. Should Jonas Vither want to take this challenge, or another user with the same energy, we can resume the discussion. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 01:50, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Even though by what he said in this discussion already Jason doesn't seem to want to do this. Let's just put this to bed. I'm concerned that this may be violating something in terms on policy. GamerPro64 01:55, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
GamerPro64 should not be concerned. I realize that my words may be hard to understand and editors fail to see what I see. What other people would consider a serious discussion is a funny one to me, because I know the context and where the misinterpretations come from.
I was happy to have someone reviewing Debian finally, but GamerPro64 should not feel compelled to continue the review. I am an IP editor, I have absolutely no power. I made the proposal to this WikiProject because I am working in Ghost in the Shell (video game). The challenge was targeted at Jonas Vinther because the user was the top competitor in the GA Cup. I hope that this has addressed GamerPro64's concern. 84.127.80.114 (talk) 22:42, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Punisher sourcing

I'm looking for a second opinion on the sourcing used in The Punisher (1993 video game), a recent GA now at DYK. It would appear to be mostly fansites to me, which are unreliable sources and should thus be removed. Thoughts? czar ♔ 20:05, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Under normal circumstances, I would say... ouch, those references. But if they are the only places where that information is found, I suppose they would be allowed. I think those are probably included under the same sufferance as: original interviews from dedicated fansites that contain details not found elsewhere, or that site Hardcore 101, which often has details from obscure sources no longer obtainable or accessible. --ProtoDrake (talk) 20:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi ProtoDrake. I am the GA nominator for the article. This is the first video-game article I have put a lot of effort into, though the fan sites were already added to the article before i got there. One quick question: do video game plot and/or 'cast' sections even need references? I mean, i've upgraded two film articles to GA, and film plots/cast don't require sources, even for GA or FC. My first reaction to the fan-sites being used in the plot was just to remove them all, on the assumption that plots don't require sources, but I left them in in good faith. Is there an official position on this? Thanks. Freikorp (talk) 00:25, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
The plots don't; casts also don't (I think) but are discouraged for video game articles. A note: something already having been in the article before you got there isn't a reason to keep it unless you suspect that the editors who added it know something you don't. I had to remove the cast section of the Freedom Planet article, especially because only one of its actors is notable enough to have an article here. Tezero (talk) 09:36, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
As the reviewer, I went easy on it because of the most of those fansites were used mostly for the Gameplay and Plot sections (which hardly counts as WP:CHALLENGEable content) while the Reception had the good enough review sites. In fact, I think some of those reviews can be used to substitute some of the content which those fansites are sourced to, am I right @Freikorp:? Sincerely, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 14:16, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Done. I've removed all references from Rq87.flyingomelette and Arcadequartermaster, replacing where possible with existing sources in the article. I only had to remove one and a half sentences from the article, and slightly reword another two sentences based on what the new sources back up. Freikorp (talk) 05:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Excellent work. Good day, Ugog Nizdast (talk) 07:18, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@Freikorp: In response to the above post, ping only works when you attach your signature. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh thanks. What do you mean by that, though? I did sign. Do you mean ping only works if you use the ((ping)) template? -Thibbs (talk) 17:25, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
The Ping functionality, regardless of template, only works if in the same edit as the user name is linked you sign the edit- in your case, you added the ping in a separate edit from your signature, so it wouldn't have sent them a notification. --PresN 17:34, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Good to know. Thanks. -Thibbs (talk) 18:32, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Hi Thibbs. When I first came across the article, it had one sentence backed up by the source "Retro Gamer 72, page 52". See this version: [15] I found someone who was selling issue 72 of Retro Gamer on ebay, as I intended to use said source to expand the article further, and also format the reference with an approved method, for which I would have needed more information, such as the article's title. I asked the seller to just confirm there was an article on The Punisher in the magazine before I purchased it. The seller said there was no such article in that issue of the magazine. Considering that if the article had of been in the magazine that person would have made a sale, I can't help but think they were telling the truth. Accordingly I removed the Retro Gamer reference and the attributed statement from the article. I would very much appreciate it if you could find references for this game in Retro Gamer or elsewhere; either the person who added the reference to the article or the ebay seller I contacted got it wrong, so if you have copies of Retro Gamer and could find out who was correct, and or find out where actual articles are, that would be awesome. Thanks. Freikorp (talk) 01:42, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
checkY No problem. I left a comment on your talk page. -Thibbs (talk) 04:12, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I really don't like doing this, but...

I'm not confident that Super Smash Bros. Brawl, an important, highly viewed, and highly esteemed article of ours, still meets the FA criteria. The Gameplay section is ridiculously over-detailed with spillover into two other level-2 sections (Playable characters and Stages), and there is a huge reliance on sources from two entities: IGN and Smash Bros. DOJO!!, the latter being a first-party source. More minor concerns include the use of Amazon.com as a source, a few dead links, some inconsistent formatting (e.g. IGN vs. IGN vs. IGN.com), and a few short paragraphs. I know it's part of a featured topic, but I wonder if an FAR wouldn't do it some good. Tezero (talk) 22:59, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I haven't looked through the article in detail but a quick look at how much the article has changed over the 6 years since obtaining FA leads me to think an FAR would be a good idea. Sam Walton (talk) 11:03, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Standards for inclusion of systems under "Platform" in infobox

First off, I apologize profusely if this isn't the correct discussion page for this. I wasn't sure if the template page was simply for the design of the template or if content was also included in that, so I decided to put it here since this page is more active. I noticed on Half-Life (series) that the Steam Machine and Android (NVIDIA Shield) are listed as platforms. While these are specific examples, I think discussion on what is or isn't a platform could be valuable. Concerning the Steam Machine, it's a Linux variant and it's redundant in that aspect. On the other hand, it's a system specifically created for playing linux-enabled games as well as streaming games from Windows and OSX computers. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, but I lean towards it being a redundancy. As for the Android labeling, the issue is that it doesn't actually run Half-Life natively on Android. While the shield does run Android-based games, in this capacity it's merely a streaming service. Basically, I think my question is are we to include any service that runs the game, or only platforms for which the game was specifically released?209.37.96.2 (talk) 04:24, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Steam Machine should not be listed if Linux is also listed; I know that Valve has said that games developed for SteamOS should still work in regular Linux (with necessary drivers) but if there is a case where SteamOS is required over Linux, that would be when to use that. For games that are run by streaming through cloud services, we'd rather just say "Cloud computing (<service>)" if the specific service is unique - in this case for HL the NVIDIA shield is definitely unique. (This relates to when we had to deal with Onlive services). --MASEM (t) 04:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Funny, I just came here to this discussion page to ask a question along this very topic. My specific question is about the Turbo CD and TurboDuo. At first, when I saw "TurboDuo" in the platform field of an infobox, I instinctively replaced it with "Turbo CD", since the TurboDuo is just a combination of the Turbografx-16 and Turbo CD. But then it hit me that, after all, the games' packaging does say "Duo", not "Turbo CD". Gaming publications follow that standard too; they invariably list each game's platform as "Duo". So now I don't know which way to go. Thoughts?--Martin IIIa (talk) 20:25, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it would depend on if game was a North America release or not, since the Duo was released specifically for North America. If the game packaging lists the platform as Duo, I'd go with that.204.102.229.130 (talk) 17:44, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Actually, the Duo was first released in Japan. The covers of Japanese Duo releases say "Super CD-Rom2 System", but they ran on the same consoles.--Martin IIIa (talk) 12:38, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Does Video game controversies need improvement?

I'm fine with this. The DRM concerns and the like are tailored more towards people who already play games, anyway, not to the general public. Tezero (talk) 18:18, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
This article has gone through a lot of tense discussion and conflict in the past and the current version represents the most recent (April 2014) consensus. The page has 232 watchers at present so you should probably drop a note at the talk page there, Willhesucceed. You might want to ping User:Myrtlegroggins, User:David A, and User:97.100.165.246 as well since they are the ones primarily responsible for the article's current condition. I had made a major cleanup to fix some egregious POV and SYNTH violations prior to that, and I'm not sure who had been involved prior to me. -Thibbs (talk) 18:37, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
Okay, the discussion's here, if anyone wants to participate. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:36, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Final Fantasy Type-0 Ultimania interview translation help?

I've opened a section on the said article's talk page about translating some interviews from the Ultimania guide. This is a little more interesting than other Ultimania translation jobs as the game has yet to be released in the west yet. Is anyone willing to help? And could that someone put translations somewhere easily accessible? It's the merest chance these scans weren't inaccessible to me, as I'm not really signed into a lot of online things. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:02, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

The Anime project might be able to help, they have a higher number of Japanese readers- and if not then, maybe the Japan project, I asked them to translate a title once. --PresN 21:33, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

GTA clone CfD

See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2014 October 10#Category:Grand Theft Auto clones. The category actually got deleted, after something like 7 weeks listed and 3 replies. Since a recent discussion (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 108#"Clone" designation bias) supported the existence of the parent article (as have quite a few other discussions in different places), it should really have more comments. The cat has been reinstated but is now empty until I can fill it again, as well as being still up for CfD. Editors interested in caretaking generally should probably watchlist CfD to prevent stuff being deleted with only a few non-arguments. bridies (talk) 15:17, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

GTA clone as infobox genre

On a related note, Bridies has been adding GTA clone as genre in several video game infoboxes. There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Red_Dead_Redemption#GTA_Clone.3F regarding this, but I think a more thorough discussion may be needed. -- Calidum 02:17, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

What kind of discussion are you looking to have? Both the cat and the parent article have been around for ages; it has been a part of the genre navbox for ages. There has been much discussion of these. Also, I am merely repopulating the cat per this admin request. Rather than simply revert the relevant bot edits I am adding sources to those articles for which I can find them, which is the correct thing to do per fundamental policy. As for it being in the infobox, that is merely the simplest way to do it; I don't care if it goes in the article body (which would require the composition of a bit of prose). This is why I have been writing "feel free to better integrate" (which you either failed to comprehend or simply ignored; a recurrent theme with you). bridies (talk) 18:16, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I articulated my opposition to the category at the CFD, the arguments I made are the same reasons why I oppose the addition of GTA clone into infoboxes. If we can satisfactorily describe GTA V (a featured article) as an open world action-adventure, we can do the same with all the "clones". - hahnchen 18:42, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

But GTAV can't be a GTA clone, because it is GTA. That's like saying we should describe Brick, Alleyway, and Smashing simply as "arcade" games, not with the well-documented, well-applied, and much more descriptive term Breakout clone, just because that's what the original Breakout article does. Tezero (talk) 18:50, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
In the CFD, I highlight the following problems with the term GTA Clone, that it is non-standard, ill-defined and can be considered derogatory. Given those issues, I think we should use the genre designators used at GTA V (and others), and not the clone shorthand. - hahnchen 19:13, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I am not particularly bothered whether it goes in the infobox or not, but if it is sourced it should be mentioned. And again, no, GTAV is described as "open world, action adventure"; two seperate terms, originally synthesised. bridies (talk) 04:43, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
"Originally synthesised"? What a bizarre turn of phrase, are you trying to conjure up the spectre of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH for describing GTA V as "open world, action adventure"? If a wolf is "bad", and that wolf is also "big", you'd have trouble describing it as a "big, bad wolf"? - hahnchen 14:59, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
It's a plain verb for original synthesis. I'm not "conjuring up the spectre", I am plainly stating that it is original synthesis. You big bad wolf analogy is asinine. Open world is one thing, action adventure another. If "open world action adventure" is the name of this genre, and its use is so prevalent as to make "GTA clone" FRINGE, prove it with sources (yet. again). If you not referring to a single genre, why do these terms preclude the use of GTA clone? Why do we not have the actual (sub)genre in the lead, infobox and cat, as with any other game? Pretty much any other action adventure game will have at least another genre cat; same with open-world, which again might mean anything from Minecraft to MMORPSs to MMOFPSs. I've stated this in multiple venues now and you are still ignoring it. bridies (talk) 15:27, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
"big, bad" is not a genre of wolf. Morrowind's lead describes it as "open world fantasy action role-playing", that's three different things, not "open world fantasy action role-playing". I'm fine with this, I don't think there's anything to gain from pushing your fringe theory. - hahnchen 15:40, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, big, bad is not a genre, which is while it's an entirely asinine example. No one is using "open world action-playing" as a reason to exclude another genre, or saying that that is the genre. GTA clone is verifiably a genre, and we have sourced various games as belonging to this category. You are saying that this is "clearly" FRINGE, because there are "hundreds" of sources demonstrating that the prevalent name for this genre is "open world action adventure". So prove it already. Bringing these two terms together as a genre definition (the infobox for Morrowind gives its genre as only action role-playing) is original synthesis without sources. And if it's not the genre definition, then GTA clone is. If all you are saying that these are both open-world and action adventures, then so what? Every game which is open-world and every game which is action adventure will belong to at least one other genre cat. bridies (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Also, I would argue that being classified as "open-world, action-adventure" does not preclude also being categorized "GTA Clone"; they're overlap for sure. --MASEM (t) 16:08, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I think it's important to maintain perspective here. As I see it there are two major questions that need to be addressed:

I would use inter-article consistency to guide the discussion. Has a similar disagreement over categorizing video game "clones" taken place in the past? -Thibbs (talk) 17:41, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Bridies was blocked (somewhat unfairly) over this fight a few days ago, and he appears to have now retired from Wikipedia. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:14, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Well I didn't see that coming. It's a shame. bridies has been here a while and has done a lot of good work for WP:VG. I hope this retirement isn't permanent. -Thibbs (talk) 11:11, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Requests Board reminder

This is a reminder that we have a Requests Board which has requests for creations of articles for the project. If anyone is interested in making one on the board, feel free too. As well, you can also look through the ones listed and see if they would meet WP:GNG requirements. If not, you can remove them from the board. GamerPro64 20:34, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I cleaned it up and added sources until July 2012. I don't think I'll be doing more for now, so if somebody else wants to pick it up ... Willhesucceed (talk) 14:28, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
I just created a page for Owlboy. Man, that's a pain, though it's a neat way to learn about games before they're released (if this ever is...). Tezero (talk) 22:10, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Removal of platform categories

Has anyone got the ability to roll back User:RacingPhreak's category edits? (Failing that I'll AWB it) - He/She has been removing platform categories eg removing PlayStation 3 games when the PlayStation3-only games cat is in the article. We discussed this and have a consensus for WP:DUPCAT in this discussion from last year. - X201 (talk) 11:11, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

GAN- and FAC-ready articles

The discussion above has inspired me to dig through the project's B- and A-Class pages for potential GAN and FAC candidates. I'll start by mentioning Maniac Mansion, which nearly passed A-Class and could pass FAC with very little work. Here are some others.

A-Class
B-Class

That isn't even close to all of them. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 23:25, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Y'know, now that I think about it, I could bring Shinobi (2002 video game) and Astro Boy: Omega Factor, two old projects of mine (as in, pre-semi-retirement, 2010-2011), to GAN pretty easily. I only stopped back then because I haven't actually played them and wasn't patient enough to watch playthroughs, so I didn't feel I'd be able to represent the plots well enough. That could change if large-scale GANing here were a thing. Project M (mod) isn't far, either; I just have to get around to writing a real Gameplay section (admittedly, my sluggishness here is because I prefer regular Brawl and find the M fanbase pretty repulsive, but hey). Wouldn't be surprised if others among us had old, forgotten projects like these. Tezero (talk) 00:07, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Xenoblade Chronicles would probably be a pretty easy effort to get to GA status too. I've been working on it off and on for forever. The main area it needs help is the plot/story section, which is super bloated, but I've only pared down some of it due to not wanting to spoil the game for myself. (Still haven't beaten it.) FYI. Sergecross73 msg me 16:19, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Definitely been there; spoiler aversion has kept me away from the likes of Dust: An Elysian Tail, Antichamber, BioShock Infinite, Questionable Content (I've read the first 500-odd strips and everything since 2009/2010, but that leaves a lot), and a bunch of anime/manga articles - only those pages I haven't even touched. While we're listing potential GANs, all of the main-series Sonic games from 4 onward are within shooting distance; I haven't bothered with them as a result. Lego Rock Band isn't bad, either. Tezero (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and 'Splosion Man and Ms. Splosion Man could be sent there in short order. Tezero (talk) 03:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Indeed. Jungle Strike could have been one, too, if bridies hadn't retired. I'll probably renominate it myself in a week or two. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:02, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd caution that Platform game isn't nearly as close as it looks. There are lots of original-research statements about the history of the genre and what individual games did for it - some of these are masked by the presence of citations that don't actually confirm this kind of information, just the existence of the games. The reference list is also pretty dismal (unreliable sources, lots of inconsistency in formatting), and there may be too many non-free images. (I can't say I was 100% unbiased in adding the Freedom Planet screenshot - although I suspect it was the same with the addition of the Fez video - but hell, at least those two don't aggravate the copyright problem while they also illustrate the recent development of retro indie platformers.) I'd totally be interested in fixing it up with someone, but "a few days" is likely a massive understatement. Tezero (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Good catch. I removed it from the list. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:20, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
GLaDOS should receive a major copyedit, and honestly could do with a heckuva lot of trimming in the reception. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 16:27, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Howrse Online

The article Howrse Online has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No independent reliable sources back up this article. 3 "references" to the website of the game, and one reference to a "Answers" site which is user contributed content and not reliable.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the ((proposed deletion/dated)) notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing ((proposed deletion/dated)) will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Hasteur (talk) 12:58, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Coverage of competitive Pokémon?

Forgive me if this does appear in a stable format somewhere on Wikipedia, but I haven't seen it and I suspect not: I think it'd be prudent to write a bit about the competitive Pokémon scene. I couldn't say whether it's actually expanding in importance, but it's certainly gaining media coverage: US Gamer just did a very lengthy piece on the competitive Pokémon and Super Smash Bros. scenes. (Despite my strong personal feelings against the fan-developed competitive scenes of both franchises, especially Smash's, I appreciate this article's staunch objectivity.) I also remember seeing another article a couple months ago from one of the large networks like GameSpot or IGN about competitive Pokémon, but I can't locate it now - has anyone seen this or any other usable sources?

Also, where and how should this competitive scene be covered, assuming suitable sources are located? Tezero (talk) 07:07, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

For individual games, within their respective articles (perhaps dedicated sections). They can always spin out summary style. There's all kinds of stuff on competitive Smash and Pokémon, but I haven't seen enough to warrant dedicated articles czar ♔ 07:15, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

WWE 2K15 for PC?

I am just curious. Is there a PC version of WWE 2K15 in development? I don't think the publisher 2K or the developer Visual Concepts has confirmed it, but it was listed in a Korean Game Rating Boards and was briefly shown in the WWE Network promos. So is the PC version confirmed?

Some Journalists uses the word "confirmed": http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2014/09/22/wwe-2k15-confirmed-for-pc-release/106812/ While some call it a "rumor": http://attackofthefanboy.com/news/rumor-wwe-2k15-released-pc-2015/
--AdrianGamer (talk) 13:05, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

According to that first link (which is more reliable than your second), yes. As you can see, there isn't official developer word on this. czar ♔ 15:30, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

RFC on bias in Gamergate controversy article

Please comment on this RFC regarding bias issues in the article on the Gamergate controversy. --MASEM (t) 05:41, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Query

I've just signed up to this WikiProject, and I was just wondering if any category/article needs specific attention? I actively contribute to Video Game articles on the Simple English wikipedia, and I've started increasing my activity on here as well. George.Edward.C (talk) 14:50, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Welcome to our humble WikiProject. Since you would like to help out with cleaning up articles, I think it would be appropriate to read our Article guidelines. Now in terms of certain articles needing specific attention we have Category:Video games articles needing attention. But if you just want to work on an article and get it up to Good Article or Featured Article status, try your luck at improving a page and don't be shy to ask a regular in the project. GamerPro64 15:03, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
Done some work on Hotline Miami and Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMix. George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 16:03, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Annual GOTY

I have recently visited the page List of Game of the Year awards, and I found that one user has change the 2013 Game of the Year from The Last of Us to Grand Theft Auto V in the Video game specific publications (Annual GOTY) section of the page. I don't know whether he/she is right or not, but is there even a publication called Annual GOTY? Does such thing even exist? I am confused because I cannot find anything related to it. AdrianGamer (talk) 08:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I've binned it, there were no sources and no explanation of who voted for it in what publication/website/awards show. - X201 (talk) 09:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Barnstar offer

If anyone (or multiple editors collaborating together) wants to take The Oregon Trail (video game) to WP:FA or at least WP:GA, there's a shiny Barnstar offer for ya from yours truly. :P — Cirt (talk) 08:40, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll look into it ;) George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 09:02, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
For anyone else, don't confuse this game with The Organ Trail ;) George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 09:14, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
This is one of most iconic games of the 80's, and certainly one of the most significant edutainment game ever created, besides the Carmen Sandiego series. Shame it had so many horrible remakes. Anyways I'm stoked it will have a great article soon.--Coin945 (talk) 09:16, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
Sadly, I can't find reviews of the older versions, only the remakes. If anyone could provide me with a source (likely CiteBook), that would be appreciated. George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 09:32, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Here:--Coin945 (talk) 09:48, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The critics all agree: The Oregon Trail is one of the greatest educational computer games ever produced. In 1992, Prides' Guide to Educational Softwareawarded it five stars for being"a wholesome, absorbing historical simulation," and "multi-ethnic," to boot. The newer version, Oregon Trail II,is the "best history simulation we've seen to date," according to a 1994 review by Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children's Software Review Newsletter.

— On the Road to Cultural Bias

The Oregon Trail is one of the most successful games of all time, a cultural icon that has given us catch-phrases like, 'You Have Died of Dysentery'. It sold something in the order of 65 million copies and is a treasured school days memory for millions of Americans.

— Polygon
Thanks, I'll try and find a review. George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 10:06, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

X series

When I write about a series, I refer to it as "X series" and so link it in an article not as X series but as X series. Other than in the infobox, I haven't found a single usage in months (ever?) where I wouldn't link "series" as part of the phrase. In this case, why do we use "(series)" as a disambiguator? Perhaps this makes more sense with television or other franchises that may refer to a monolithic singular TV show title as a metonym for the whole series ("Y character in Breaking Bad" not "Y character in the Breaking Bad series"), but it makes little sense for games, where Ultima or Mother or Super Mario or whatever is always followed by "series" (not "Y character in Grand Theft Auto" but "Y character in the Grand Theft Auto series"). Unless someone has an explanation, my recommendation would be to drop the parentheses from the disambiguation when referring to game series (e.g., Donkey Kong Country (series) → Donkey Kong Country series) as "series" is part of the common name when referring to the overall series. (Another way of thinking about this is that it's "the DKC series" and not "DKC, the series". This also isn't to say that it wouldn't be preferred to remove "series" altogether and use the shortened name, but at least when "series" must be tacked on.) This has been bothering me for a while, so I thought I'd bring it here. Apologies if I brought it up elsewhere before. czar ♔ 19:16, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd expect that the reasoning is that often the series' name is most closely tied to the series, not a character, location, individual game, etc., in which case the series' article is simply named "Explosion Chick" instead of "Explosion Chick (series)". (How the hell is this the case with Donkey Kong? Whatever...) In keeping with the standard "(character)", "(video game)", "(fictional country)", "(1989 video game)", etc. scheme, keeping it at "(series)" fits fine.
On the other hand, Wikipedia's coverage of languages, an area I've got some experience in here, only very rarely doesn't disambiguate a language's name simply as "X language" (e.g. English language, Danish language, Hungarian language, Cherokee language, Maori language). And when it isn't, it's just the language's name itself (e.g. Hindi, Nahuatl, Lojban, Sindarin), never something like "Korean (language)". Moreover, languages are actually less likely to be referred to with the "language" addendum than video game series with "series", which places us in an odd situation. Tezero (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
The reason TV series are so different is because people rarely refer to individual installments of the series, however popular it may be. Books are a closer cousin, and their series articles do tend to be named "X series" without the parentheses (see, for example, Category:Fantasy novel series). On the other hand, articles on film series (see Category: Film series) clearly favor using parentheses. So I'm wondering now if this is really an issue which should be decided on a WikiProject-by-WikiProject basis, or if we should take it to a different forum in order to get a broader consensus.--Martin IIIa (talk) 14:37, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for the belated response. Since my initial post did not voice an opinion either way, I shall now clearly state: I support your proposal.--Martin IIIa (talk) 19:20, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Portal:Video games

Portals in general don't exactly get the love they deserve on Wikipedia. At least in my opinion. Let's talk a bit about our Portal. What's everyone's take on its current look? GamerPro64 18:23, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

On a related note - would someone like to help reintroduce In The News? I was updating it for some time but fell behind due to being the only one doing it and so removed it from the portal again. I'd be happy to get back on top of it with some help though. Also, the portal gets a couple of hundred views per day so we should probably make an effort to look after it. Sam Walton (talk) 18:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I've never figured out our portal's purpose. Is it for average readers who want an introduction to the project? In that case, why is it so hard to access? Or, if it's for us, then why do we maintain it when so few of us actually read it? It's generally outdated and relegated to afterthought status—I've visited the page probably less than 20 times since 2005. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:38, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I tend to forget portals even exist. The only ones I ever remember keeping up with (and it's been months since I checked up on either) were the Linkin Park and Sonic ones. The former clung desperately to its (circa 2009) two GAs and one FL for content, and the latter was unapologetically written like something from a fan wiki. Why does Wikipedia even have them? Does anyone actually read them? Tezero (talk) 20:46, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I assume they're supposed to be the 'public face' of their respective areas, whereas wikiprojects are geared towards editors and behind the scenes stuff. Sam Walton (talk) 20:58, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I know that's the intent, but... I mean, who actually goes on Wikipedia and says, "Y'know, I haven't checked out the Paramecia, Uganda, or Abandoned Amusement Parks portals lately"? The more I think about it, the more self-affirming it seems that they're just something else for us to busy ourselves with before an empty theater. Tezero (talk) 21:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
200+ a day apparently, though I have no idea how many of those actually use it to find anything or consider it useful. It is linked to from a lot of places though. Sam Walton (talk) 21:48, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
I stand corrected. Nonetheless, 200-and-change views a day really isn't that many - it's comparable to Amy Rose's viewership. Imagine assigning some kind of maintenance team just to her article. ...Actually, I hate to say it, but is there anything preventing us from just scrapping the news section and switching it out for an auto-rotated display of FA, FL, and GA content? Tezero (talk) 02:15, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
After I stopped having time for it I removed ITN from the portal main page (it's still a subpage somewhere) so actually all the portal really does now is link to various places and show some featured content. Sam Walton (talk) 14:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
I would actually like to see ITN revived for this portal (I would help in maintaining it). I've dug up the page (see here). Last edit was in September... Last year. George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 15:44, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
George - I have now updated the section with some more recent stories and re-added it to the portal. Hopefully we can keep it up to date between us :) Sam Walton (talk) 20:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

SSX Articles

I'm rather new to this WikiProject (and Wikipedia editing in general), and was wondering if I could get assistance with the articles for SSX games, particularly SSX Tricky and SSX 3? They seem pretty significant as they're considered to be some of the best snowboarding games ever made, and it's a shame to see all the articles at Start-class. I've already started working on SSX 3's lead section, but have had trouble finding information about when it was announced. BlookerG (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I will try to assist :) George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 11:10, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
This - http://www.metacritic.com/search/all/ssx/results - should give you a ton of sources for fleshing out various SSX games. (Not every site from MetaCritic is reliable, but most are.) Search for the oldest SSX related article on websites like GameSpot or IGN - their database of articles seems to go back farther than most, so you may be able to find more older articles regarding when they were first announced. Sergecross73 msg me 12:43, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
There is some coverage of these titles in the RSes at WP:VG/RL:
SSX 3
SSX Tricky
There's also coverage of several others SSX games in other magazines at the Reference Library. Good luck tracking everything down and let me know if I can help. -Thibbs (talk) 17:19, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm going to be pointing out some improvements that could be made on each article's talk pages, so feel free to come and discuss. I've started with SSX 3. Thanks for your input @George.Edward.C: @Sergecross73: @Thibbs: BlookerG (talk) 20:08, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Review Thread IV: Roman Numeral Edition

Been a few weeks? Time to resurrect an old "favorite"!

  • Master System has been nominated since September 12. It has three supports and two unconcluded reviews. It has a passed image review and a passed source review. Should be alright, though it needs those two unfinished reviews to be concluded.
  • Tony Hawk's Underground has been nominated since September 27. It has three supports in addition to a trivial, very early one. It has a passed image review and a passed source review.
  • Okay, with all due respect, what the hell's taking this one so long? It's had three supports, both reviews, and no outstanding comments for, like, a week. Tezero (talk) 16:43, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Lightning (Final Fantasy) has been nominated since October 6. It has three supports and a passed image review. Needs a source review.
  • Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy has been nominated since October 14. It has comments from two users.
  • Dota 2 has been nominated since October 15. It has gotten extensive comments.
  • Freedom Planet has been nominated since October 18. It has comments from one user, who may be back for more.
  • Midtown Madness has been nominated since May 1. It has no delists. Thanks to improvements during FAR, it's a lot better, and the delists have been rescinded.

You can see the above to prioritize reviews. Commence the begging thread below! To start it off with, I'm always willing to give a review back if anyone wants to jump in at my FLC. --PresN 05:01, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

  • I feel bad about having tacked up the one lingering delist, but I really do feel the coverage of Gameplay is inadequate - not unfixable, of course, but since I've never played Midtown Madness and am not familiar with its sources I can't do this myself. Also, as a minor note, Raetikon's been passed and Tony Hawk has one support, albeit with more comments possibly incoming. Tezero (talk) 20:46, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Updated. --PresN 21:22, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
Plus, if I'm being honest, I think URDNEXT, from whom Underground's one support came, was at least one of the following: biased in favor of my work, trying to use an informal quid-pro-quo system on account of us having collaborated, or simply not that discerning yet with regards to prose. And he's retired, at least for the time being, so no more comments will be incoming to back it up. In other words, this FAC might as well have zero supports. Tezero (talk) 21:39, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Anyone interested in nominating one of their GAs or fixing up one of someone else's? Three FACs is a bit dry. Tezero (talk) 16:08, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and closed Mordin Solus' GAN. It wasn't being touched so it was best to have it taken care of. GamerPro64 16:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd really encourage some more feedback at the FAC for Master System if anyone can. Most of the reviews so far are unfinished; it could really use a source and image review, and maybe some completion on prose as well. Red Phoenix let's talk... 21:20, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Updated again; thanks to the GAR contest almost all our GANs have dried up! We were at nearly 15 a few weeks ago, and now we have 1. We still have three FACs and one FLC waiting for reviews, though! --PresN 18:39, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to urge you all to review the Master System article if you do nothing else. Tony Hawk's Underground, which was nominated later, is still doing better; it's only one support and an image and source review away from FA. Master System's an interesting read, too - this might sound surprising, but I'm actually not very well-versed in Sega's history, and now that condition's been a bit alleviated through Red Phoenix's hard work. Tezero (talk) 22:34, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Every time you don't review the Master System article, William Dafoe screams in a puppy's face. (You may win back a small amount of karma by reviewing Tony Hawk's Underground). Tezero (talk) 16:39, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

I feel bad for not helping Red Phoenix with a Master System review, but I'm really not qualified. It's too far outside my realm of knowledge. (That said, I'll probably review Dreamcast when it goes up, since I read a lot about it while scanning stuff for RP.) If anyone can give Master System a review, it'd be great. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:50, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
I always say I'm not into reviewing FACs and the like. But I'll attempt to write one up for the sake of giving it a fair run on the boards. GamerPro64 20:20, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
You guys are very kind; thank you for your help. Red Phoenix let's talk... 03:38, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Lightning really needs more input. Good news is that it's an interesting read, without any of the boring bloat you've come to expect from character articles. Let's not allow this to become a repeat of Squall Leonhart, guys. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:32, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

VG comments subpages

Back in October 2009 there was a village pump discussion where it was decided that Wikipedia's old comments subpage scheme would be deprecated. The consensus was finalized in the creation of WP:DCS.

To provide some context here, this scheme was originally developed for use by the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team (see WP:VG Newsletter 1-7's feature) as a way to provide small assessment notes to articles included in the "Articles by Quality" indices. Many WikiProjects including WP:VG did not embrace the new scheme and/or weren't even aware of it. In the discussion leading to deprecation, several specific problems were brought up: broken feedback - these subpages don't show up on watchlists unless specifically watchlisted so even an article's frequent editors were often unaware of the subpage and comments would languish for months to years without response; lack of use - some WikiProjects like WP:VG hardly used them at all; and potential for vandalism/misuse - some of these subpages were either vandalized without anyone noticing or were hosting inappropriate material like personal contact information for new reviewing editors. When the decision was made to deprecate the use of these comments subpages, there was discussion about notifying all affected WikiProjects (with this message) and then deleting all Comments subpages (after subst'ing them into talk). Unfortunately the notification, subst'ing, and deletion phases never took place.

Lucky for WP:VG there are very few (only 38) of these pages in use currently (full list here) so addressing this will hopefully be simple. Would there be any objection if I went ahead and shifted these historical subpages into their relevant talk pages? Per WP:DCS, the process I would use would be this:

  1. - Subst each Comments subpage into talk
  2. - Sign unsigned comments and provide a simple attribution list if unclear from the subst.
  3. - Request the removal of Comment subpages from ((Template:WikiProject Video games)) (easily done by changing "|COMMENTS = yes" to "|COMMENTS = no")
  4. - Request MfD per CSD G6 (Technical deletions) for each shifted comments subpage

The articles that will be affected by this process are covered by 2 WP:VG child projects (WikiProject Halo and WikiProject Square Enix) as well as 37 other WikiProjects (e.g. Biography, Companies, Apple Inc., Animation, Business, California, United States, Albums, Anime and Manga, Dallas-Fort Worth, Film, Horror, and Japan to name a few). So I've requesting input from these and other WikiProjects concerning all relevant WP:VG crossover articles. So does this sound like a good idea? I'm ready to start whenever I get the green-light. -Thibbs (talk) 15:51, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no problem with this; I didn't even realize these pages existed- and one of them is at an article I GA'd!. --PresN 17:34, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Stranger- Talk:Music of Final Fantasy IV: see think link in the project box "This article has an assessment summary page."? It's just like a hidden section of the talk page. --PresN 21:27, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Yep. Random example: Talk:Descent (video game)/Comments. Here's a non-VG example: Talk:Bob Kane/Comments. -Thibbs (talk) 21:49, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, those. I've seen them before. It's kinda interesting to read these and old peer reviews, GANs, and FACs; it's like a portal into Old Wikipedia. Tezero (talk) 21:51, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
I imagine you would keep the signatures when moving the comments, so it's attributed that way, but I mean that we often redirect pages in order to keep their edit history attribution in lieu of deleting those ties. czar ♔ 16:17, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
Long explanation of why I think deletion is better than redirect in this case and when I plan to propose speedy deletion versus the normal MfD process. -Thibbs (talk) 12:56, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I don't see any benefit to retaining the pages as redirects in this case. First of all they are not likely to be used as I think edit histories are important when we're talking about incremental changes to an evolving work like an article (or talk page) that has seen edits by several (sometimes several hundred) editors. But in the majority of cases (in 24 of 38 cases) these comments subpages represent single edits by an individual editor. Those would be the kind of non-complicated cases where I think sufficient attribution would be given by the signature alone and where deletion via CSD-G6 per WP:DCS makes sense. There are a few "complicated" cases (5 of the 38) where multiple editors have commented (1 bot edit, 1 prod and deprod, and 3 legit multi-editor incremental changes). The 3 legit multi-editor incremental changes would be submitted to MfD for a histmerge and then deletion and the other two I would have subst'ed to talk and then nominated for speedy deletion. More attention would be required for the 9 remaining cases where multiple edits are made to the same page by an individual editor. In some cases (e.g. 1) the multiple edits represent clear incremental changes to an evolving review. Those should be sent to MfD for a histmerge and then deletion. In other cases (e.g. 2 or 3) the multiple edits represent immediate typo corrections. Those I would subst to talk and then nominate for speedy deletion.
I'm generally opposed to using redirects in this situation because of the risk of confusion for readers. The autocompletion function fills in these comments subpages for readers searching for a page and I think some editors (e.g. 174.22.229.237 at the "Nintendo" article or 75.187.41.195 at the "Tara Strong" article) may get the impression that this is where comments should be placed instead of the main talk page. Similarly I worry that editors like Jj98 (at the "Electronic Arts" article or the "SimCity" article) may have been misled into creating new Comments subpages well past the deprecation date by seeing other places where these historical subpages were left up and assuming that this was standard at Wikipedia.
I can't think of any benefit a redirect would have over a delete (or a histmerge+delete in complicated cases outlines above) except to avoid the disruption of incoming links so I've tallied those. Only six Comments subpages have incoming links and of those, two (1 and 2) are from subpages of User:VeblenBot/Version 0.7 which has links to all Wikipedia 0.7 articles each with a link to a comments page (most of them are redlinked). Two (1 and 2) are from WP:FILM where an editor replied when I crossposted this cleanup suggestion. One is from earlier in this thread where Tezero asked for an example link (1), and one is related to a page move (1). I don't think any of those links are worth maintaining. I also checked WP:R#KEEP to see if there would be any good reason to keep them as redirects if that's was considered preferable but I have to say I don't see any benefit. Regarding R#KEEP point #1, any "potentially useful page history" would be preserved via histmerges resulting from MfD discussions so that's not an issue. Regarding R#KEEP point #5, I ran checks via stats.grok.se and the most frequently visited subpage turned out to be Chuck E. Cheese at 15 hits in the last 90 days. The most common result was 3 hits in the last 90 days. I don't think anyone is really using them for much of anything. I'll make a list of the subpages I would propose for CSD and those I would propose for MfD tomorrow. -Thibbs (talk) 22:31, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd be surprised if anyone even found these pages once they are redirected (and its links removed), nevertheless if an IP were to find them and get confused. I'd also be surprised if MfD were to delete them, especially knowing that their content was merged. Anyway, my 2¢ are in czar ♔ 23:02, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
OK here's the list (color coding: green = safest for CSD; yellow = safest for MfD; red = debatable CSDs) :
Anyway I don't know. I understand the point you're getting at, Czar, but that's what WP:DCS seems to recommend and from the talk page it sounds like it worked pretty smoothly for WikiProject New Jersey in 2010. That's the model I'm going for. The only tweaks I've made to the 2010 WikiProject NJ formula is to invite other interested WikiProjects to comment and to MfD some of the complex ones instead of speedying them all. If consensus at MfD is to redirect then so be it. I don't see much if any value to it but either way is fine by me. -Thibbs (talk) 12:56, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Update: Seeing as there have been no further comments here for a week and the only two comments my other WikiProject invitations generated were positive (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#WP:VG comments subpages cleanup and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Square Enix#WP:VG comments subpages cleanup, I have now gone ahead and CFD-G6'd all of the Comments subpages from the green-colored entries in the table I collapsed just above. I next plan to send the yellow ones to MfD to propose histmerging and then deleting. I will tackle the red ones last. The red ones I'm least sure about since they do represent history albeit trivial history. I feel a little strange nominating them for noncontroversial deletion given Czar's concerns above so unless I am convinced in a different direction I think I'll send them to MfD instead of CDS to propose histmerging and then deleting. I think that will cover nearly every angle of the attribution aspect. -Thibbs (talk) 15:15, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Update: The 24 CFD-G6s went through without a hitch. I have now sent the remaining 14 subpages (both the yellow and red from the collapsed table) to MfD for discussion. I have requested a histmerge and deletion for each one. Please weigh in at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Video game article comments subpages if you are interested. -Thibbs (talk) 14:26, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I've have also gone through WP:ANIMATION as well. JJ98 (Talk) 08:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Oh thanks, Jj98. -Thibbs (talk) 13:14, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Update: The 14 remaining articles have been histmerged and deleted via MfD now. This leaves us with 0 articles in Category:Video game articles with comments. I considered requesting deletion of the category too, but I figure it may be good to keep an eye on in the future in case there are any more comments subpages created in the future, so I decided to leave it up. Hopefully this won't be an issue. If anyone wants to nominate it for deletion then I wouldn't oppose the nom. -Thibbs (talk) 13:14, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

A bit of disruption to video game articles

I'm a little busy right now, but the issue of disruptive edits by 86.172.46.16 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has come up. Specifically, the editor is violating MOS:IMAGES by insisting on inserting fixed sizes for images. These articles probably need to be fixed. If anyone can look at this, that'd be very helpful. If nobody else gets around to it, I'll try to do it myself later. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually if we're talking infobox images, I nearly always fix it to 250px as infoboxes tend to be standardized at 252px. In the body, that's a bit different (but do seem them adding upright tags, which can be helpful for body images) --MASEM (t) 23:20, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
((Infobox video games)) says "don't add 'File:'" essentially but also does onto say "use frameless|upright=1.15". The template's formatting defaults to a particular size but that IP has been changing all of it to a fixed size.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:23, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
I've got a VG template, article code cleanup brewing (triggered by the horrors I saw during the removal of the defunct fields) if there's a consensus for the mass removal of File: and forced px sizes so that the template handles image sizes, I could add it to the AWB code and do it at the same time. - X201 (talk) 16:08, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
So I've noticed this IP has now been blocked twice, and is now continuing to make their changes on a third IP. The changes made by the second IP do not appear to have been undone yet following that block... How to handle the ones of my watchlist? -- ferret (talk) 21:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Presn has put on block in place, but the user is evadingbthe block - X201 (talk) 21:58, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Just for record keeping, the second ip was 81.154.61.94. -- ferret (talk) 22:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Third was 81.154.187.235. --PresN 22:15, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Contributions by the last IP address now undone, due to block evasion, independent of this discussion. --PresN 22:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Blocked 86.172.45.92 and rolled back as well; guess my edit count is going to spike today. --PresN 22:21, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
New one 86.172.41.185 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). -- ferret (talk) 23:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Blocked, rolling back disruptive edits (this time they mainly just linked things in the infobox and fixed wrong formatting, until they went back to reverting). --PresN 23:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Platform stuff

As another concern they are making the platform list, which I've nearly always seen as comma-fied, into a br-element list, though I'm not see any guides that this is good or bad. --MASEM (t) 23:31, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Note to all, since it seems few people know: using <br/> tags is ugly, and hard to read in the editor. Instead, use the Plainlist template, so that: 

|platforms=platform one<br/>platform two<br/>platform three<br/>platform four

becomes 

|platforms=((Plainlist|
*platform one
*platform two
*platform three
*platform four))

It doesn't matter as much in the platform list, but I just cleaned up a 1200-character release infobox parameter that had refs within templates within templates that was completely, utterly unreadable- it's a lot better now. --PresN 23:40, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Hehe... Dr. Mario's infobox I fixed up when I sent it through GA three years ago sure could use some cleanup, it's an absolute mess. *throws on to-do pile* ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 23:45, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
That was an abomination. A solid block of 2500 characters of wikimarkup. Emphasis on was! --PresN 23:59, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
I guess it says a lot about how I prefer working technical writing to prose or readable code. Functionality before aesthetics! I guess that's why we need every type of editor. ;) ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 00:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
A fair question: do we want a platform per line in the platform field? --MASEM (t) 00:28, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
I think the comma-separated method is sufficient for most articles, though I don't know that it needs a specific guideline either way. Very few games have more than three platforms, and most platforms have short names. --PresN 00:36, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
One advantage to having a guideline (or least some degree of instruction in the template documentation) is that it discourages edit warring over minor details. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:52, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
But rules creep is a very real thing, so creating a whole new guideline for it might not be the best choice. Put whatever consensus is developed in the Manual of Style, but leave it at that. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 16:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Dragon Warrior II#Requested move

Page move is proposed; discuss it there by clicking above. --George Ho (talk) 03:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

November 2014's TFA

This month, we have Metroid Prime 2: Echoes coming up on the 15th, originally promoted back in 2008. Congratulations to Gary! This article was nominated through WP:TFAR, an easy way to get your featured articles (or any featured articles) onto the main page when you want them. --PresN 03:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

:) Gary (talk · scripts) 03:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
Still crossing my fingers for Sega 32X making the cut for the 21st as well. Tezero (talk) 18:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
Yeah sorry about that, I don't keep track of future TFARs... I just have a list of my own FA articles and dates on which I plan on nominating them for TFAR. I've got three more to go! Gary (talk · scripts) 20:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Looks like we're going to have two FAs on the main page this month: Sega 32X, promoted back in March, just got scheduled for November 21! Congratulations to Red Phoenix! --PresN 19:02, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

F1 2015 (video game)

FYI, F1 2015 (video game) has been recreated. I'm not sure whether circumstances have changed since Untitled eighth-generation Codemasters Formula One project was deleted on October 10. DH85868993 (talk) 05:35, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I've hacked the non-encyclopaedic text from it, but to be honest, it needs deleting again. - X201 (talk) 06:57, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Given the now one-sentence nature of the article I've just G4'd it. Sam Walton (talk) 09:10, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. Was on a tablet when I edited it before. Was going to tag it for deletion as soon as I got to a keyboard and mouse. - X201 (talk) 09:15, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm trying to split and article and have no idea how it should be done

This is what I have done so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PC_exclusive_games#B

Is this the best/most professional way to split an article? Ideally, I'd want to see it always display the head content and only display the table of games of the currently selected letter (A by default). Does anyone have an examples of split articles that involves numerical lists?

Wikinium (talk) 03:28, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Don't split by name, if you can help it, on a list that splits better by date or not split at all. Splitting by name makes all of the sorting useless- you'd have to sort 27 tables by publisher to compare them, and scroll back and forth. To be honest, even though it's so long, I'd leave it as one big table, and just set section anchors so you can jump straight to the "P"s or whatever. If you really must split it, just split by decade. --PresN 05:20, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Decay (video game)

Dear gamers: Here's an old AfC submission that will soon be deleted as a stale draft. Is this a notable game? If so, I am willing to remove the promotional language. —Anne Delong (talk) 22:44, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

It's massively frustrating: I'm able to find plenty of sources, but none of them quite look reliable enough. Tezero (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
I'm not seeing any usable ones either. MarvellousMeatpuppet (talk) 23:59, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Same, I'm really not sure about this one. All I can find is Giant Bomb ([16] [17] [18] [19]) and GameFAQ pages ([20]). Granted there is the game's official website ([21]), but that's something for the "External Links" section. George.Edward.C – Talk – Contributions 17:57, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
So I guess we just leave this one to decay (sorry) ... —Anne Delong (talk) 17:55, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Developer Info box

Why co-developers and ports developers can't be mentioned in the info box developer section like in Assassin's Creed Unity and Rogue. Template:Infobox video game has stated that they should be mentioned in text but I don't understand. Co-developer is STILL developer. They has contributed in the game's development. I don't see the point for not adding them into the info box. AdrianGamer (talk) 10:19, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Neither do I. What's happening? Is someone objecting and reverting edits that put them in? I have added co-developers to infoboxes before now without objections. But then, I've never really worked with the Assassin's Creed articles. --ProtoDrake (talk) 12:45, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Normally there is no objection, but in few articles like Assassin's Creed as well as Batman: Arkham Origins, some editors revert my edits (adding co-developer in the info box) because of 1) Not notable 2) Already mentioned in the body text 3) Violate the guideline in Template:Infobox video game. I personally don't found co-developer "not notable" and the use of info box is to give a brief summary of the article. Therefore I wish to change the guideline, or actually delete it. AdrianGamer (talk) 13:15, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Co-developers should definitely be there. If it's for a port, put the system after their name - "Port Devs (PS4)". --PresN 16:04, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I say start a separate discussion about changing this guideline so that co-developers can be included under certain conditions. When I worked on Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Type-0, the co-developers/port developers formed an important part of both infobox and article: Type-o was the particular example, as the HD port was not handled entirely by Square Enix, but developed under their supervision by HexaDrive. Port developers should also/always be noted when that information can be found and sourced. This sounds like people who are reading this guideline a bit too literally. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:08, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
I have started a separate discussion in Template talk:Infobox video game. AdrianGamer (talk) 03:03, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Source question

I would like to ask the WikiProject if website Rice Digital is a viable source of information related to Japanese games. I am feeling suspicious myself, as I was with JPGames.de, which is apparently alright. Opinions? --ProtoDrake (talk) 12:56, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

This question would be better suited for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources.--69.157.253.160 (talk) 06:17, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Human Element Wii U additions

Hi folks. I've looked into sourcing for this upcoming game and cannot find a concrete, recent source which includes Wii U as one of the systems supported. That being the case I've removed it several times.

It has been added back once again by a newly created account. I don't wish to get bogged down in an edit war, but on the other hand it's irritating to see misinformation being spread on WP. Help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarvellousMeatpuppet (talk • contribs) 22:10, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The latest (newly created account) has falsified the first reference in the article by including Wii U in the article's title and used that to cite the addition. MarvellousMeatpuppet (talk) 22:14, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
Is there somewhere else I should be taking this? MarvellousMeatpuppet (talk) 23:23, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Reliable sources like NintendoLife and IGN list Wii U as a platform. I'm not entirely sure what else you're asking for... Sergecross73 msg me 23:29, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Database entries on these sites can be out of date. The most recent source I can find, and the one being used in the article states "In an email to Polygon today, Bowling confirmed that Robotoki is developing Human Element on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One, along with a "secondary experience" on mobile platforms." In response to my asking for a source the latest editor to reinstate Wii U has falsified that source's title on the WP page. MarvellousMeatpuppet (talk) 23:59, 7 November 2014 (UTC)
Well, if your concern is about the database entries being out of date...usually companies announce it when they drop a platform. See? (The PS3 version of Dying Light was recently cancelled recently, if you didn't know.) Sergecross73 msg me 00:51, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
I was under the false impression that I was doing the right thing and wanted a second opinion, which you've provided. I'll leave the article alone and update the zombie game list appropriately along with its platforms for Dying Light. Thank you for replying and for the info Serge. MarvellousMeatpuppet (talk) 16:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
More