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I couldn't find a previous discussion on this topic, so I figured I'd ask because this has been bugging me for a while: Are there actually any third-party reliable sources that describe video games in terms of first/second/third/etc. generations, that predate Wikipedia's use of the term? AFAIK, it seems like the articles wer divied up like this using arbitrary cut-off points that werent supported by the literature at the time just to make the history of video games articles easier to manliage. Is this a case of WP:OR that has become legitimised due to citogenesis, or have these always been actual terms? Note that even if the literature had previously spoken about specific console wars etc., that doesn't necessarily mean they used the exact term of "generation".--Coin945 (talk) 04:21, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

It comes up about once a year, roughly- the last one I could find was [2014]. For a longer discussion, see this 2011 RFC. To save you some reading, the conclusions that have been reached are:

a) It's likely citogenesis-ish, but impossible to prove

a1) If Wikipedia was the origin of the generations paradigm, or if not the origin then the most influential source, then it did a darn good job of it because pretty much everywhere uses it now

b) The idea of "generations" is a natural extension of the sixth/seventh gen concept of "next generation consoles", which continued to today, so the paradigm may be independent of Wikipedia anyways

c) That said, the further back you go the harder it is to break things up into generations; the early ones overlap a lot

d) Other organization schemes, such as "85-90", "91-95", etc., where consoles get slotted in based on when they were first released could make sense, but...

e) Revamping the 8 massive articles on the history of video game consoles into any other schema is a massive undertaking, to say nothing of all the side mentions of generations on any article that mentions consoles

f) Nobody even seems to have the energy to fix up the generation articles as they are, much less write the equivalent of a short history book to restructure the articles into a new schema, even if you can get everyone to agree on what that schema should be, which no one's been able to yet

--PresN 04:34, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Wow... that's so fascinating. :D I apologise for resurfacing a perennial discussion. FWIW, your summary is much easier to read than other discussions you linked me too. I'd be interested to trawl through the history of those gen articles and see who originally named them, and if there was any naming discussion, because it seems like they may very well have coined a term that shaped the gaming industry. In any case, could this summary be added to the talk page of the History of video games article under FAQ?--Coin945 (talk) 04:47, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

As another data point, the IEEE has basically cemented the generation approach via this [1] which I would agree is likely citogenesis, but here at least it is not a bad thing: we have an expert computing society here says "this is a good way to organize these". It would be different if we were factually saying something wrong and that fact morphed in reliable sources. --MASEM (t) 04:54, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Looks like we're too late; soylent green is people and wikiality is real. Every single mention of "Xth console generation" I've heard until recently has been caveated with "if Wikipedia is to be believed", but no longer. Guess the (English-speaking) human race is stuck with this paradigm forever now. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:56, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

On a sidenote, when the current generation (PS4, Xbox One) was just released, a lot of articles did use inappropriate in-universe slang about "current generation" and "next generation", like on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. --Soetermans. T / C 07:44, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to track @Diceman: down and interview her/him for an interview at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. I think that would be really fascinating...--Coin945 (talk) 14:09, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Good luck, it appears he left the project almost 8 years ago. (And if he thought things were too strict in the lax days of 2007, I doubt he'd be happier about the stricter 2015 standards either.) Sergecross73 msg me 14:17, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Complete history of the Gen articles

Phew this took more effort than I was expecting. This data might give us an added insight into the issue. It seems that @Diceman: was the person who changed all these articles from "x-bit era to "y generation", and they made the majority of these changes on 14 March 2006; sadly they are no longer at Wikipedia. I wonder if they have ever been contacted though...--Coin945 (talk) 05:33, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

• Pong era

• Originally included in the series of VG history articles. Renamed to Pong and refocused.

• Atari era

• Originally included in the series of VG history articles. Renamed to Atari and refocused.

• History of video game consoles (first generation): Created 1 February 2006‎ by @Diceman:

• Originally defined as "[From the] Magnavox Odyssey...until 1977, when "pong"-style console manufacturers left the market en masse due to the video game crash of 1977 and when microprocessor-based consoles were introduced."
• On 14 March 2006‎, @Diceman: moved History of video games (first-generation systems) to History of video game consoles (first generation). Edit summary was: "Title change to more accurately reflect focus of this series of articles".

• History of video game consoles (second generation): Created 16 December 2005‎ by @Diceman:

• Originally defined as "Video game consoles prior to the video game crash of 1983 [and beginning with Pong]."
• On 1 February 2006,‎ @Diceman: moved History of video games (Pre-crash systems) to History of video games (second-generation systems).
• On 14 March 2006,‎ @Diceman: moved History of video games (second-generation systems) to History of video game consoles (second generation).

• History of video game consoles (third generation): Created 10 March 2004‎ by @Tedius Zanarukando:‎

• Originally defined as "The era when the Nintendo Entertainment System dominated the gaming market".
• On 10 May 2005, @Andrevan: moved Nintendo era to 8-bit era.
• On 30 May 2005,‎ @Andrevan: moved 8-bit era to History of video games (8-bit era).
• On 14 March 2006‎, @Diceman: moved History of video games (8-bit era) to History of video game consoles (third generation). Their edit summary was: "title change to more accurately reflect focus of this series of articles".

• History of video game consoles (fourth generation): Created 21 January 2004 by @24.127.166.241: (OLDEST}

• Originally defined as "The time in the early 1990s when the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis were major rivals"
• On 7 November 2004, @Uman~enwiki: moved 16-bit era to Fourth generation of gaming.
• On 22 December 2004‎, @Fredrik: moved Fourth generation of gaming to History of video games (16-bit era).
• On 14 March 2006‎, @Diceman: moved History of video games (16-bit era) to History of video game consoles (fourth generation). Their edit summary was: "title change to more accurately reflect focus of this series of articles".

• History of video game consoles (fifth generation): Created 24 February 2004‎ by @Tedius Zanarukando:

• Originally defined as "The era...when the Sony Playstation was the dominant video game console and when the Nintendo 64 was on the firsthand market."
• On 26 February 2004‎, @24.127.166.241: moved 32/64-bit era to 32-bit era.
• On 22 December 2004‎, @Fredrik: moved‎ 32-bit era to History of video games (32-bit era).
• On 6 June 2005,‎ @ShotokanTuning: moved History of video games (32-bit era) to History of video games (32-bit - 64-bit era).
• On 6 June 2005,‎ @ShotokanTuning: moved History of video games (32-bit - 64-bit era) to History of video games (32-bit / 64-bit era).
• On 14 March 2006,‎ @Diceman: moved History of video games (32-bit / 64-bit era) to History of video game consoles (fifth generation). Their edit summary was: "title change to more accurately reflect focus of this series of articles".

• History of video game consoles (sixth generation): Created 27 February 2004‎ by @Tedius Zanarukando:

• Originally defined as "A video game era when the Sony Playstation 2 dominated the console market...It is the current era of video gaming."
• On 7 November 2004‎, @Uman~enwiki: moved 128-bit era to Sixth era of gaming.
• On 4 November 2005,‎ @Robchurch: moved Sixth generation era to History of video games (Sixth generation era).
• On 22 January 2006, @Lowellian: moved History of video games (Sixth generation era) to History of video games (sixth generation era).
• On 14 March 2006, @Diceman: moved History of video games (sixth generation era) to History of video game consoles (sixth generation).

• History of video game consoles (seventh generation): Created 30 March 2004‎ by @205.188.116.140:

• Originally defined as "The upcoming video game era, which is set to begin sometime in 2006. All 3 of the current major console providers (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) have plans to release new consoles in this era."
• On 18 September 2004, @ERW1980: redirected 256-bit era to The Seventh Generation. Their edit summary was: "call the next generation of consoles, The Seventh Generation. 256 bits is misleading".
• On 24 November 2004‎ @Lowellian: re-redirected 256-bit era to Seventh-generation era. (Presumably because The Seventh Generation was a disambig page).
• On 30 May 2005‎, @Andrevan: moved Seventh-generation era to Seventh generation era.
• On 4 November 2005‎, @Robchurch: moved Seventh generation era to History of video games (Seventh generation era).
• On 22 January 2006‎, @Lowellian: moved History of video games (Seventh generation era) to History of video games (seventh generation era).
• On 14 March 2006‎, @Diceman: moved History of video games (seventh generation era) to History of video game consoles (seventh generation): Their edit summary was: "title change to more accurately reflect focus of this series of articles".

• History of video game consoles (eighth generation): Created 12 May 2006 by‎ @WebJunkie:

• Originally defiend as "A video game era...that will begin sometime between 2010 and 2012 if the chronological gap between console generations is preserved."
• On 14 December 2006,‎ @J.L.Main: moved History of video game consoles (eighth generation) to Future of video game consoles (eighth generation).
• Article was deleted on 19 December 2006 (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/History of video game consoles (eighth generation) (2nd nomination))
• On 9 June 2011‎, @Phantomsteve: recreated article as History of video game consoles (eighth generation).

History discussion

The biggest issue I have with this system in general is that it completely ignores everything that is the US console market. PC gaming, mobile gaming, MUDs, arcades, South American console market, Chinese game market, it's all completely ignored. That all being said, these articles are

• 1. Particularly useful as they cut up the console cycle (at least from gen 3 onwards) in easy to understand and describe subjects, that are even somewhat self-contained.
• 2. Highly notably and popular.

However, despite being useful as articles on their own, I would argue not to give undue weight to this concept in our over-arching History of video gaming article. I'd also argue to rename them all to "xth generation of video game consoles," but that's a whole different discussion. ~Mable (chat) 07:42, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Weird how the History of video gaming articles exist as History of video gaming consoles articles...--Coin945 (talk) 08:10, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Up until the 8th generation, things like mobile and PC just weren't grouped into the video game generations by reliable sources, which has been the only thing to go by because no one can agree on how to define the generations otherwise. I've been maintaining the 8th gen article since forever, and every discussion to refine or redefine the generations has never gained any sort of consensus because everyone's got their own personal beliefs and criteria for what a "generation" is. Some say timeframes. Some say power of hardware. Some say other things. The only thing that's been anywhere near a consensus is "include it if sources tend to define it as such". Which basically leads us to our current set up. Sergecross73 msg me 13:28, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

If there were no logistical issues with restructuring the articles to accommodate the new vision, theoretically speaking, what, @Sergecross73:, would you recommend in regard to the future of those articles and the history of VG coverage on Wikipedia at large? As a self-professed guardian of the "8th Gen" article, and someone, who has presumable heard every possible argument, I think your opinions would be extremely valuable and at the very least interesting--Coin945 (talk) 10:03, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe it would be useful to do much about the current "history of console video games" kinds of articles other than perhaps a title change, but we could expand our coverage better by working on articles such as History of PC gaming, History of mobile gaming, History of video gaming in Europe, etc. These kind of articles wouldn't mess at all with the current console generation set-up. It's hilarious that we devote eight articles to the history of consoles, and none to the history of PC gaming. ~Mable (chat) 14:56, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It seems to be that there's less an issue with the console articles, and more an issue with a gap in articles covering other areas. Maplestrip's suggestion seems like something worth following up on, especially mobile gaming I think. The fact that the consoles have rather devoted articles while other areas do not isn't really, in my eyes, a reason to consider trying to change, consolidate or trim them, etc. -- ferret (talk) 15:00, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Americans love consoles, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean we should ignore other fields. I'd love to start a draft for one of these, but frankly, this topic is way too big for me and I wouldn't even know where to begin. ~Mable (chat) 15:04, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

The reason that consoles are easy to break down is that they have fixed points of entry, making a timeline very simple. It is very difficult to pin that down for any other field, but we should definitely try to explore to have history articles for these other areas, as well as high level single-year history articles that cover the entire area. But yeah, right now, how to break those down is hard to tell. --MASEM (t) 15:06, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

About the term computer game: This term is in sharp competition with video games, console games, and arcade games. Video games and console games usually means games connected to a TV, whereas arcade games means games placed in public spaces (and individual cabinets). Computer games are occasionally taken to mean games played on a PC. Since all of these areas have been developed in close parallel (and because all of these games are played on computers), I am using the term computer game to denominate all of these areas as a whole.

— https://www.jesperjuul.net/thesis/2-historyofthecomputergame.html

Well atm, Wikipedia has PC game, Mobile game, and Arcade game so that's start. I suppose the real question is how valuable is splitting up games based on the device on which one plays them actually, when you get down to it; are there better ways to split up gaming history? All the computer gaming history articles I've looked at ([2][3] etc.) treat the genre as a subset of console gaming that started years later and was directly affected by the context of console video gaming at large. Which seems a bit ridiculous. I guess computer is just *another* console so it seems silly to split it off from the rest. *sigh* I know it can be daunting to look at the bigger picture, beyond individual games, but it's always a discussion worth having and despite it being an extremely daunting notion, it is definitely a noble cause. Perhaps this project could ask come industry professionals or scholars for their opinion?--Coin945 (talk) 04:11, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

This is pretty problematic, as in some parts of the world, console gaming simply never took off as much as PC gaming. Also, take this line from our article on the general history of gaming: "Large computer-game companies such as Epyx, Electronic Arts, and LucasArts began devoting much or all of their attention on console games. Computer Gaming World warned that computer gaming could become a "cultural backwater," similar to what had happened a few years earlier with 8-bit computers.[91]", where it becomes clear that in the US too, PC-gaming was once a pretty big deal.

But either way, the fact that we have a "history" section in these article works pretty well, because unlike with the console generation, there aren't too may systems to "list off," nor do we need to describe the console wars where companies compete against one another with promises of hardware and software. It is difficult to describe the history of something when all you can really say about it is how some releases influenced other releases, rather than making a "grand narrative" of it all.

With PC games, we could describe the early popularity of the text adventure, the evolution of the MUD into the MMO (which, by the way, we do have an article for, so that's good), the rise, fall, and resurgence of point-and-click adventure games, browser-based games and online gambling, console emulation and, today, the wave of indie games powered-by digital distribution.

...Well, I suppose it could make a pretty interesting narrative. These are all things almost unique to PC gaming. But I don't know about sources for all of this, and it might be really easy to give undue weight to certain things. ~Mable (chat) 09:29, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking along similar lines. The narrative for computer gaming could be based on gaming genres (I'm looking at List of best-selling PC games for guidance): the golden age of adventure games and edutainment titles (80's), the rise of simulation games and Full Motion Video games in the 90's, the rise of FPSes and real-time strategy in the mid-late 90's, role-playing games in the early 2000s, MMORPGs and sandbox games in mid 2000s, Action-adventure-survival-RGP in late 2000s/early 2010s. Hmmm.. It's hard because life is always more complex than simple narratives, But it's a start.--Coin945 (talk) 09:59, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't think simple genres are the way to go, as a lot of genres have been popular on console and PC simultaneously. Turn-based strategy, full-motion video (though it lost popularity on consoles fast), first/third-person shooters, and GTA-clones, for example. It might be the best to describe how technical advances (mouse, internet connections and digital distribution in particular) influenced the kind of games that were created for the PC. PC gaming has also always had a stigma of being more complicated, both to install (which was very true in the 80s and 90s) and to play (which is definitely true about real-time strategy and simulator games), though I'm not sure how to tie this in into the history... Either way, I think we should look deeper than "these happen to be the kind of games people made during this period." ~Mable (chat) 10:22, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

This source seems to have some interesting computer game-only information, such as this: "In the early days computers were created to solve mathematical problems and to govern programs to complete a certain task. But as time went on some software companies saw the potential in computers to act as an entertainment device. This is how computer games began"[4]. So at the very least the early history of computers is governed by the reapplication of computer hardware and software for gaming purposes. See also: [5][6]--Coin945 (talk) 10:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

One thing that we should try to do is create an outline article "History of video games" , recognizing that the history of consoles, handhelds, home computing, mobile devices, and arcade machines are normally well out of sync that's impossible to cover all the groupings in nice parallel manners, but that we should be able to present a comparative timeline of these areas so that, say, a user can see what was happening in the world of PCs as the consoles entered a given generation, etc. The specific history aspects can then be developed out through the specific history or concept articles as needed. --MASEM (t) 16:03, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

• If I can offer a different way of thinking about most of the above—instead of lamenting the current Xth gen console setup, a more constructive solution might be to expand summary style from related articles. ("History of arcade games" doesn't need its own article if it's adequately summarized as "Arcade games#History" and so on.) If there are enough sources discussing a historical arc (i.e., sources about the arc itself and not individual articles strung together to form a history) such that the History section takes up too much room (due weight issue), then it'll make sense to split it out into its own article. But for now, there's little sense in starting "History of X games" stubs apropos of nothing—it puts the cart before the horse. czar 02:33, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Very belatedly: While the specific "1st generation, 2nd generation, 3rd generation" etc. terminology was probably coined by Wikipedia, the idea of "8-bit consoles", "16-bit consoles", and to a lesser extent "32/64-bit consoles" most definitely predates Wikipedia; these consoles were compared with each other as a group, so it's not exactly OR. And since the PS2/GameCube/XBox came out in very short succession (Within a year or so of each other, varying by region), those consoles were clearly tied to one another in competition as well. The problem is that X-bit terminology is wildly technically inaccurate, even if it was used at the time. I could see an argument for moving back to "16-bit video game consoles" or the like but that'd just invite endless debates about the likes of the Atari Jaguar, so.... no. Anyway, if we acknowledge that "Generation" really is a thing that exists for good & proper business reasons (releasing 2-3 years behind the largest competitor is risky since you won't win by enough technically to cause a shift, so best release ~5 years into a top dog's reign?), 1st/2nd/3rd seems a neutral enough way to describe the generations. I do agree that it wouldn't hurt to have a History of PC gaming or the like article as well, as that's a pretty huge part of the history that isn't covered in the console-centric articles.

Anyway, given that Xth generation is likely here to stay, I don't think the parentheses are needed. It's not like there are 8 flavors of meaning of "History of video game consoles", it's 8 specific subtopics. So something like History of video game consoles, seventh generation or Seventh generation of video game consoles would seem better titles to me. Thoughts? SnowFire (talk) 01:40, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

As I stated earlier, I agree and far prefer those titles. scrapping the history probably works best. ~Mable (chat) 07:06, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I've filed a move request here: Talk:History of video_game_consoles (third generation)#Requested move 9 November 2015. SnowFire (talk) 01:53, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

That was the wrong place to file this request. This has actually been discussed just last year when someone tried move without consensus. Please evaluate past discussions. I think there is an tentative approval for this move, but you need to put the request in a place with MUCH higher visibility than just buried on the 3rd Gen talk page. BcRIPster (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

A user has placed a request for renaming all of the Generations pages (eg, History of video game consoles (third generation) → Third generation of video game consoles). I have asked them to move the request to someplace with higher visibility due to the contentiousness of this naming. See talk:History of video game consoles (third generation)#Requested_move_9_November_2015 BcRIPster (talk) 22:31, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

This was discussed at #"Generations" of video games; where is there contention either there or that particular talk page? --Izno (talk) 22:40, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

The contention is that it was done without a high enough level of feedback and someone just blasted the change through without a proper vote. I think people were open to the idea at the time but it really needs to have high visibility and not be buried on the page it is currently on. This also needs solid co-ordination on the move because it has wide impact. BcRIPster (talk) 22:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts on this list? I've been watching it change for the past few months and I don't see it going anywhere. All the claims of being the last game turn out to be original research (few sources exist to declare the superlative, and the chosen game's release date is still hard to source). And there are disagreements as to what constitutes the last game. Anyway, ideas? czar 04:13, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

• Personally I don't like having these "last release" lists for the very points you mention. At the minimum they open up a can of worms of what constitutes a released game and whether or not homebrew or unlicensed counts (especially unlicensed that was commercially sold, even in limited quantities) and leads to a perpetual holy war... Once you allow unlicensed anyplace then literally "last release" becomes meaningless. Especially when you factor in the developers doing revival games for old platforms. They're commercial releases, and in some cases they are able to secure latent licensing. Leave the topic to an external resource. I would think having comprehensive lists is already well enough, just date sort the list if it's that important to a reader. BcRIPster (talk) 09:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
• I find it interesting in theory, but is it very well sourced/documented? It seems mostly unsourced, and in a quick skim through, I've already found errors. (Brandish (video game) isn't the last PSP digital release, Summon Night 5 doesn't have a release date yet, Class of Heroes 3 is set to come out later than Summon Night 5, etc etc.) Sergecross73 msg me 15:07, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate. There is no way this could meet WP:V across all platforms. I can see a few select cases that have been noted in third parties, but this is otherwise original research. --MASEM (t) 15:13, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

• Nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of last games released on video game consoles czar 16:01, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

There has been an influx of activity revolving around esports articles and I am admittedly concerned about the quality of these articles. Other than the sources generally being dubious, I've also noticed that their naming conventions have been odd and inconsistent, with some retaining the standard full names that is most common on Wikipedia, while others include a pseudonym in the middle.

The following articles have me worried about their naming conventions: Chang "FreedoM" Young-suk, Chun "Sweet" Jung-hee, Jang "Moon" Jae-ho, Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok, Lim "NesTea" Jae-duk, Won "PartinG" Lee-sak, AmazHS, Ryan "Saiyan" Danford (Halo player), Reginald (Team SoloMid), Dyrus, Greg "Idra" Fields, GH057ayame, Ben "Karma" Jackson, Victor "Lil Poison" De Leon III, Fear (Dota 2 player), Chris "HuK" Loranger, Carlos "Cpt Anarchy" Morales, Nadeshot, NYChrisG, PangaeaPanga, Dan "OGRE 1" Ryan, Tom "OGRE 2" Ryan, Trump (Hearthstone streamer), Trihex, Tom "Tsquared" Taylor, Nate "Ataraxia" Mark, Kripparrian, Bananasaurus Rex, Luo "Ferrari 430" Feichi, Wang "Banana" Jiao, Wang "infi" Xuwen, Xu "BurNIng" Zhilei, Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager, Grubby, Kayane, Av3k, xPeke, GeT RiGhT, Leffen, Fredrik "MaDFroG" Johansson and F0rest - (that last one I created as "Patrik Lindberg").

What we need to do is reach a conclusion about how to name these articles. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 09:58, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd say follow WP:COMMONNAME within the confines of WP:ALLCAPS/whatever link that says don't use weird capitalization stylizations. Sergecross73 msg me 11:42, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

In general, I believe screen names tend to be more commonly used than legal names, though if the latter is more common, I am completely fine with this. I have noticed that speedrunners are almost always referred to under their screen names and have less experience with other eSports players. Either way, 'firstname "pseudonym" lastname' is not done on Wikipedia, so the articles should be moved. I personally don't care if Wang "Banana" Jiao is moved to Wang Jiao or Banana (electronic sports player) and I believe this can be done on individual basis. An annoying issue is that redirects often exist, meaning admins have to get involved (which is why I wasn't able to move Vo0). Of course, disambiguations such as "(Hearthstone streamer)" or "(Dota 2 player)" should be resolved by making them more general. "(electronic sports player)" seems popular. ~Mable (chat) 11:49, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

A few things that I would agree on: the page name should be either the person's given name or their handle, but not include both (even if this means disambiguation is needed where it wouldn't be in the case of "John "CoolName" Smith" for example). Obviously redirection should be used appropriately for searching. As for which to use, take it on case-by-case; for most of these where it seems their reputation is only from eSports, it likely will be their handle than given names. (I did a spot check on various YouTubers and found more than likely it was a page at the handle name, not their real name which does tend to be obscure). --MASEM (t) 17:30, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

In my world I'd just make everyone their real name for the sake of disambiguation tidiness, but I agree with Masem and others above that COMMONNAME trumps all and people shouldn't have their aliases in their actual article names. Either David Walsh or Walshy (electronic sports player), not David "Walshy" Walsh. For the majority of these guys, especially those that stick to the same alias, it'll probably be the latter rather than given names (which is one of those weird things I think makes people not really understand eSports compared to professional "analog" competitions, but I digress.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 17:44, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

My personal preference is to not go off of gamer tags, but to utilize the first and surnames. A lot of these players are widely known by their real names, like with Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 18:43, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

By the way, thanks for chiming in David Fuchs. It's been quiet without you. :) DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 21:15, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, if we were going by what is gaining the most traction so far (COMMONNAME, no hybrid names) then your example would just end up being Patrick Lindberg all the same. Sergecross73 msg me 18:52, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

It's nice to be back around Darth. Hopefully I'll be more available and active this coming year. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 03:04, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Caveat as always for google search results, but when I looked up '"f0rest" counter strike' I got 385,000 results, '"patrik lindberg" counter strike' and '"patrik "f0rest" lindberg" combined got 44120 results. But I do think this is just a CS thing that players' real names are not as well known because I don't recall the broadcasts introducing them by their real names often, unlike with LoL, SC, and Dota.--Prisencolin (talk) 15:24, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@Prisencolin:, could you give input and perhaps some explanation, as you applied name changes to most of these articles? DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 21:11, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

While First "alias" Last is explicitly discouraged by WP:NICKNAME, a number of article titles still use this format including: "Weird Al" Yankovic, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Don "Red" Barry, Evelyn "Champagne" King, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Johnny "Country" Mathis, Greg "Fingers" Taylor, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Clarence "Frogman" Henry. The titles aren't without controversy, however, which can be seen on their respective talk pages. Ideally most video game players titles would use this format, but recently I've been somewhat convinced that many editors aren't going to allow this to happen so I've also been somewhat in support of just using the gamertag/alias only per WP:STAGENAME/WP:NICKNAME. I'm not sure if this is possible but alternatively, something I've noticed with Korean language reporting is that usually they will list the first mention of a player as "real name" (alias), but this is probably not acceptable in English.--Prisencolin (talk) 03:07, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Has this aspect of WP:NICKNAME ever been properly discussed? Though 'first "pseudonym" last' is against guidelines, why exactly is this? Have this guideline been under discussion before? Also, the example given in the guideline is particularly moot ("Bill" is a common shortening of "William"), meaning that it might not even be a bad idea to differ from this guideline of video game players. ~Mable (chat) 10:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure it has - WP:NICKNAME is a Wikipedia Guideline, not just some consensus achieved at a WikiProject level. Website-wide rules don't just "appear". It more or less is another way of enforcing the WP:COMMONNAME concept. I also don't see why esports players would be a reason to go against this. The esports namespace isn't exactly crowded with variants of "Gatemouth" and "Frogman". Sergecross73 msg me 13:32, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Names such as "Vo0" and "HuK" can be somewhat annoying though, even if they are unique. I know it is not a WikiProject-only guideline, but guidelines are also not solid rules per se. I brought this up because I don't want people to make decisions based on a guideline that might not even entirely apply to our situation - I personally still prefer using one name (generally the screen name) over a combination, though. ~Mable (chat) 14:13, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. With WP:NICKNAME/WP:COMMONNAME already established, there's already a standing consensus is against these hybrid names, and this discussion isn't showing anywhere near the support needed to override that, so I think its safe to say they're out. And yes, while some of these screen names are irritating, some will be less-so when putting MOS:CAP/WP:ALLCAPS into place, so we'd have "Huk" instead of "HuK" at least... Sergecross73 msg me 14:33, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

There is the option to just ignore all rules though, if it's really necessary.--Prisencolin (talk) 14:35, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess, but...usually you'd want a pretty good reason to just IAR. I'm not sure I see one - this all can uncontentiously fit into the guidelines in place. We don't seem all that divided on this, and even if we were, we could always do an RFC to get some outside input on. (Besides, if we just decide to cite IAR wantonly, outside experienced editors are likely to challenge those changes anyways.) Sergecross73 msg me 14:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

So I asked in this thread at Wikipedia:Article titles whether it is acceptable to use "first 'alias' last" in the title, and one response I got was that you can if it's for purposes of title recognizability. If you look up (withou quotes) "faker league of legends", "f0rst counter strike" or "nadeshot call of duty", in the reliable video game sources search, it seems as many sources do introduce them with that format.--Prisencolin (talk) 01:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguators

A few weeks ago there was discussion on the disambiguators and there was emerging consensus that (gamer) (or (video gamer)) were preferable and sufficient disambiguators. The type or title of the games being played (Hearthstone, DOTA, FPS), the level of play (pro, esports, amateur) or the medium of distribution (speedrunner, streamer, tournament player) were considered to be superfluous when it comes to disambiguation. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:47, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Just because of other recent situations on the "gamer" term (which I don't need to get into here), might I suggest a more neutral "(video game player)"? That's less of a neogolism as well. --MASEM (t) 17:53, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, "(video game player)" is consistent with "(poker player)" and "(chess player)" which are used in those fields when they are needed. --MASEM (t) 17:58, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I support "gamer". It is what it is, regardless of connotations and associations, and its the most precise. Even "video gamer" seems excessive, as there's really nothing to disambiguate from. (Its not like gamer is ever used in relation to a pro Monopoly (board game) player or something. Sergecross73 msg me 18:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Sergecross73, especially as Gamer makes it clear. -- ferret (talk) 18:08, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I like "video game player", but "gamer" seems fine as well. No particular preference. ~Mable (chat) 18:55, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Generally players of a sport is disambiguate by the sport they play, such as John Roberts (Australian rules footballer) (edit:as opposed to John Roberts (athlete), but in the later case there are multiple sports players with that name). Strictly speaking I don't see "video game player" or "gamer" as specific enough because players are usually only notable for playing a single game, or sport if you will. While something like Hai Lam (League of Legends), might not be very concise, at least it's precise as it actually describes the game they play. Also see Category:Game players, most of the articles are disambiguated by the game they play.--Prisencolin (talk) 03:14, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

@Salvidrim: could you link me to that discussion?--Prisencolin (talk) 04:14, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 116#Disambiguators, but this one has already has more participants. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 04:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of using using the game they most play as a disambiguator because it looks too much like how we name in-game characters with generic names, like Toad (Mario) or Ryu (Street Fighter), for example. It makes it confusing to tell, upon first glance, what their relationship to the game is, without something like "gamer" or "player" in there. But if you add that in, unless there's someone with the same name playing the same game, you're coming into WP:PRECISION problems...which is why I think its better to stick with something like "gamer". Sergecross73 msg me 13:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Good point, I agree that confusion with fictional characters is a reason to keep the disambiguators different as well. ~Mable (chat) 14:07, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Field goal (basketball) and Joe Alexander (basketball) both use the same parenthetical disambiguator, but there shouldn't be any concern that "Joe Alexander" is a strategy/element of basketball or that "field goal" is the name of a player. If need be we could just use (game player).--Prisencolin (talk) 15:13, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, of course those two aren't confusing, it's not two names - one is a name, and one is terminology. No one would be confused of if "Field Goal" sounds like a name or a character or player. Basketball's not a good example of what I'm talking about anyways, as there's generally no fictional "in-game" basketball characters to confusing with the players themselves. Sergecross73 msg me 15:21, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Very few people could tell what occupation Etchegaray did if they saw the link Etchegaray (pelotari), but it doesn't matter because the disambiguator is specific enough, and perhaps its also a bit meaningless for those who don't know what pelota is. Also the reason why editors didn't select the title as Etchegaray (sports) or Etchegaray (athlete), is because the individual in question does not really play "sports", and is not necessary comparable to say Wade Davis (baseball) (edit: which is also the short name of the Reconstruction-era Wade–Davis Bill). Similarly, the video games played competitively are incredibly diverse and span multiple genres, I just don't feel like it would be right to see Gonzalo "ZeRo" Barrios in the same vein as Hai Lam (League of Legends).

Even if someone may confuse the title of Faker (League of Legends) or Banana (Dota 2), with an in-game character or item or something, does it really matter? I fail to see any drawbacks to what you're suggesting, even if there is some initial confusion by someone unfamiliar with the subject, one look at the page will tell you exactly what its referring to. In any case, "first 'alias' last" title formatting should be able to avoid disambiguation at all so this is pretty much a null issue.--Prisencolin (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Is your stance really "does it really matter" if the term fails WP:RECOGNIZABILITY, in any case, violating WP:NICKNAME makes it a non-issue? This approach is neither supported by guidelines...or even really anyone in these discussions so far. I don't think your reconciling your personal views with Wikipedia very well here... Sergecross73 msg me 01:38, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

If you're going to put it that bluntly, then yes. But whether a title like Faker (League of Legends) would not satisfy recognizably requirements isn't a clear-cut as you make it, as the guidelines described on WP:AT are quite vague. As for whether or not its okay that a title violates WP:NICKNAME, see the list of excepts I posted earlier.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:15, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

According to this, "gamer" has recorded usage going back to the 15th century, so I don't really think its much of a neologism. Plus is almost standard English to attach "-r" to mean an occupation; a "footballer" plays "football" just as a "gamer" plays "games".--Prisencolin (talk) 11:57, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I personally really wouldn't mind "(esports player)" and "(speedrunner)" to be used, but we'd have to decide on a list of "proper" disambiguaters. Should we use the vague "streamer"? Is "let's player" appropriate? Etc, etc. I really dislike ambiguating per video game (such as "(League of Legends)" or "(League of Legends player)"), in part because many professional gamers play multiple games (even if they are better known for one than the other) and mainly because I feel it is more precise than needed for disambiguation purposes. My preference now does lie with "(video game player)" ~Mable (chat) 10:13, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

My first preference is for "(video game player)". I'll settle for "(gamer)", as well. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 10:18, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

In situations where a player is notable for playing multiple games, like Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen, "name" (gamer) should probably be fine. However the majority of notable gamers are notable for their achievements in a single game. I think it's a good idea to specify the game played, as there is not such thing a "video game", whereas Charles Congdon (cricketer) doesn't really play "sports", he plays cricket. Another reason "gamer" shouldn't be applied is because players of different games don't compete directly against each other, so they shouldn't be seen in the same context.--Prisencolin (talk) 11:47, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

This is overly WP:PRECISE: Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that. The other reason to prefer "gamer" or "video game player" is that these terms are widely-WP:RECOGNIZABLE to a non-video games audience; "DotA" is not. --Izno (talk) 21:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Not to mention that several gamers, such as Idra and Artosis, play/played multiple games at a competitive level. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 21:36, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Dota should be recognizable enough to a non-games audience, I mean you can reasonably assume its some sort of occupation. @DarthBotto, I guess then in the cases with those players "gamer" or "video game player" would be okay.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:22, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I've been seeing good reasons to put the title of a video game in the disambiguation, and though the fact that various video game players are notable for various games can be a serious issue (Take PangaeaPanga, for instance. Though he wouldn't need a disambiguator, what would it even be if he did need one? "(Super Mario)"? Or just "(Video game player)"?), I suppose I can accept it if "video game player" would be the equivalent to "athlete" in sports. Something I want to point out, however, is that "(Dota)" doesn't seem appropriate, much like how "(chess)" or "(basketball)" usually isn't appropriate for sports players. I don't take any issue at this point with "(Dota player)" or "(Counter Strike player)", even if such specific disambiguators aren't technically necessary, as we are talking about specific fields. We don't call "(biologist)" a "(scientist)" either, after all (nor do we call them "(biology)")

Oh, and less of a pressing issue, it will be a pain to get the italics right in these article titles > ~ < ~Mable (chat) 08:23, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know too much about science as a profession, but taking a quick look at Category:American_scientists we see there is a large array of disambiguators, ranging from just "chemist" to "electrical engineer", and even "chewing gum maker"; technically all of these could be just "scientist". Another issue lies in the fact that there isn't a quick suffix that can be attached to "League of Legends" to mean occupation ("LoLer" maybe), in this case I still think that just "league of legends" is fine. Concerns about someone thinking Faker (League of Legends) is about an in-Champion are probably valid, but ultimately it doesn't really affect the titles recognizability too much.--Prisencolin (talk) 09:20, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• I suppose [[Nickname (video game player)]] would be a standard solution (when the Nickname is ambiguous). Also note (at WP:NCP#Disambiguating): "Try to avoid using abbreviations or anything capitalized or... (i.e. within the parenthical disambiguator)" (bolding added), so naming video games or whatever that needs capitalization is definitely not a preferred standard solution for a parenthetical disambiguator.

Re. [["Weird Al" Yankovic]] – that's the guy's common name, quotation marks and all. See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)/Archive 13#Contradiction between WP:NICKNAME and WP:TITLEFORMAT. That's how it is for this guy: Wikipedians didn't throw together first name, nickname in quotes, last name - "Weird Al" Yankovic is simply how the name appears in reliable sources, as his stage name or whatever, compliant to WP:NICKNAME.

Serialization of article titles for video game players on either [[Firstname "Nickname" Lastname]] or [[Nickname (Named Video Game)]] (or such variants), or adding disambiguating terms in cases where no disambiguation is really needed would be incompatible with current rules, so would require a change of WP:NCP, maybe even a change of WP:AT (for adding unnecessary disambiguators), changes which seem unlikely to ever happen

Note that some time ago there was something similar regarding wrestlers (some preferred the [[Firstname "Nickname" Lastname]] format there too), well it didn't happen: current rules seem OK to address article titling in various areas. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:28, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I still don't understand why we'd do "(name of field)" rather than "(name of occupation)", i.e. "(Dota)" rather than "(Dota player)". What reason is there not to add the "player" part? "Chemist", "electrical engineer", and "chewing gum maker" are not "chemistry", "electrical engineering" and "chewing gum" either. The noun refers to what the person is. The only consistent exception I know to this is when we're dealing with a fictional character or item. ~Mable (chat) 09:42, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm interpreting the use of "try" as meaning it's only a recommendation, not actual policy. In any case the problem is that League of Legends is capitalized because it is a title of a game that was created by a company, whereas football was not really created and published like other games are. Also I do want to point out (American football) is widely accepted as a disambiguator, as seen in Jeff Scott (American football).

You can't really just attach "-er" or "-ist" to Dota to get Dotaer or something in a formal context, although admittedly you can get "gamer" from "game"--Prisencolin (talk) 10:04, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Rough Draft RFC

It was requested that I write up an RFC on the matter. I've created a rough draft at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sergecross73#Rough_Draft - any input or tweaks before its made into a full-fledged RFC? Also, I've realized that, as much as I tell people to start RFCs, I don't do them very often personally, so if no one objects, feel free to be bold and just make it into an actual RFC. Sergecross73 msg me 15:46, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I really like this draft - very nicely done. I would like to get consensus on what disambiguation to use before moving these articles. It would be nice if we could be consistent :) ~Mable (chat) 16:03, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

John Szczepaniak wrote a book, The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers, of rare dev interviews. Wanted to give a heads up that the digital book will be free on Amazon this Thursday through Saturday. Also the raw interviews are going up online and would make great self-published sources. czar 22:44, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Just downloaded, thanks! --PresN 19:04, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

It's estimates by a market research group but Polygon is reporting it: http://www.polygon.com/2015/11/10/9673936/elder-scrolls-bigger-than-fallout-sales-data-report --Mika1h (talk) 21:37, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Just cite the organization making the claim, "According to EEDAR, ...". It's an RS reporting on what appears to be a reliable firm with access to certain numbers but can't give a big picture, so it's fair. --MASEM (t) 20:40, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, as long as the context is provided - not just "X game sold Y copies." as a cold hard confirmed fact - you should be good in this case. Sergecross73 msg me 21:35, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

That is, I have recently been looking at these lists and feeling kind of put off by how inconsistent they are in their style. Some have genres, some do not. Some have releases for all regions, some have releases for some regions, some have limited information for release (ie by year, or by first release), and some don't list any release dates. Some say the publisher/developer, some say either or neither.

Though perhaps there already is a guideline on this stuff and all that needs to be done is implementation. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 08:16, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Just a heads-up for anyone planning to use WP:Peer Review in the future. User:PeerReviewBot, the bot that archives peer reviews after a certain period, has not been working since June. Peer Reviews at this time have to be closed manually. GamerPro64 19:50, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Another month, another review thread it seems. Here's what's going on now.

FAC

• Final Fantasy Type-0 (nom)
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines (nom)
• Seiken Densetsu 3 (nom)
• Jumping Flash! (nom)

GAN

• The Fine Young Capitalists (nom)
• Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible (nom)
• Music of L.A. Noire (nom)
• Red Alarm (nom)
• PlayStation 4 (nom)
• Dragon Age: Origins (nom)
• Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (nom)
• Persona 2: Innocent Sin (nom)
• Golem Arcana (nom)
• Long War (mod) (nom)
• Battlefield Germany (nom)
• Fallout Shelter (video game) (start)
• Ni no Kuni mobile games (nom)
• Sunset Overdrive (nom)
• Music of Red Dead Redemption (nom)
• Obsidian Entertainment (nom)
• Tales of Destiny 2 (nom)
• CD Projekt (nom)
• Life Is Strange (video game) (nom)
• Mega Man Powered Up (nom)

PR

• Killer Instinct Gold (rev)
• Persona (series) (rev)
• Ridge Racer (video game) (rev)
• Obsidian Entertainment (rev)
• Resident Evil 5 (rev)
• Life Is Strange (video game) (rev)
• Jumping Flash! (rev)
• Dyscourse (rev)
• Mad Max (2015 video game) (rev)
• Final Fantasy XV (rev)

Misc.

• List of video games in the Museum of Modern Art (nom) (FLC)
• LittleBigPlanet (PlayStation 3) (nom) (GAR)
• Key video games (GTC)

And as a reminder, we still have a huge backlog at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests. So if you're interested in making a new article, feel free to browse around. And if you find an request that doesn't fit requirements, you can remove it from listing. We also have over 200 drafts up at Category:Draft-Class video game articles if anyone wants to work on a pre-existing draft. GamerPro64 18:51, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Cool, thank you. I'll consider doing some reviews of GA nominees (I'm not ready for FA yet!), on top of getting the articles on my userpage up to that standard. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 19:19, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

GA review on hold for The Fine Young Capitalists, with comments. --Kiyoshiendo (talk) 04:12, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Begging thread

I suppose I'll start this off. I'll take anything (you can already hear desperation there) in exchange for some comments at the Jumping Flash! peer review. Failure at its next FAC isn't going to be an option this time. JAGUAR  22:54, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@Jaguar: If you have time, it would be great if you could take a look at Ni no Kuni mobile games. A full review for GA isn't necessary, if you're not up for it; just some comments on the talk page (or mine) would be really helpful. Thanks! – Rhain1999 ^{(talk to me)} 03:31, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

@Jaguar: I'll review it in return for an FAC review of Seiken Densetsu 3. Failure's not an option for that one either! --PresN 03:39, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll start a read-through now and will leave some comments at the FAC shortly! JAGUAR  16:19, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I'll expand it out: I'll trade a review (any sort, any article) in return for an FAC review of Seiken Densetsu 3. --PresN 03:50, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

If you would, please comment at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PlayStation_4#Instrument_of_terror

Articles like http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/11/14/why-the-paris-isis-terrorists-used-ps4-to-plan-attacks/ are arising, and I'd like input on whether or not it should be included in the article, and if so, how/where. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 16:23, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• "An ISIS agent could spell out an attack plan in Super Mario Maker’s coins and share it privately with a friend, or two Call of Duty players could write messages to each other on a wall in a disappearing spray of bullets." Oh boy one of these articles. You know the ones. Also, mentioning Super Mario Maker in an article about the PS4. Grand. GamerPro64 16:32, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
• One thing to keep in mind from prior consensus is that Forbes contributors (which Paul Tassi is) we generally have not considered as a reliable source for facts (opinions, yes). I'm not saying that what Tassi is reporting here is factually incorrect (read: I can totally believe that PSN is poorly monitored and a potential vector for such unmonitored communication), but until we have confirmation that PSN was used in this manner from an RS, best to keep it out, otherwise its fearmongering. (And if anything, that's more a PSN issue than a PS4 issue) --MASEM (t) 16:46, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
• That PSN is used to communicate stealthily by various organizations (terrorist or otherwise), I certainly believe. But clearly this guy has never tried shooting at a wall in Call of Duty -- just making a goddamn smiley face is tough as hell, I can't even imagine actual communications. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:55, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
• This is not at all sounding like valid information. It sounds more like conjecture fuelled by something like a personal opinion on the console in question, or just ignorance of how consoles and their networking functions work. I would not include it. --ProtoDrake (talk) 18:26, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

http://kotaku.com/reporting-error-leads-to-speculation-that-terrorists-us-1742791584 - Looks like our stance on Forbes contributors as an unreliable source is well-founded. Sergecross73 msg me 21:28, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

At least Tassi admitted that he did misread the statement and corrected it, but this even stronger says there's no need to repeat this info on WP right now. --MASEM (t) 21:32, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

This specifically is for Rock Band 4 which was developed to be an expandable platform so Harmonix has promised that they will roll out significant new features (atop bug fixes) in patches over time. This is not the same as, say, DLC which is new content, but here, significant additions to existing gameplay. We don't have a good feel yet how frequent or significant these will be right now but there's a major one coming in a few weeks. To give an example, it will add asynchronous online challenge modes, which the original game did not have beyond leaderboards.

I am trying to figure out if it is best to add these as Gameplay elements, Development elements, or perhaps a section under Gameplay or Development. Or perhaps another solution. Any suggestions will help. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Could someone give an existing example of this? Should this be compared to something like Splatoon or World of Warcraft or what? I don't really know what the plans are for Rock Band 4. ~Mable (chat) 19:13, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

At least comparing to WoW, when they release expansions, at least those are more on new content rather than new gameplay, though they may refine gameplay or add some elements. But they also feel at this point more discrete compared to what HMX might be proposing here (I only have 2 data points, but this is basically so far a 2 month cycle, one month being a minor patch, and second month being the new gameplay). With WoW, you'd likely just add sections to describe the additions of one new expansion. And with Splatoon, I'm not seeing that being a long-tail of new content, as HMX has promised with the gameplay on RB4. --MASEM (t) 19:43, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Our articles in general do not capture "updates" well (might be the format we use for video game articles) and so I've also been thinking to raise this question also.

Suggestion/opinion follows: I think, at the minimum, any gameplay changes which cause gameplay sections to be "old" should cause the offending paragraphs in the Gameplay section to be removed and subsequently replaced by the new gameplay description. In addition, a brief description of the old gameplay and the change implemented should be in the Development section. This of course doesn't apply to DLC updates significant enough for their own article, or expansions which cause gameplay changes (though perhaps the Legacy section for the prequels/base games should note briefly the majorest-of-major gameplay changes made in the expansions), though it would probably be appropriate to make "new" DLC follow this format since that more closely integrates the DLC with how one would expect to play the game. --Izno (talk) 19:18, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

What I did for now is put a short section in gameplay, first outlining their expansion plans overall, and then a short para on the known updates in this first major patch; this is arguably close to what happens in other expanded games. This I'm only considering a placeholder until I have more data points to work with. As a note, I'm not sure if HMX plans to actually remove any features. (In contrast, a game like Awesomenauts has had major gameplay revisions from its start so we should present its current version, and only note in development past changes). --MASEM (t) 00:20, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Are we supposed to use animanga infoboxes for articles on games that have gotten a manga adaption? Or ones that haven't yet, but might at some point? I'm not a fan, but I don't want to replace them with video game infoboxes without discussion. These infoboxes very easily get way too long in proportion to the importance of the manga/anime - Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair only has a three-line section about manga, while the infobox is just huge.--IDV^talk 08:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I would argue no, we should stick to the video game infobox. The intermix of manga/anime is common to make sense for those works, but for video games, it is much more rare for the game to generate a manga work or anime (it happens, ala Persona 3 for one), but since the video game came first, and the manga/anime a spin off, we should treat it like that. --MASEM (t) 15:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

@IDV: I agree with Masem on this point. On a side-note, I seem to remember articles somewhere that had separate boxes for anime and manga within a video game article that had received such adaptations, but I don't feel that this is a good thing to do. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:50, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

• I'm fine with Animanga infoboxes for visual novels TBH ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:43, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I too agree that the animanga infobox is fine for visual novels. They are very closely related to manga, perhaps even moreso than to (for example) platform games. However, I have to agree that listing five non-notable manga publications with detailed information in the infobox like done in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is not appropriate. Though it's fine to list manga releases in an infobox, I don't think it is useful for anyone to create an infobox this long for it. Personally, I find it very difficult to navigate large infoboxes. Japanese franchises that span anime, manga and visual novels tend to grow quite big, so I feel that we should figure out a solution for non-notable releases. ~Mable (chat) 17:56, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I really don't think a game's genre should be what determines if something should be in the infobox or not - if adaptions should be in at all, which I question, it should just be because of their importance to the article subject, right? And besides, Danganronpa Another Episode isn't even a VN, it's an action game.--IDV^talk 01:15, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Hey there all~! Dropping in with another plan for improving Satoru Iwata-related topics. I have a slight pipe dream of creating a featured topic around the late Mr. Iwata and the article mentioned in the title is one of the targets (the other would be List of Iwata Asks interviews and potentially his gameography—rather than arbitrarily picking games to include—which I have tucked away in a sandbox for the time being). Anyways, since Nintendo Direct is fresh on everyone's mind after it's grand return yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to try and whip the article into shape. The current style is hardly informative to the reader, merely giving dates of the broadcasts and only mentioning content when it's a game-specific Direct.

To alleviate this, I came up with a potential replacement table (see here for example) that would give us leeway to include some of the actual content of the broadcasts. Since some of the Nintendo Directs have long lists of games that are either announced or covered, I got to learn a nifty new feature with tables and added a scrolling component to forcibly limit the length shown. I've used yesterday's Direct as an example of such. As per normal with the tables I make, there's a notes column which I think will largely go unused aside from noting non-video game topics (mostly just Amiibo) or relatively major info, such as Cloud being introduced in Smash Bros. or if it's a special Direct broadcast (i.e. Mini, Micro, etc.). I'd like to get some of your thoughts on this so we can maybe get this beast back in order. Thanks in advance, everyone! ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 17:53, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

I very much appreciate the effort, as the current list is unreadable to me. The list on this userpage of yours currently looks much easier to understand. I also believe that newly announced games and large updates should definitely be listed, if possible. The way you've done it in your draft seems appropriate~ Listing all games covered within each direct might not be entirely appropriate, but I am sure it should be easy to source these micro-lists if needed, and these scrolling tables would definitely be the best way to do them. I'm rather neutral on this aspect.

Getting all prior Directs into this new format is probably going to be a huge pain, but it seems to be an improvement to me. One thing I have noticed is that many Nintendo Directs have a name or a type, such as "Splatoon Direct" or "Nintendo Direct Micro" respectively. I think it is much more important to list this aspect prominently than listing each game covered in a video. Your current format only really allows this in the notes column, which seems odd. ~Mable (chat) 22:48, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

• The new table does look better, but I'm asking myself if an article like this is even needed? Nintendo Directs are just advertisements for upcoming Nintendo games, and while they may be notable, it's a pain to manage an article on them, as you have proven. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:09, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah, I want to say that it was turned into a list article years ago when someone brought up notability concerns with the topic itself. I can't find the exact discussion though, it was years ago. I'm not crazy about either forms of the article, but I can't deny that it's a helpful wiki-link, making it so I don't have to explain what one is every time I create a new Nintendo article that was announced in one... Sergecross73 msg me 23:35, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

I would believe that Nintendo Direct is definitely notable, as both announcements of new Nintendo Direct presentations as the content of said presentations are covered by reliable sources. Whether it is appropriate to have a list of Nintendo Directs is more difficult to decide, but we should definitely have the sources to do so. It might make more sense to simply have an article titled "Nintendo Direct" with barely any specific games mentioned in it anywhere, but I suppose that would be difficult to do, as there is indeed not that much to say about it. A permanent stub wouldn't be a big problem, but it is not optimal.

The fact that List of Nintendo Direct presentations is difficult to maintain shouldn't be a reason not to try to keep it, right? ~Mable (chat) 09:44, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Pardon my lack of replying...been busy with trying to keep the Paris attacks article in order. 'bout to head off for the night (or what's left of it, already 5 am here) so I thought I'd at least drop a comment. Notability for Nintendo Direct is already established via numerous reliable sources documenting it. Nintendo Magic covers it briefly as well, but there's really not much to substantiate an article on the topic itself—I'm not a fan of perma-stubs either. As for the special Directs (such as ones focused on single games), maybe a separate table specifically for them is appropriate? This is, of course, if my suggested format is maintained. If we scrap listing all the games it'll be easier to integrate the game-specific Directs with the main series. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 09:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

I recommend "games covered" and "third party titles", keep the "new games announced" and "notes", and add a column for presentation titles or something of the like. This should make the table both easier to maintain while giving readers an appropriate amount of information. It can be difficult to decide which news is worth mentioning in this list, however. To take the recent presentation as an example:

• Cloud being added to Super Smash Bros. is the most covered news from the presentation by far, so it should probably be mentioned.
• "Linkle" (female Link in Hyrule Warriors) seems to covered a lot, and could be mentioned.
• The original Pokémon games being released on the 3DS Virtual console seems to be covered a lot, and could be mentioned.
• The January Amiibo wave seems to be covered a lot, and could be mentioned.
• Two new Splatoon levels were announced as well as other updates.
• This is the first Nintendo Direct presentation since Iwata's passing, which is what the video starts off with, and this could be mentioned.

However, if we mention all of these things, we might as well just go ahead and mention all games covered in the video. We have to decide for some kind of balance, but I have no idea how. New game announcements are the only obvious ones to include. ~Mable (chat) 10:16, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

@Maplestrip, Dissident93, and Sergecross73: Looked into MOS a bit more and turns out that the scrolling list is heavily frowned upon (or outright not allowed) for mainspace articles. I've come up with a few alternatives (again located within a sandbox of mine). Version 2 is the same as 1, but with MOS compliance to show the full listing of games. Version 3 removes the games altogether and lists only major topics of the Direct. I'm personally a fan of Version 4, which leans more toward prose and allows flexibility in listing games discussed as well as alternate types of Directs. It also allows for the addition of images (such as fair-use ones of a newly announced title). Specials such as the Splatoon Direct will be fairly short but can be covered appropriately in this format without breaking any tables. If there is more than one Direct in a given month, the section headers can simply be adjusted to add the date for that month to avoid a misleading duplicate. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 06:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I personally strongly advice against both version 2 and 4, because I don't believe listing all games mentioned in a Nintendo Direct is in any way useful or practical. It's basically giving the games undue weight. For example, in the most recent Nintendo Direct, we got five seconds of footage from The Legend of Zelda (2016 video game) and it was confirmed that it would be released in 2016. That is literally all. I do not see why we have to list stuff like this on a page that, by nature, will already get very long. I like version 3, but would suggest adding announced games to the table (Pokémon Picross and Twilight Princess HD). I think that would create a nice balance. I'm fine with no games being listed at all too. ~Mable (chat) 08:56, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

@Maplestrip: I've added a Version 5 and Version 6 based on your suggestion. Version 5 is the same prose style as Version 4 but removes the list of games. All the necessary information is present but allows for longer discussions on particular topics (table format limits main points to bullets). Version 6 is an exact representation of your suggestion, using the table of Version 3 but including a "New games announced column". Alternatively, the notes section could be used as a prose box so I guess it's actually flexible *shrug*. I've also included an example of a Direct that did not include a game announcement for convenience. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 10:50, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I like both version 5 and 6 and am not sure which is best. At this point, I'd love to hear more opinions from others :) ~Mable (chat) 11:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I prefer version 5, if that helps. Having it in prose with only the notable announcements mentioned looks way better than some table listing every one. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 11:58, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I am requesting more input at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Xenoblade_(series)#Necessary.3F - as these days I'm really the only one who regularly maintains the related articles. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 18:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Sergecross73, I know I've given my two-penneth on the issue you've raised, but you also mentioned your relations with the series. I have been thinking of doing something for Xenoblade Chronicles. I'm working on a rewrite of the Tomb Raider series article with the plan of bringing in to GA, but after that I could help with Chronicles, and find sources that you could use for Chronicles X. --ProtoDrake (talk) 18:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you ProtoDrake, and everyone else, for the swift responses there. And yeah, actually, that would be great. I've already done a ton of work rewriting Chronicles, so it shouldn't take too much effort for that one. Its got a huge dev section, however, unfortunately, I still haven't parred down the story section enough, as I've still only played about 2/3rds of the game, and don't want to spoil it, so I've only revised the first part of it. (Sorry, I know Story sections aren't your favorite either.) In regards to X, that would be great as well, as I've been meaning to get that article into good shape for its upcoming release. Sergecross73 msg me 20:46, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

I recently finalized a stale merge request from 2014 and merged this series's unsourced game articles into the series article. These merges were reverted by an IP: Special:Contributions/175.194.129.142. If you disagree with the revert, feel free to be bold. czar 06:23, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, Czar, did you consider that "All Wiki erase important Mayan're fucking son of a bitch pups!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fuck Czar wants to kill cubs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"? I think the IP makes a compelling point re:your murderous tendency towards baby animals, and how it relates to merging a series of stubs that only differentiate themselves via a songlist into a series article that also includes those songlists. --PresN 19:06, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Not the most ridiculous thing I've seen all year here. But at least you got a fan, Czar. GamerPro64 19:12, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Just a heads up that there is a discussion about Jim Sterling's article at the BLP noticeboard. The discussion can be found here if anyone wants to partake in it. GamerPro64 04:16, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

So I'm currently working on making Draft:Afro Samurai 2: Revenge of Kuma to have it become its own article after the game got pulled and refunds are being made available. The news article that caused this huge blitz about the games removal, Versus Evil Explains the Disappearance of Afro Samurai 2, was by CG Magazine, a source that is currently considered an unreliable source at WP:VG/RS. What I'm wondering if I should use the source even through its considered unreliable here. Other sites use the article as a source in their articles. GamerPro64 20:38, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I think it's okay in this case because they are quoting someone else (i.e. the actual source) rather than interpreting or making unsourced claims. Since other reliable sources refer to this, I would say that using Escalante's quotes for sourcing and other reliable source interpretation would be perfectly fine. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:53, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

The point of reliability is reputation for getting it right. It doesn't mean CG Magazine got it wrong but that we trust those who use the site as a source to have a degree of verification atop the original story. I'd cite the secondary sources rather than CG Mag's own reporting. czar 21:11, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

@GamerPro64: This in-depth interview with Escalante from Gamasutra just popped onto my newsfeed, it might help allevate the issue. --MASEM (t) 20:25, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Oh cool. Thanks Masem I'll add it to the other sources I'll be using. GamerPro64 20:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

the Infocom cabinet was just uploaded by Get Lamp's director Jason Scott, consisting of thousands of pages of scanned notes, etc taken from Infocom (by permission, natch). Unfortunately I'm not sure on the copyright of these yet - Get Lamp is CC-By-NC, which we can't call "free" on WP, but even then, I see some various hand drawn notes, etc. that might be interesting additions to the various Infocom articles. --MASEM (t) 01:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

In the world of eSports, its competitors seem to go by a wide variety of names. WikiProject Video Games is attempting to either standardize or come up with rules on how their article's should be named.

Some examples, to help demonstrate the variants possible. Sergecross73 msg me 19:09, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Naming

Legal name

Chris Loranger

Name used when competing

"HuK"

Current Article title

Chris "HuK" Loranger

Possible options include

1. Chris Loranger (legal name)
2. HuK (stage name)
3. Huk (stage name, MOS:CAPS applied)
4. Chris "Huk" Loranger (hybrid name)
5. Feel free to propose something else.

Discussion

• The name which conforms with WP:STAGENAME. I see no reason to specify in the context of video games. --Izno (talk) 19:24, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

  So Izno, basically, 2 or 3 then? If so, any preference on those? If not, please correct me. Sergecross73 msg me 19:31, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

  I disagree with picking an option. We already have a well-established guideline for naming people. We should use it. --Izno (talk) 19:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

  Is there any discernible difference between between your stance and option number 3 though? If there's a difference, that's fine, but if not, I'm just trying to make it easier for the closer to read a consensus in all of this... Sergecross73 msg me 20:04, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

  Actually there is: WP:STAGENAME provides for reliable sources to choose the name. Simply going with a stage name as I interpret 2 and 3 would thus be incorrect. Some players may be best covered by reliable sources by their stagename, others by their real name. One thing that comes to mind as immediately important is whether the reliable source is general (BBC) or domain-specific (Kotaku). We should prefer the name in the general publication rather than the domain-specific. --Izno (talk) 21:03, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

  If I may, Sergecross is asking whether you prefer edited capitalization style or original capitalization style. Should it be "Huk" or "HuK"? ~Mable (chat) 21:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

  To which my response is WP:LOWERCASE, perhaps with the general WP:AT and WP:STAGENAME in play. I reference the latter STAGENAME since it provides for RS; LOWERCASE because it may be the case most articles don't rise to the level of recognition required for odd capitalization/article title styling, and AT for any other needs such as disambiguation. --Izno (talk) 06:11, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• Option 3 - I believe that best complies to Wikipedia's naming conventions. Option 4 violates WP:NICKNAME, Option 3 violates MOS:CAPS, and Option 1 violates WP:COMMONNAME, as these guys rarely just play under their legal name, and they're all known primarily for their gaming. Sergecross73 msg me 19:33, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
• Well, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NICKNAME seem to suggest either "Huk" or "Chris Loranger", depending what the sources use most. "Chris "Huk" Loranger" variant (which seems to be used frequently enoguh) has always seemed excessive to me. If in doubt, I would go with the stage name, since nicknames is the default thing in video games, so it seems appropriate. I would expect most gaming sources to use the nickname or both legal and nickname, in which case nickname is preferred. Now, strictly speaking "HuK" violates MOS:CAPS, but it's probably not always that easy. I suspect video game sources will mostly use the stylized versions, so it will definitely conflict MOS. Does "AmazHS" stay "AmazHS"; does "JJu" become "Jju", does "CaliPower" stay "CaliPower"; does "ToSsGirL" become "TossGirl"; does "Fatal1ty" become "Fatality"; does "nanonoko" become "Nanonoko"; does "PPMD" stay "PPMD"; does "[NC]...YellOw" become umm... —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:47, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• I prefer Option 1 or 2 depending on common name. Neither should be preferred unless sources pick one over the other. Stagenames and real names are both good, and it depends on what they are commonly known as. I think that in most cases, we should not apply MOSCAPS, though it can depend on the name. With a lot of these names, it is impossible to find the original meaning. Is the "HS" in "AmazHS" an initialism? What does "JJu" even mean? Should that be "Jju" or "JJU"? In a case like "ToSsGirL", I have less isue with applying MOSCAPS. ~Mable (chat) 21:43, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
• In order of preference Option 4 - 2 - 3 - 1. A hybrid name, while seemingly violates WP:NICKNAME (avoid (for example) adding a nickname, or a contracted version of the original first name(s) in quotes between first and last name.), there is also WP:COMMONNAME to consider, which would suggest using first "tag" last form, which is used in many media outlets such as The Daily Dot. From what I've gathered from Korean and Chinese language sources, gamers are usually refers to by their full names, with the gamertags being more of an in-game name (analogous to say a player's jersey number) (see for example this OSL Starcraft video) However, perhaps due to Westerners' unfamiliarity with Asian names, they are more commonly referred to by their tags. Option 4 seeks a compromise between the two. Furthermore there are many other BLP pages on Wikipedia which editors have decided to use the first "tag" last format these include:^[1]
• Concerning unusual capitalization methods, I'd say a name like "HuK" should be okay, while "NaDeShOt" is probably not (the New York Times article on the later listed him as Nadeshot) WP:CAMELCASE does not advice either way with camelcase, but I'd be willing to say that a name with more than three capital letters shouldn't be used. While WP:Se7en suggests eschewing numbers, again citing WP:COMMONNAME many news outlets including the 60 Minutes report on Fatal1ty used numbers in his gamertag.--Prisencolin (talk) 06:12, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• Option 2. I started some discussion on this a while back so it's good to see it's brought the attention of the Wikiproject. Anyway, I feel that Option 2 should be made default as I agree with Maplestrip's point in that the gamertags often become incomprehensible when their initital capitalization is altered. Option 1 can be used in clear-cut cases where the legal name is clearly the common name. Oppose option 4 as it is a violation of policy - namely, WP:STAGENAME which prohibits "adding a nickname, or a contracted version of the original first name(s) in quotes between first and last name". Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 08:13, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• Follow WP:COMMONNAME and WP:STAGENAME; there is no difference between professional gamer pseudonyms and pro actor or pro writer pseudonyms. What exact name to use varies on a case by case basis, so all this "Option 1", "Option 2" stuff is a waste of time. Do not, however, that WP does not use titles of the form Jane "JG37" Garcia, per WP:NICKNAME (the only exceptions would be when the entire name in that construction it itself the professional pseudonym, a very rare case, exemplified by "Weird Al" Yankovic, whose works are all published under exactly that name, punctuation and all, and who is near-universally referred to this way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:03, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• Per SMcCandlish; I see no reason not to follow the existing applicable guidelines. Sam Walton (talk) 21:08, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• I believe SMcCandlish hit the nail on the head. It's all case-by-case with defining the common names utilized, which will likely make the renaming of all the pages a long affair, but one that will be worth it. The disambiguation discussion, however, is still very much open and really the only component in need of further discussion. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 21:22, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

  Yeah, I hope these "just follow the current guidelines" people will consider helping in namin/renaming the actual articles if this indeed become the consensus of the RFC. The whole reason this RFC was created was because the current guidelines were causing disagreements... Sergecross73 msg me 23:05, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

  I don't understand how we bear the burden of naming/renaming. Is there an instance of actual "disagreement" causing article instability? --Izno (talk) 16:28, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

  I said nothing of "burden bearing", I merely said that I hope people will consider helping. Is it unreasonable to merely hope for help on something? And while I don't really edit eSports articles, so I don't know for sure, but I thought that the initial discussions came up because people disagreed on how to title them, and that the names were inconsistently named, with many going against various naming guidelines. I'm saying I hope people will stick around and help enforce it because the prior arrangement of guidelines and editors involved weren't enforcing the guidelines very well. I also say this because, based on many of the discussions (and AFDs) that occur at the WikiProject, I don't believe there are many experienced editors dedicated to this area. I believe that's why so many are deleted at AFD or named inconsistently. And thus, the hope for assistance. Sergecross73 msg me 16:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

  Oh. I took that completely different. I'm more than happy to help say "this name is not the best name" if specific instances are brought up or someone wants to trudge through the list of gamers and finds specific instances requiring feedback (much as we do with judgements on reliability of certain articles). But I read your comment as requiring "by the guidelines" people to go about mass-moving pages around on their accord. --Izno (talk) 17:33, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

• I saw a request over on the MoS page. wp:stagename should only apply if the name is a stage name, or is otherwise a pseudonym that the person is well-known by. Gamer tags seem to fit that general description. However, I would want that gamer tag to appear in a mainstream media article (BBC, gaming magazine, newspaper, etc.). If that gamer tag does not appear in such an article, I would question whether the subject person is sufficiently notable as a gamer under that name to merit an article at all.

  Of the options presented, #1 (Chris Loranger (legal name)) isn't his commonly known name. Additionally calling it out as a legal name seems excessively formal. #2 HuK (stage name) seems weird, since he doesn't go "on stage". "stage name" should be varied depending on context (e.g., "pen name" for authors). #4 breaks all existing naming conventions on wikipedia. I would favour #5 (something else). "HuK (video gamer tag)". I would definitely want the "video" bit included, to distinguish from non-electronic forms of gaming. Rhialto (talk) 15:55, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

  The way these article titles are described in this RFC has no impact on how the names would be used. I prefer to describe it as a "legal name" rather than a "real name" because neither name is "more real". It's irrelevant, though, because everyone knows what it means. "stage name" is used to describe option two because it ties in nicely with existing guidelines on such pseudonyms, but I'd personally use "screen name" (as in, user name) to describe this name. Still, though, this is irrelevant. These bracketed words are not actually to be used in the titles. It'll just be "HuK" or "HuK (gamer)" or "Huk" if we decide to remove the capital letter. The article is about the person, not the name. ~Mable (chat) 16:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation

Additionally, its been debated which disambiguation should be used when necessary.

Possible options include

1. Name (gamer) - current term for one who plays video games - see Gamer
2. Name (video game player) - some feel this is more formal/appropriate than "gamer"
3. Name ("name of video game played") - more in line with how its handled in sports - John Smith (basketball)
4. Name ("name of video game played" player) - more in line with how its handled in other areas, like poker players - Bill Smith (poker player))
5. Name (esports) - the term for competitive video gaming in general
6. Proposing a new option

Discussion

• I believe we had reached consensus on that the articles should be renamed independent from eachother, depending on common name in sources. That being said, we still hadn't reached consensus on the disambiguation to use. Most of us feel that it is best to standardize the form of disambiguation, but some disagreement exists on whether it should be 2, 3 or 4.

I personally prefer number 2 or 4, and would advice against 3, as it describes the field rather than the person's occupation. I brought up the comparison "John Smith (Engineering)" to "John Smith (Engineer)", to illustrate why I feel only listing the game would be jarring. ~Mable (chat) 19:15, 20 November 2015 (UTC) --EDITED per clarity

• I strongly opt for (gamer), or if that's too casual, (video gamer). Options including the name of the game fail immediately for subjects who are known for playing multiple gamers, and the last one would be acceptable for leagues/events/terms that are ambiguous, but for players, I think (gamer) is better, like how we prefer (footballer) to (sports). As I've said before, "(Hearthstone streamer)" is amongst the worst disambiguator I've seen. Others have "(professional video gaming)", "(esports player)", and "(video game player)", "(Halo player)", "(Counter-Strike player)", "(StarCraft player)", "(video gamer)".... Whether one is professional or not, whether he's a player, a streamer, a speedrunner... it doesn't matter. The goal of a disambiguator is to disambiguate using the simplest, shortest possible addendum to an article title, and (gamer) fulfills precisely and completely the very purpose of disambiguation. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:18, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• I agree, and as I had mentioned in the other discussion as well, "gamer" seems sufficient, and "video gamer" excessive, because its not like we've got professional "board gamers", or other types of gamers, to distinguish from. (As far as I've ever seen at least.) Sergecross73 msg me 20:53, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• In order of preference: 2, then 1. Not 3 or 4 since this is less easily understood for the general reader than either "video game player" or "gamer". Some players also wind up playing multiple games (with none particularly dominant) making this disambiguation an unstable disambiguation. Would prefer also not 5 since this doesn't make it clear that I'm talking about a person. --Izno (talk) 19:20, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Option 1 is the most WP:PRECISE and is currently the term we use on Wikipedia for this sort of thing (gamer). Two effectively means the same, but is longer, and not the term Wikipedia seems to currently prefer. I do not like Option 3 or Option 5 because, as Izno mentions, its not clear that we're talking about people, and not just elements of video gaming. Similarly, I feel that many games as a disambiguation may not be recognizeable on certain games. Everyone may know who Super Mario is, but many outside of esports may not know what Dota is - its not a household name yet. Option 4 is probably going to be longer than we'd like in many instances, probably not the most precise option. Sergecross73 msg me 19:40, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Well I mean Dota isn't a household name, but neither is bandy outside of the Nordic countries, even though the articles Joachim Persson (bandy), Stefan Persson (bandy), and Erik Pettersson (bandy) the the game name as disambiguation. You've brought up the issue of recognizability in regards to using a video game as a parenthetical disambiguator, but I'm not entirely sure guidelines were intended to be read that way. In any case I'd almost even say that a parenthetical DAB not featuring the game's name is unhelpful to someone who doesn't know what a particular game is since "video games" isn't a single game; it's a huge array of more or less unrelated activities.--Prisencolin (talk) 12:29, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes, well I'd argue "bandy" shouldn't be used either then. Based on the terrible shape of those articles, I imagine not much thought or review was put into those example bandy articles. Sergecross73 msg me 14:56, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
      • In any case though, what kind of DAB would you use then, "athletes", "sports"? Granted, the bandy parenthetical DAB was probably used in these cases since there were athletes by the same name in other sports, but a better example can probably be found. The point is it seems most natural for a base-level DAB to use the specific discipline the person is involved in.--Prisencolin (talk) 15:25, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
• (gamer) or (video game player) if "gamer" is too jargon-y. Gamer seems like an accepted term and sufficiently widely known to not be confusing. Including game title(s) is unnecessarily precise until there's further disambiguation needed (after all, before disambiguation it was just the name), so "Hearthstone player" ("HS gamer" seems weird and "HS video game player" seems redundant). "esports" is just weird, because it's the field, not the role, same as any stand-alone game title. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:13, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
• (gamer) is the best option in my opinion and has just the right degree of specificity, (which is very little), to describe the career's relation to the name. Also, let's not forget that many professional gamers play/have played multiple games, such as Dan Stemkoski and f0rest. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 21:24, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
  • I can't help but point out that you've made the point about players of multiple games, but I'm not sure its as prevalent as you make it sound. I took a quick look all of the video game player articles currently on the wiki, and I'd say only around 1/5 could be considered notable in their achievements in multiple games. Of these only a few of them would need disambiguation if the first RFC decides that only tags will be used. Edit: f0rest is only notable for the Counter-Strike series, in which case (Counter-Strike or Counter-Strike player should be enough; Counter-Strike is regularly used to describe CSGO without ambiguity.--Prisencolin (talk) 12:22, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
    • What will we use for those who do need disambiguation? Opt for the more general "Video game player" or "Gamer"? ~Mable (chat) 12:28, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
      • It should probably decided on a case-by-case basis, but something like that would be sufficient.--Prisencolin (talk) 12:30, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
        • But why chose that when you can chose an option (gamer) that wouldn't require any special consideration (unless by some bizarre chance that two separate "John Smiths" both randomly decide to enter esports under the name "Huk", which strikes me as unlikely). Sergecross73 msg me 18:37, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
    • With regards to f0rest, (of which the naming is yet to be discussed further), the disambiguation probably won't be necessary, as there's only one Patrik Lindberg, as with a lot of gamers that have their legal names known as well as their pseudonyms. However, on the topic of applying the disambiguation, I don't believe we should make it a case-by-case affair; people are either gamers or they're not. Naming them with the specific games they play can be misleading, especially if they're in that one fifth you mentioned that have multiple titles they excel at. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 21:20, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
      • Patrik Lindberg seems like a very generic Swedish name, so at some point in the future it might be useful. In any case though, I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure that no gamer is better known by their real name than their gamer name, unless their gamer name is their real name (Justin Wong, Hai or are known for other things, (Dennis Fong, Bertrand Grospellier). Edit: Also, from what I know players in Asia are typically known by their real names, although in the West they are better known by their tags, first "alias" last (option 4) seeks a compromise between the two.--Prisencolin (talk) 01:11, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Can this RfC affect policies and guidelines?

As I mentioned before (#Esports naming conventions) some of the options proposed above would require an update of guidelines and/or policies:

• (policy) WP:AT: WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS doesn't allow to use quotation marks in article titles, unless they're part of the actual pseudonym;
• (guideline) WP:NCP:
  • WP:PSEUDONYM: doesn't allow to insert a nickname in quotes between the first name and the last name
  • WP:NCPDAB: advises against using capitals in the parenthetical disambiguator (when they can be avoided)

As this RfC has not been widely publicized (meaning: not in Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines, nor at WP:VPP), any outcome of this RfC would be void as far as a rewrite of guidance or policy is concerned. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:09, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• It has also been mentioned that rendering "HuK" (and similar names) in its original style could affect WP:MOSCAPS. ~Mable (chat) 14:30, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• In the interest of keeping it a neutral RFC, I included all proposed ideas, even ones I didn't feel were according to policy. I was trusting that well-informed, experienced editors would rule them out. IAR was quoted as well, as a way to justify some of them. Again, I don't agree with it, but you don't write RFCs according to your personal stance. Sergecross73 msg me 16:34, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

  A reasonable approach, although including "|pol" in the RfC tag and/or linking this RfC from WP:VPP would only take a few seconds (and BTW can still be done), and would probably be less skewing this in a "no guideline change" direction. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

  Feel free to do that or anything else you think may help. In all honesty, I usually instruct people to write up RFCs more than I actually carry them out myself, so I'm no expert in that respect. Sergecross73 msg me 17:24, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

• It's good that you noted a few more sitewide guidelines for disambiguation. Regarding the naming question, as you can see above, I do not believe that it is necessary to have a !rule for this in the context of video games. I think the answer to the disambiguation question can safely be added to WP:VG/GL without any particular consequence for the sitewide !rules. --Izno (talk) 19:39, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
• WP:NCPDAB also mentions exceptions where "instances where more specific guidelines specify particular exceptions", seeing as (American football) and (Australian rules football) are disambiguators, (League of Legends) should be okay as well.--Prisencolin (talk) 12:34, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
• Clarified: No, we cannot change any wider policies or guidelines with local consensus. We can only adjust WP:VG/GL and WP:NCVG (as WP:TITLE allows) to be clear and consistent where otherwise multiple or non-obvious options can appear equally satisfactory. This cannot trump WP:V.
  Previously: I think the only reason to have exceptions to existing policies/guidelines is if we can show that reliable sources predominantly prefer a certain naming convention. I don't see that we need to have exceptions to dab stuff. Then again, my view is against the variants with specialized rules, in other words, I don't see where we would break the existing guidelines/policies. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:09, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Is is considered breaking rules when a rule (other than WP:IGNORE) says there are exceptions to certain rules? In any case if the sole reason for not making a particular decision is based on the fact that it may possibly violate a rule, I'm not sure that's a very sound objection.--Prisencolin (talk) 15:13, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
    • I agree with Prisencolin that we should think about what is best for our goal of reflecting reliable sources and improving Wikipedia, rather than worry about the existing rules, when making these decisions. However, I doubt much controversial things will happen here: The 'name "alias" lastname' format isn't particularly popular, for one. ~Mable (chat) 17:49, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
      • Isn't that exactly what I said? If reliable sources show different syntax, then we can "break the rules". Otherwise, this RfC's result does not contradict any sitewide policies or guidelines. In the end, we enhance our topic-specific guidelines. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:29, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
        • Maybe get a grip on the overall situation:
          • Roger Taylor (Queen drummer) is an (acceptable) exception to the general parenthetical disambiguator recommendations of WP:NCP. No problem there: decided on a case-by-case base, i.e. while there is another drummer named Roger Taylor.
          • When a WikiProject on rock groups or whatever would inscribe in its rules that every drummer needs to be disambiguated with the name of the rock group in the disambiguator, then the WP:CONLEVEL policy is clear: such WikiProject guidance has "no more status than an essay". Many of the proposals above would, even when approved by RfC, immediately be overruled by policies and guidelines. Just to be clear on the stakes.

        For clarity: I'm very much OK with the fact that this RfC, in the form it has been posted, would not affect guidelines and policies. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

        Yes, so am I. I clarified my original comment to express this clearly. I never implied local consensus could override sitewide policy. While WP:TITLE allows topic-specific naming conventions, it does not imply we can abandon WP:V or simply create novel naming schemes. I am aware some of the options above fail this, but my !votes are for options that do not (I hope). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:57, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

        Just to be clear, neither I nor anybody involved with the wiki invented the first "alias" last naming scheme for video game professionals. Just look up a notable player on the web, "dyrus" for instance, and you'll find that he is routinely listed as Marcus "Dyrus" Hill in The Daily Dot and TheScore eSports.^[2][3] Granted it's not "universally" used in that format, to whatever extent that means, but neither is "Weird Al" Yankovic really.--Prisencolin (talk) 01:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

        That's very true. When I worked in the upper management of SK Gaming, we used the naming convention of First Name "Pseudonym" Surname. However, it currently goes against the aforementioned policies so... yeah, I think we're in a corner at this point. We'll need to bring this to NCP. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 07:05, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation by game title

• I'm still not entirely sure what NCDBAP's purpose is with the following line: "Try to avoid using abbreviations or anything capitalized or containing hyphens, dashes or numbers (apart from instances where more specific guidelines specify particular exceptions)." Could someone explain why these things are discouraged, so we have a better idea of whether it applies in this situation? ~Mable (chat) 17:49, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
  • It applies in this situation, whatever the rationale. If you want to know about the rationale the WT:NCP archives may provide (part of) the answer. As I see no intention (thus far) to make any connection with the current state of the guidelines (and I'm OK with that), I don't think this is the place to second guess over ulterior motives of these guidelines. So, if you can't find the answer in the WT:NCP archives, the only right place for such question would be WT:NCP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
    • Sounds like it could be problematic for us if all this discussion means diddly. Are you wanting to bring it to NCP, Francis Schonken? DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 22:23, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
      • Urgh, I suck at navigating archives. Have found nothing of interest yet. Either way, do understand that I ask this so I can understand why the guideline is in place before bringing it up at NCP. If it turns out the guideline is specifically designed for the situation we are in right now, it is obvious we should follow it. I'd like to know whether this is the case. ~Mable (chat) 22:34, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
        • I really hope this isn't the ball of wax that requires NCP. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 23:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
        • Re. "If it turns out the guideline is specifically designed for the situation we are in right now..." – Yes indeed, the NCP guideline was specifically designed for situations like this one. I can safely say so, because I initiated the NCP guideline over ten years ago with most of these parts already in it. For instance: "Try to avoid using abbreviations or anything capitalized or containing hyphens, dashes or numbers (in the parenthetical disambiguator)" because these (as a general experience) are impediments to swift navigation. It is easier to find "Firstname Lastname (gamer)" or "Alias (gamer)" than "Firstname Lastname (WhatWasTheNameoftheGameAgain-and–how—is1tSpelledCorrectly? player)" etc. With a lot of other considerations, like names of brands are better avoided in disambiguators (e.g. when a video game franchise is "happy" to have one of their players to have an ambiguous name, they get more exposure for their brand in Wikipedia?) The reason why I won't have such discussions here is while I designed the rules to a large extent, but that gives only a very limited scope of the reasons why, and I'd like to defer to my colleagues who have an interest in the guideline too to know whether over-all that has proved to be good guidance for the ten years it existed. Again, like I said above, we had something similar for wrestlers some time ago, but in the end, after a lot of back-and-forth, it was found standard rules worked best. --Francis Schonken (talk) 04:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
          • Oh mercy, that is disheartening. Okay, who wants to bring this to NCP? DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 05:34, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
          • Thanks for explaining, Francis :) You give good reasons and my preference now definitely lies with "Video game player" again. DarthBotto, before we take this to NCP, let's see what direction consensus goes here. Hopefully, it won't be necessary and we'll go for "Gamer" or "Video game player". ~Mable (chat) 08:43, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
            • Maplestrip, I realized that when I was talking with Francis last night, so I agree that it probably won't be necessary. Besides, it seems like consensus is leaning roughly towards a case-by-case scenario per the player with common names, followed by a (gamer) disambiguation. We'd better just see what others have in mind with this before we can say definitively. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 20:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Pseudonym/legal name combination

• I don't know too much about pro wrestling, but from what I gathered from a bit of research, pro wrestlers are almost exclusively referred to their ringnames in media and braodcasts. In comparison, esports players are mostly referred to their tags, particularly in shorthand, but in journalism they are always introduced as first "alias" last. In Korea they are usually known by their full names in general. Furthermore, pro video gaming isn't some fiction universe where people are known by other names, unlike in pro wrestling.--Prisencolin (talk) 05:41, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
  • You lost me where you tried to explain the difference between a ringname and a tag as far as Wikipedia's naming conventions are concerned. Yes a ringname is inherently very different from a pen name with initialisms such as those listed at List of pen names. For Wikipedia's naming conventions it is not, they are all pseudonyms, subject to WP:PSEUDONYM. So wrestling is more "fictional" than an on-line game? Sure. Or was it the other way around. Before anyone gets offended (wrestlers or gamers): IT DOESN'T MATTER which one is "more" fictional as far as Wikipedia's naming conventions are concerned. When people are better known by their pseudonym in English-language reliable sources the pseudonym is used as article title, if not, their real name is used. As a service to our readers (!) who would generally be looking for the name they know, not for the name they don't know (all the rest is better not crammed in the article title, can be explained in the body of the article, can be handled by redirects and disambiguation pages etc.)

  Something still I want to draw your attention to: the guideline says "avoid (...) adding (...) in quotes between first and last name" – the "adding" I bolded there is key to understanding the guideline. It's about Wikipedia editors not adding anything in quotes to a name. When the name in its standardized form in English-language reliable sources "has" quotes (and the Wikipedia editors don't add or remove anything from that), the guideline is followed. I've got really no clue whether or not that is the case for some or all of the video game players discussed here, but I suppose this has to be sorted out on a case by case basis then (not a general rule in the sense of always adding a tag in quotes when the subject of the article is a gamer). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

  • • @Francis Schonken: When you talk about helping readers who are "looking for the name they know", which WP:AT policy are you referring to specifically, is it WP:RECOGNIZABLE?--Prisencolin (talk) 16:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
      • As it happens I was discussing an underlying rationale for article titling in general, so as well for WP:AT (including WP:CRITERIA, which includes WP:RECOGNIZABLE but also WP:NATURALNESS and WP:CONCISE etc) as for the many naming conventions guidelines (including WP:NCP). But as said, this is hardly the place to discuss such matters: the only thing that counts here is: yes WP:AT applies, without discrimination, for video game players, as also WP:NCP applies, without discrimination, for video game players. If you can't take my word for it, take it up at WT:AT or WT:NCP. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:34, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
  • I think we may all be getting ahead of ourselves, as consensus hasn't been reached for going with First Name "Pseudonym" Surname. So far, it seems as though we're leaning towards the case-by-case basis of "Common name"/"Performer name" (gamer) disambiguation. DARTHBOTTO _talk•cont 07:10, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
    • Agreed. Not only that, but I don't believe I've really seen anyone besides Prisencolin advocate for the First Name "Pseudonym" Surname approach. Unless there's a sudden change, it seems to be one of the least popular choices... Sergecross73 msg me 13:58, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

References

Just a notice to editors: GameTrailers, which has been used for multiple reasons like reviews and its retrospectives (which contain development information) has undergone a major update/revision of its website. They appear to be still in progress with this, meaning that multiple reviews and videos are currently inaccessible (tried to find a video related to Tomb Raider Anniversary and the review for Type-0 HD; the pages are still there on google, but the links redicted to either the main or the "show" pages). Give it a few weeks, then we should check the various video links and see which are permanently dead and which just need urls updating, or whether any work is needed at all. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

In the section Space_flight_simulator_game#Trade_Wars, why is there a "non-primary source needed" tag after the bit about games being influenced by Trade Wars? Isn't a direct quote from a developer exactly the type of thing you want? SharkD  Talk  01:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd have to agree, as long it is something assuredly published by the developers, its legit. --MASEM (t) 01:31, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Forgot to mention, I posted this question at Village pump first before posting here. SharkD  Talk  01:45, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

The source being a wiki is an issue, but not as big as one as TransporterMan might make you believe, as we're not dealing with a BLP here. Looking at the source given, the best approach would be to verify some of the quotes there where they were initially published, and link there instead. Wikis are subject to change and vandalism, so the current source is unreliable, but the best we currently have. ~Mable (chat) 09:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikis being subject to change and vandalism is solved simply by use of a permanent link to the content in question e.g. [7]. --Izno (talk) 17:48, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, yeah, I guess that fixes the vandalism problem, but we still have to deal with the fact that this version of the wiki page might not be correct. We should't link to a fanmade collection of quotes when we can refer to where those quotes were originally published. ~Mable (chat) 18:05, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Wiki's are an unreliable source except, as a self published source, for information about themselves which makes no claims about third parties (and also meets the other SPS requirements). The problem is not that they are subject to change and vandalism, but that they don't have fact-checking or other editorial oversight and, thus, do not meet the definition of a reliable source to have a "reputation for fact-checking and reliability". But Maplestrip is correct, those quotations may be able to be sourced from the sources quoted in that wiki. I have some doubt about that, but I haven't really looked at the issue closely so don't have a firm opinion about it and don't plan to spend time working on it. (By the way, since many of those quotes come from interviews the rule that seems to be applied over at reliable sources noticeboard seems to be that interviews can only be used if published in a reliable source, in order to help to guarantee that they're genuine and not edited in a misleading way, but are to then be regarded as PRIMARY sources and subject to the rules applicable to primary sources.) The question asked here and at VP was why the tag was needed. I answered that question, explaining why the tag is justified, and that's the end of the matter so far as I am concerned. Frankly, for reasons too complicated to go into here, I'm fine with the information remaining in the article with that source and that tag. If the tag were removed without removing the source as well, I might have an issue with that removal (but at the same time, I'm not watchlisting it to see if that happens, either; that's not an invitation, just a statement of fact). Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:46, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't really care that much either, as it's just one line, though a ^{[citation needed]} tag might be more useful? Also, quickly checking, it seems Tradewars influencing Earth and Beyond was pretty easy to check, if anyone cares to add the source: [8] ~Mable (chat) 06:22, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I need a few opinions on whether or not keeping standalone articles for the games is a good idea (and a few more pages). The video games together as a whole seem notable, but I am not sure if having single games standalone would be good for now. Magicperson6969 (talk) 21:10, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

It should be determined on a case by case basis - if a game has been covered by reliable sources, been reviewed, etc, it's likely it deserves its own article. If not, it's better to just cover it in the list of Yu-Gi-Oh! video games. I don't really know anything about Yu-Gi-Oh!, so I wouldn't know whether a particular game is notable or not without doing research first.--IDV^talk 06:52, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I imagine most of the titles that were released in English territories probably have the coverage to meet the WP:GNG, I mean, they're titles released by major publishers. That being said, it probably depends on how hard one plans on working on such an article. If you plan on writing it out in-depth, it could be beneficial to the project. If you're going to merely write out a little more than what's available at its entry in the list article, then I probably wouldn't bother, as they'll probably just be redirected/merged back when people stumble upon them in the future. Sergecross73 msg me 15:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

• What really bothers me here is the inconsistency. What I'm about to say is clearly OR, but Reshef of Destruction generated a lot more buzz around my high school and the Yu-Gi-Oh! forums I was around in the early 2000's, while Sacred Cards was all but unheard of (despite being my personal favorite). The the latter has an article and the former doesn't is something I can't seem to wrap my mind around, especially considering Reshef was reviewed by IGN, GameInformer, 1up, JV.com, GameSpy, and a few others... ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

There isn't much I could do to really expand since I'm not the best at writing in depth...if they're going to be merged eventually, could I merge them now? Magicperson6969 (talk) 04:23, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if there's interest in this but User:Moogy/crpg was a page to use as a template for console RPG articles from years back. It doesn't seem to totally match the WP:MOS or Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines (not in conflict either just some differences) so I've listed it for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Moogy/crpg. Please comment there if this could be useful for this project. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:55, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Is it important to list whether software has DRM in lists of articles? SharkD  Talk  04:38, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely not, not in that type of list. --MASEM (t) 05:10, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree the list in question has nothing to do with DRM so mentioning it is irrelevant.--65.94.253.102 (talk) 05:56, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree that, in this case, and in nearly all cases, DRM should not be listed. ~Mable (chat) 08:41, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Only case I think it's probably relevant are the more notable examples where the DRM was utterly borked and caused issues (some Steam Origin games, etc.) and there was actual press coverage. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 11:25, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Not a defining characteristic and irrelevant to list in question. WP:OR to choose it over any other non game-defining field. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:15, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

I think it would be more of a case of WP:WEIGHT--67.68.208.55 (talk) 18:55, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Coming up for December, we have Infinity Blade as the TFA on December 9, Fez cover art as the TFP on December 11, and List of The Last of Us characters as the TFL on December 14. We also just had Children of Mana over the holidays as the TFA on November 26. Congrats to Czar (uploader)/Hahnchen (nominator) for Fez, and Rhain1999 for The Last of Us! (and I guess me for both TFAs). --PresN 17:46, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I've been editing all the Dragon Quest-related articles lately and I've decided to replace all the U.S. packaging art for the earlier games on their infoboxes with the original Japanese versions. I've already made this change for the first three games (I, II and III) and I'm planning doing the same for IV, V and VI (and possibly VII too). Considering the articles uses the original Japanese titles rather than the Dragon Warrior names they were originally localized with, I think it makes sense to just use the Japanese packaging while we're at it, especially considering how inconsistent the localization for this series was until Dragon Quest VIII (where they finally used the actual Japanese branding globally). Final Fantasy IV and VI both used their Japanese packaging, despite the fact that they did get proper stateside releases at the time, so there's definitely an incentive to do the same for the Dragon Quest series. I know there was a poll to use the American art for the first article, I don't feel it was a strong consensus, since not enough people voted and I don't think it was conducted very well to begin with. Jonny2x4 (talk) 17:32, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Good job ignoring WP:VGBOX. --The1337gamer (talk) 17:41, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@The1337gamer: See WP:IGNORE. I might also direct you to WP:CREEP, which applies to you. Jonny2x4 (talk) 17:44, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

How is changing the artwork improving or maintaining Wikipedia? You could have just opened a discussion about this before forcing your own choice upon the articles. --The1337gamer (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

This has already been decided by consensus and put into WP:VGBOX. WP:IAR is not justification to unilaterally override that guideline. I think that readers would prefer to see the English version of packaging, as most do not know Japanese and have more familiarity with the localized name & packaging. Mamyles (talk) 18:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• This goes against prior consensus here at WP:VG. On the English Wikipedia, English language release cover art is preferred due to its better recognizability among English readers. Please stop doing this. Sergecross73 msg me 18:54, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@The1337gamer: From personal experience, most Wikipedia users don't bother to participate in discussions until after changes had been made. @Mamyles:@Sergecross73: WP:IAR isn't the main justification, but rather the fact that the articles are using the Dragon Quest name while having packaging art for the Dragon Warrior versions. The Japanese logo for the games are all written in English, so it's not like they're unreadable, and I still kept the overseas packaging for commentary purposes on the body of the text. Both of you insist that the "Dragon Warrior" brand is more recognizable to English readers, yet you have no objection about using the Dragon Quest title for the older games that weren't use for overseas releases until after Dragon Quest VIII was released. I'm sure Wikipedia readers are more intelligent than you give then credit for and are aware of the localization changes between the Japanese and American version. Also all the Final Fantasy related articles between the the first game and VII all used the Japanese packaging (see II, III, IV, V and VI) and I see no objection for them. Jonny2x4 (talk) 19:23, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Only two of those five Final Fantasy games have actually seen an English language release in the 80s and 90s, though I do think there is a good argument to use English language box art for those two games (something to discuss elsewhere). Making a change you know will be controversial simply to bring more attention to the issue is not how you should go about this, and I think the changes should be undone. That being said, if we want to discuss this guideline, I'm all for it. At first, though, you say the original discussion didn't reach a proper consensus? I'd like to see that, if anyone could find it. ~Mable (chat) 19:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Jonny2x4: I would be far more comfortable using the localized cover art. I though it was Wiki policy or something, that we use the English cover where possible for games that were originally developed and released overseas. Also, I would have started a conversation and gained consensus before making such a grand change. Just a note. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Maplestrip: You can see the previous proposal here. I don't think enough users participated in the discussion and the idea of using the logo for the iOS version was a bad alternative, but that's just my opinion. @ProtoDrake: I always go by a case-by-case basis. Personally, I would prefer if video game articles were handled more like film articles, in which the native poster is given preference over foreign releases, but I understand why it would be confusing to readers (considering some video games often go through extensive changes during localization, especially RPGs). In any case, the use of Dragon Warrior packaging does clash with the fact that the articles are using the Dragon Quest name. Jonny2x4 (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to start up a new discussion to change the prior consensus if you wish, but you sure aren't off to a good start if the discussion here so far is any indication. Unless/until you've got a new consensus, cease making these edits. Sergecross73 msg me 19:54, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: I always assume any edit I make is uncontroversial (as long as it's not something obviously unethical) until someone objects to it. When that happens, I always bring the topic up on WP:VG or whichever happens to be the WikiProject relevant to the discussion for their viewpoints. At any rate, I'm not going to change or add any other packaging art for Dragon Quest games (since I predicted users like yourself would object to my changes) until a consensus is reached here. Jonny2x4 (talk) 20:07, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Except you didn't bring it up here when someone objected. You continued restoring your preferred artwork to the article... --The1337gamer (talk) 20:11, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

@The1337gamer: You're right. I should've messaged you before undoing your reversions. But at the same time, you also undid some of the corrections I made to the article (such as this one) that were unrelated to the use of the Japanese packaging. You do know you could've restored the American packaging art without changing anything else? Jonny2x4 (talk) 20:20, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I restored previous article revision because of edit conflicts, I didn't intentionally revert your correction, which should have been clear from the edit summary. You could easily have restored your correction but instead you chose to use it as an excuse to put the Japanese artwork back on the article. On Dragon Quest II I simply reverted your artwork edit and yet you still continued restoring it. --The1337gamer (talk) 20:31, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. It's my instinct to usually undo any reversions to edit I made if the editor in question doesn't provide a reason for doing so or if I don't think the reasons given were convincing enough for the reversion. At any rate, I'll admit it was my mistake for not consulting you first, but I was convinced there was a precedent for using the Dragon Quest packaging over Dragon Warrior. Jonny2x4 (talk) 20:57, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Since the change was clearly controversial should the original images be restored until there is a consensus one way or the other?--67.68.208.55 (talk) 21:06, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Right now, I see five people preferring the English language boxart over the Japanese version, so I think we can be pretty sure that we'll settle on those images. Right now, I think it is valid to use the less controversial images (thus undoing Jonny2x4's edits). Is there anyone other than Jonny that feels Japanese boxart should be used? ~Mable (chat) 21:15, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I see that as the best choice of action. There is no rush to add the Japanese covers and they can easily be readded if there is future consensus for their inclusion. There clearly is not one now though.--67.68.208.55 (talk) 22:05, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. If this is a straw poll, I'll echo everyone else that the English language art should stay. This has come up before on the talk page before ( Talk:Dragon_Quest_(video_game)#Cover_art_of_Dragon_Quest , which you already read since you're linking to it!), and it was pretty definitive in favor of the original English-language release. As for Final Fantasy (video game), that article uses the original English packaging; Final Fantasy 2 NES & FF3 NES didn't have English releases, so they're not comparable at all to DQ2/DQ3/DQ4, which did have English-language releases. SnowFire (talk) 22:47, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• Also, while we're at it, can there be some big disclaimer on Final Fantasy 4/ FF6 that these are not particularly precedent-setting cases? Honestly I think they should use English-language release box art too, but the sensible argument against is that it'd be shocking since they'd appear to have the 'wrong' number. This is considerably more confusing than Quest vs. Warrior; that kind of phrasing change happens for tons of localizations, and would imply that the original box art / cover art / etc. should almost always be used. SnowFire (talk) 23:06, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• The first one was already changed so I changed 2 and three back since it is clear that the consensus is not to make a change before a consensus to do so was formed.--67.68.208.55 (talk) 23:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I still feel the need that the Japanese packaging need to be on the article alongside their American counterparts. Akira Toriyama/Bird Studios' promotional art was a contributing factor to the series' popularity in Japan and the articles don't do a job at reflecting that. Since the consensus was to not use for the infobox, I'm going to put them to the development sections if some of you guys don't mind. Jonny2x4 (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I'd support if the caption says something like "Japanese cover art by Akira Toriyama. Toriyama's promotional art was a contributing factor to the series' popularity in Japan.[SOURCE]" - no source, no go. --PresN 16:43, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

This is completely acceptable, as well. I can specifically cite the case of Ico where the US packaging cover was known to actually harm sales compared to the JP/EU packaging (with sources), so this would be an equivalent case if you can source that information. --MASEM (t) 17:07, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I get your point, but I think the fact that Toriyama's artwork is still used to promote the series almost 30 years later and is now used globally speaks for itself. I also feel it's a big disingenuous to not have the Super Famicom packaging for Dragon Quest V and VI, since they were available on the Super Famicom years before the Nintendo DS was even a thing. Jonny2x4 (talk) 17:37, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

You've been around a long time, so I imagine you don't need to be lectured on WP:BURDEN, right? Please stop trying to fight every step of the way here. Provide a source for your stance, etc. Sergecross73 msg me 20:16, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

• However, in cases like Dragon Quest V, I'm less steadfast -- when a game was only ever released in Japan, but a remake was later internationalized 15 years later, I can see the sense in still using the "original" boxart. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:31, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. I don't post here too often, but there's a dispute at Talk:List of most expensive video games to develop over whether an unreleased game, Star Citizen, should be included. This recently spilled over to ANI. I think more input from experienced editors on the talk page would help resolve this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:37, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

So recently, my interest has been poking around in cleaning up really poorly written/ignored articles. One I've seen is the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. They're all in pretty terrible shape, and I'm not very familiar with the series yet, and I'm kind of confused with their numbering system. If you look at the game list, but the newest game to come out is Megadimension Neptunia VII. However, there's nowhere near that many mainline entries, but all sorts of spinoffs and remakes. Does anyone know how exactly they work their numbering? And how they got to 7? I'd like to work that wording into the series and individual articles, but I honestly don't understand it myself yet. (And the fact that me, someone who's pretty into the video game world, is unsure, is no doubt baffling your average non-fan reader.)

Pinging IDV, ProtoDrake, and benlisquare, since we run into each other a lot in the obscure jrpg area, though I'd obviously like anyone's response. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 16:41, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• @Sergecross73: It's not a numeral. "VII" stands for "Victory II" (so, I suppose, it should technically be written as "V-II" or something like that). It's a sequel to Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory. As far as I can see, this series doesn't have a consistent number system. But I don't pretend to understand the logic (if any) of Hyperdimension Neptunia. Update: On an unrelated note, I never really considered the positional status of the game articles I've worked on. Which would you consider as "obscure"? Just curious. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:05, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• In regards to the "obscure" comment, regarding you, I mostly meant the Tales titles. Anecdotally, not many people I know are familiar with the series really. Also, while not obscure per se, we both tend to work on articles that haven't been announced for translation yet, and thus don't have many editors working on them yet - your Type 0, Bravely, though looking back, it looks more like I maintained them prior to localization announcements, while you jumped in closer to release I guess. Also, it applied a lot to IDV and Benlisqure, who commonly come and edit on the obscure articles I create - Hollow Fragment, Danganronpa, Mind Zero, etc. Sergecross73 msg me 17:30, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• @Sergecross73:, yeah I see what you mean about Tales. But when Destiny 2 is done, the worst will be out of the way. And on the strength of that, Final Fantasy Agito will be like that too: not only did it not release overseas and got rather lackluster western coverage, but now it's been taken down for good. Hats off to Shinjiman for doing some stellar work with the "Episodes" section, even though I had to dash to find references for them as it was going down in two days. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:41, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Rest assured, you're not missing out on a great deal of logic. The HDN series probably isn't supposed to have much logic, it's a lighthearted game where you turn off your brain, laugh at the jokes/references, and marvel at the boob jiggle physics with one hand on the controller the other hand holding a beer, obviously, what else. The series doesn't take itself seriously, so I guess people shouldn't think too much about things that don't make sense. I play the games in Japanese, because the translated/localised English jokes suck --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:59, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, this was the vibe I was getting too, I was more or less just trying to understand how many titles there were, and see if there was a better way to organize/label it. Between the insanely long/goofy names, all the remakes of said games with even longer titles, and then spinoffs, its hard to keep track of what's what. Sergecross73 msg me 18:52, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• While I'm a fan of the series, I've mostly left the articles in a poor state and haven't bothered to improve them due to time/effort constraints, and IP editors really like to play around with these articles. Since I've already started the game (and have struggled to find time to finish it, real life sucks), I would like to point out that in Japan, the game is actually called "Shin Jigen Game Neptune Victory II"; while the title card is written as "新次元ゲイム ネプテューヌVII", the in-game voice which reads the game's title aloud (at the title screen) pronounces "VII" as "Victory Two". I have no idea why they would localise the title as "Megadimension Neptunia VII" instead of "Victory II", since obviously VII causes a lot of confusion with "seven", however this is the fourth, not the seventh, main story game within the series. Since the game is a direct sequel to Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, I personally would have called the game "Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II", but alas, I'm not the game's western publisher. --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• Ohhh, I see. Yeah, wow, their titling is bizarre, using wording like "Megadimensional Neptunia" and then shortening/abbreviating the word "Victory", of all things? I guess they're trusting their niche fanbase to know it means "Victory 2" and not "7". Thank you both. Sergecross73 msg me 17:30, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

• The people responsible for the English localisations are pretty inconsistent. Forgive my rant, and this is just my cynicism speaking, but the "Mega" in "Megadimension" is pretty damn arbitrary. HDN is originally "超次元" (super dimension), HDN mk2 is still "超次元", however HDNV then becomes "神次元" (god dimension), yet they still keep the same "Hyperdimension". Then HDNVII comes along with "新次元" (new dimension), and it's suddenly "Megadimension"? It makes no sense, there's no logic. I might come off sounding like a Japanese-elitist prude, but these are also common complaints among the rest of the fanbase too (along with the nonsense localised name "Neptunia" which also pisses me off, but that's another story). --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:59, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I guess everything's already been resolved (and I don't know much about Neptunia anyway), but I'd like to say that I've always been amused by the titles of these games. For anyone who has played them, does "Hyperdimension" actually mean anything?--IDV^talk 17:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

The meta is that the game takes place in different dimensions, each representing a specific era in the real-life Nintendo/Sega/Sony/Microsoft console wars. "Hyperdimension" is how NIS America originally translated "超次元" (super dimension), which is used in the name of the first two games. --benlisquare_T•C•E 18:08, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Collapsed above is Neku_Sakuraba#Reception. I think it's symptomatic of a widespread problem that I think the project should confront. We have many of these refbombed articles that easily impress people who don't follow the links. The collapsed section above is a stringing together of every Neku mention from the reviews of a single game. Yes, in a plot-driven game, you would expect the main character to be covered in the review. It doesn't make the character individually notable (more on that in a second). This is to say that, of course, the character should be covered, but it would be undue weight to give the character his own article instead of covering him, as the sources did, within the confines of the game/series. This is what I mean by dedicated or in-depth coverage. Anyone can string together an article with paper-thin sourcing—a quote from every review about the character—but the point of the GNG is that we should cover topics in the same manner that the sources do. If sources are not running dedicated articles about these characters, we shouldn't be either. And if it's close enough that we have maybe one source about the character and a bunch of little blurbs, we should be working summary style out from the game's character/plot section within its article (because the source material is mainly little blurbs about the game, and we give due/proportional coverage). Any merge discussion gets caught up on the role of "dedicated" sources as not being a requirement of the GNG, but it's just semantics. The point of significant coverage is to keep in mind how much a source is really about a subject and then to write proportionally. "Notability" as a phrase has a habit of setting editors off. What it really means is "sufficient coverage to warrant its own WP page dedicated to the topic". ("Notability" is shorter.) We do not treat minigames, game settings, or any other constituent elements of a game with the same carefree hand that we treat fictional characters even though those game elements might receive as much coverage in a game's reviews as Neku did above. When the abundant GTAV reviews discuss the lushness and opportunities of Los Santos, we do not aggregate every mention and write an article about the single element because we do not see its coverage to be set apart from that of the game. If Los Santos became the subject of multiple, dedicated articles, the case would be obvious and uncontested. So it is with fictional characters. When a character is notable apart from its game—and like main characters in other media, very few are—there are more than ample sources to prove so. But if we can't acknowledge that Reception sections like Neku's are propping up full articles when we have no real encyclopedic bases for one, then it's hard to have any substantive conversation about what makes a character notable enough for an article because... every character becomes notable with enough reviews of its game. I'd really like to see the project take a harder lines on merging articles such as these. czar 04:07, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

This type of approach to writing character reception is also how those list-heavy articles get used a lot (eg "Top 10 hottest characters"). I know editors are trying to justify notability by adding all those sources but I agree they need to be used more in a summary style, not necessarily addressing each source directly but still used in broad terms. --MASEM (t) 04:48, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I've seen plenty of complaining on the existence of "those list-heavy articles" in articles yet not one policy-based rationale on why they are inappropriate, especially when WP:GNG specifically claims that "Significant coverage [...] need not be the main topic of the source material"; i.e. if the list covers every item listed significantly then it's still a proper source, even though it's a list. Nevertheless, I'd recommend holding your horses for a bit until the storm at AfD/Sarah Bryant (Virtua Fighter) and AfD/Reiko Nagase dies down, as this discussion here parallels much of the problems raised over there. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 05:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Most top X list articles give a name and then 2-3 sentences that really don't "cover" the character significantly. This is a prime example of such a list that does not significantly contribute to understanding the character. (In contrast with the more recent Game Informer top 30 characters of the decade which is not online but easily had 2-3 paragraphs for each character in the list) --MASEM (t) 05:38, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Believe me, it's tempting, but I'll always go for actual commentary on the character in a reception section before "Top Tens" any day. That's the real problem with Aya Brea, too many lists and not enough commentary. But unfortunately, this issue looks like one of those things that can't be handled through any new policies. But if something can be worked it, it would be useful. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:36, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and put in a very strong oppose to this idea right away. Undue weight should have no bearing on notability. The differences with characters and other elements of a game is we normally accept character articles on Wikipedia, like with TV shows and comic books, so why should it be any different with video games? I'll be blunt and say that the idea of restricting video game characters only to those who have full dedicated articles in sources to them would be way too strict, especially considering that WP:GNG or any notability criteria in general doesn't even support such a practice, so why do that here? I've never even seen notability enforced quite this strictly on Wikipedia before. Why should cram all video game characters from a certain series into one article, just because they don't have whole articles dedicated to them in sources? To me, that is very ridiculous, and I've always believed that it's just more convenient to give characters their own articles. Even as an inclusionist, I understand why have notability here on Wikipedia, but it gets way too out of hand sometimes, like here.

Also, some top lists do give more than 2 or 3 sentences, so it would make no sense to ban top lists from establishing notability completely. In fact, many top lists I come across discusses the character for several sentences and even paragraphs. For this reason, whether top lists can be used to establish notability really should a case-by-case basis. Not to mention, there was also a consensus a while back that top list can be used to establish notability, depending on the case, which is rather fair, if you ask me. But either way, debates will continue to pop up on what constitutes as "significant coverage". Some will say only a few sentences satisfies the criteria, while others would argue that it would need at least a few paragraphs discussing the character in detail. The bar should not be raised too high, especially when people are more lax with character articles in other media. Kokoro20 (talk) 12:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

What Czar is proposing really isn't removed from the WP:GNG in general. I mean, if a video game itself only had a few top ten lists appearances and maybe a paragraph about it in a retrospective about the system it was on or something, it's notability would probably be debated too. The difference is merely that video games themselves are much more likely to get dedicated articles in the form of previews, reviews, etc. Sergecross73 msg me 12:31, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Maybe (even though I would disagree with a merge proposal in that case too), but especially considering the nature of characters being far less likely to get dedicated articles, I do not think raising the bar would be the way to go. WP:GNG also doesn't require dedicated articles, which sadly seems to be a misconception on Wikipedia. Kokoro20 (talk) 12:39, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

We tend to have these discussions every year or so, whenever a bunch of frivolous character articles are deleted, much of the time with more experienced editors agreeing it should be this way, its just that editors making them always seems to outpace the enforcement of it. Its really more of a "lets start enforcing it" than a "lets get more strict". I support it, I just generally don't have that much of an interest in working on character articles, so my activity is usually just quickly trimming out ridiculous "reception" like the type I outlined below. Sergecross73 msg me 12:48, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I admit that I haven't been working on character articles much lately either. I should start again. I even have been interested in getting some of them to GA. I just don't like the harsh attitude given towards these character articles, and I disagree with the whole "let's start enforcing it" thing for reasons I already mentioned in my long post. Kokoro20 (talk) 13:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it does irritate me that many of these character articles "pad" the reception section with every little mention that comes up, often times using random observations or basic descriptions of the character rather than actual reception. (John Smith of GameSpot said "That Sonic, he's so fast! He's blue and faster than that Robotnik, for sure!") Sergecross73 msg me 12:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Considering that being a subject of extensive debate, I think what constitutes as "actual reception" should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, rather than a project-wide consensus. Kokoro20 (talk) 12:43, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Er...do you feel that that this type of thing should be considered reception? Sergecross73 msg me 12:49, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

No, not really, but it wouldn't surprise me if some people do. Kokoro20 (talk) 13:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Oh, some definitely do... Sergecross73 msg me 13:39, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I should note that notable characters don't need to get as much reception as we'd have for GLaDOS or Alyx Vance, but they should be more than just commenting on the character as a playable element of the game; we want the notably to be more about the character as a representation of the game they are in and its out-of-universe reception, rather than within the universe. That's a point that many of those top 10 lists fail on, they are just taking in the in-universe aspects. --MASEM (t) 14:45, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

But why do they need out-of-universe reception? As far as I know, no notability criteria says that coverage must be out-of-universe. Some out-of-universe reception for characters would be nice, but it shouldn't be a requirement. Kokoro20 (talk) 14:53, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

In general, Wikipedia treats works of fiction from an out-of-universe perspective; we're not a fan guide where every nuanced story detail will be iterated. We want to help a reader that may never have played a game with that character before and may never actually play that game at all, to understand why that character is important beyond the bounds of the game itself; we're trying to establish what type of role this video game character serves in the larger aspect of the video game industry and more broadly, the entertainment industries. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, its really more of a general Wikipedia guideline thing than a GNG thing, that's why you're not seeing it there. For more information, see the Manual of Style info at WP:INUNIVERSE. Sergecross73 msg me 15:35, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I normally don't see such a practice being held in articles about fictional material though. I see no good reason why we can't use in-universe reception to establish notability, as long as they pass WP:GNG. Kokoro20 (talk) 15:38, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Just because you see it happen, doesn't make it justified. What you're saying flies directly against WP:INU, which itself grounded in WP:NOT. Sergecross73 msg me 15:40, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't see anything at WP:INU suggesting that reception must be out-of-universe, just that articles about fiction should pass WP:GNG and stuff. Kokoro20 (talk) 15:47, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

From my experience, the only time that GNG is met for a character article - that is, having significant coverage - is when that significant coverage is talking about the character out-of-universe - either how the character was developer, voiced, drawn, etc. (production), or how the character made the game stand out, or became iconic to the video game industry, or influenced other characters in other games. This is not to say that all GNG-meeting characters only have this type of sourcing; I can fully believe that it should be possible to find a character where its significant coverage is only from the character's in-universe background, story and narrative so that GNG is still met. But I am saying that is an extremely rare situation that I have not yet encountered - the way this industry comments on characters, the significant coverage is the out-of-universe style. The in-universe coverage (eg "Sonic is fast!") is rarely significant, just enough to establish some descriptors for gameplay and narrative understanding. Also, WP:WAF is a good guideline on how we want to approach fiction in general, and that's where we stress the out-of-universe approach. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

INU is about writing Wikipedia articles in general, and there's no reason/indicator to think it not talking about Reception sections. Sergecross73 msg me 16:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Which bring me back to what I said about what constitutes as "significant coverage" leads to extensive debate. I agree that quotes that states the obvious like "Sonic is fast" is not actual reception, but I don't think banning in-universe coverage in general is the right way to go either. It's something I believe that should just be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Kokoro20 (talk) 16:14, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not so much eliminating such in-universe but being aware that 1) by itself reception of the character that strictly handles it in-universe is likely not sufficient for notability 2) when you do have a good mix of out-of-universe coverage and in-universe coverage, adding the weak in-universe commentary atop the stronger out-of-universe coverage can be out of place. And what's happening as ID'd in this section is that users are shoehorning in all this in-universe, the top 10 list mentions, and other things that don't really talk about the character atop a section that could stand alone with the out-of-universe aspects. Now, there still is some common sense here. It would be silly of us to ignore how many times a character like Lara Croft hits various top 10 lists that come from how she appears, but obviously there's a lot more coverage about Lara that we can go into about her character's development, various story arcs, etc (particularly with the reboot). I've seen people find one brief secondary source on other attractive characters, start with that, and then flood the rest of the reception with the top ten list entries due to her attractive appearance. That's not helpful to our readers, and the caution that must be made - we want weight on more out-of-universe aspects. --MASEM (t) 18:40, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Which further backs up my case to evaluate in-universe sources on a case-by-case basis, rather than outright banning them from establishing notability. Speaking of common sense, common sense would tells me not to cram a character who gets a lot of reception in character list article, regardless if the reception is in-universe or out-of-universe. Not helpful to our readers? I would have to disagree. I'm sure some readers would like to know much attention a certain character gets, regardless if the reception is about their attractive appearance. Kokoro20 (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not banned, a degree of it is necessary to explain concepts or plotlines. It can be used some. The point is, the notability standards should be able to be met with out-of-universe reception. If there's not even enough out-of-universe coverage to meet the bare-bones requirements of the GNG, there's no way there's going to be enough out-of-universe content to write an entire article that doesn't violate WP:INU. If the only sources covering it in detail are in-universe, then all of the content is going to be in-universe, and that's objectively not okay with Wikipedia's current consensus. If you want in-universe-based stuff, there's plenty of places for that, but its not here, its at Wikias and GameFaqs. Sergecross73 msg me 19:19, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Case by case is fine, but we do want to have some milestones of where it is reasonable to start from, along the lines I've described. The other thing to consider on your second point is that we do want to be aware that if a character is very commonly on these lists, that's fine and important to include (the Lara Croft case) but we do want to make sure these are valid points. There do exist top 10 lists that I would call out as clickbait, and along the lines of "Top 10 Hottest Chicks/Babes in Video Games" or "The Most Bad-ass Villains", and really that's not even a reasonably fair starting point in trying to describe a character in an encyclopedic way. When these do exist in reasonable numbers, I agree we should not ignore them, but as the example in this section gives we do not need a sentence with a quote for each one of these list appearances. A one sentence summary that combines 3 to 5 sources is fair enough. The above example under the hide section could be cut from 3 paragraphs to 1 following this advice without losing any of the sourcing. --MASEM (t) 19:29, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Well done for actually discussing this instead of just unliterally redirecting it and hoping no-one notices. But I don't think we'll ever get anywhere. I'm in favour of deleting listicle-sourced character articles, but I have been in favour of that every time it's brought up - 2012, 2012, 2014, 2014, 2014 lol. There's more, obviously. The problem is actually worse outside of the video game space, where you have articles like Stacy X, Sway (comics), Mickey Shea, Henry Grubstick without even the typical listicle bullshit propping it up. - hahnchen 20:00, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, I think that was someone's reason for calling us being "too strict" in one of the past discussions, the fact that comic book characters are typically even worse off. But the problem there is just that it doesn't appear to be as active of an area. I mean, look at WP:COMIC. They've had 5 edits made in the month of October that weren't related to archiving. We had 45 edits today alone. The problem is that they don't have experienced users maintaining this kind of stuff. We do, so we could be. Sergecross73 msg me 20:41, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

VG editors should get active in deleting comic book characters if they want VG characters deleted. You don't want to be seen as targeting VG articles unfairly when the problem is fictional minutiae across the entire project. I don't think most Wikipedians care or know about the issue of in-universe trivia, to get them to notice, you're going to have to nominate a lot of articles for deletion over a sustained period of time. - hahnchen 21:27, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

I come back to Wikipedia after taking a break to sort out stuff IRL to find this massive wall of text... oh boy. Anyway, I'd like to echo Kokoro20's thoughts and strongly oppose - it's rampant deletionism at its finest, and is backed up by absolutely no policy, and frankly flies in the face of what Wikipedia policy actually conveys. As I'll demonstrate below:

• I see plenty of editors here stipulate that "out-of-universe coverage" is necessary to demonstrate notability, and then cite WP:INU to back up their claim. The problem here is that the guideline has been taken out of context - read what INU actually says and it becomes clear that the guideline is about writing plotlines and removing fancruft, and is completely irrelevant to notability.
• There's people saying that fictional characters need "dedicated coverage" in order to meet the GNG. Yet the guideline says absolutely nothing about this. In fact, there's a line directly to the contrary: "significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it need not be the main topic of the source material." Thus, as long the sources discuss the character in some detail (as opposed to name-dropping, which would be a "trivial mention") then the characters notability is fine, even if those mentions occur within a game review or list article.

When you start using personal interpretations and opinions in citing Wikipedia policy, instead of taking them at face value (as they're meant to be taken) you enter dangerous territory. (Using WP:INU in a way it's not meant to be used, by applying it to notability instead of its intended purpose of writing about plotlines, is a prime example). Another example can be seen in the following quote: "From my experience, the only time that GNG is met for a character article - that is, having significant coverage - is when that significant coverage is talking about the character out-of-universe" - although good-faith and unintended, it distorts the actual meaning of the policy. In actuality, GNG is met when it "[receives] significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" to quote from the guideline. (Apologies in advance if some of my points have already been addressed. I didn't have enough time to read all the text that's been posted above.) Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 04:04, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

• • Significant coverage doesn't require a dedicated third-party article but it absolutely needs to be more than a line or two as the example that leads this off gives; the character in question is only mentioned briefly in the sources given and little more than that. Otherwise, it is just name dropping or trivial mention. We also have to remember that this is only the issue on stand alone character articles; list articles for characters in a game are fine still, and a better place if all the type of third-party sourcing are the name-dropped style. --MASEM (t) 04:55, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but the problem is that people are not taking the context of those sources into consideration. This listicle, for example, are more just passing or trivial mentions of the characters in it. This source and other similar ones were brought at the AFD for Frank Tenpenny, but were discounted, just because their listicles. Kokoro20 (talk) 09:09, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree with you Masem. But certain other editors don't see it this way - at the recently closed Sarah Bryant AfD sources were discounted or ignored simply because they were listicles where other characters were present (a list that covered all of them in great depth, BTW), or it was part of a game review, or there was no "out-of-universe coverage", etc., essentially the same twisting of policies as what's happening right here. My protests arguing otherwise fell on deaf ears. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 10:36, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

• I believe this concern is more of a website-wide one. We know a passing mention isn't good enough, and that a lengthy, dedicated article usually is good enough, but there is a lot of subjective, gray area in between, where a judgment call has to be made. If you think about it though, it kind of has to be that way, as some of it just can't quantified. It's not like we could say something like "4 sentences = significant coverage" or something, as the content within those four sentences could vary wildly. In one article, it could be detailed insight into a character, while in another, it could amount to "Sonic is fast. He is blue. He has red shoes. Sonic is cool." I think its something that needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. (If its any consolation, of Czar's 3 controversial nominations, it looks like we'll have 1 keep, 1 redirect, and 1 no consensus at this rate.) Sergecross73 msg me 13:53, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

• (Side note: Satellizer, I know its quite the wall of text, but try to read it over when you get the chance, it does address some of your concerns regarding INU and the GNG. Short version: It isn't so much whether or not the GNG allows for in-universe reception, it's more that, if the only way to meet the GNG is with just in-universe coverage, then that's going to leave you with only in-universe content to write the article with, and that's where the problem comes in, because INU says article's shouldn't be primarily written that way.) Sergecross73 msg me 13:53, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: Thanks for the response. I agree 100% that it should be decided in a case-by-case basis, and judgement calls used for those articles in gray areas. However I disagree with the current interpretation of INU - it is a Manual of Style article that details how articles should be written rather than what is written, and it shouldn't be used as an indicator of notability (or whether something deserves an article or not). If GNG and INU were somehow to come into conflict, then GNG should trump INU every time as it is a core Wikipedia guideline whereas INU is something more secondary (i.e. if something violates GNG, you delete it, but if something violates INU, you fix it). That really shouldn't happen, though, as the "in-universe" content can easily be written in an out-of-universe way. For example:

In 2010, UGO listed her among the 50 "hottest girls" in video games, describing her as "quick, efficient, and super-deadly". (taken from Taki (Soulcalibur))

Isn't violating INU in any way as the sentence explicitly says that the list is about video game (thus fictional) characters. It can't be taken to mean that Taki is a real person. Here's another example (paraphrasing the one you gave above):

John Smith of GameSpot wrote that he loved Sonic as he is fast and beat up Robotnik at the end.

Can be taken as an INU violation as it does not distinguish between the real world and an in-universe perspective. But this can easy be re-written:

John Smith of GameSpot complimented Sonic's character, praising his speed and his victory over Robotnik at the end of the game. (emphasis mine.)

Now there is no INU violation as the fictional context becomes clear. Thus, articles shouldn't be removed as they violate INU, but instead should be fixed. To use INU as an indicator of notability would distort the original purpose of the guideline and it should not clash with GNG in determining an article's value. Hopefully my points are a bit easier to read this time. Thanks :) Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 00:06, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

It's not so much the writing style we're using to address those points (which as you rightfully say is using out-of-universe), but that the details being emphasized - Sonic's speed, Taki's efficiency as a brawler character, etc. - are in-universe details that border on gamecruft if we're not careful. I am absolutely sure that somewhere on our VG pages, there is a good example of a brawler game character that has a significant amount of reception across multiple sources about how that character plays in their respective game(s) (whether he is hard to learn but lethal when the player gets the hang of it for example), of which use is not in question. But simply using one comment about a brawler character being quick and efficient is focusing too much on a gameplay element that only those that will play the game may appreciate and if it is only one voice saying that, while everything else on the character's reception is more on out-of-universe factors, it stands out. Particularly when there is no metric here: for the brawler character "quick and efficient" compared to what? Its fine for the off-the-cuff writing style of game reviews, but doesn't work here. The Neko example at the top demonstrates when too much emphasis is placed on trying to find any in-universe point that has been picked up by sources to try to flesh out a reception section. I rather see a slimmed down reception section that highlights out-of-universe points than one that tries to make the character seem more important than they are by stuffing the box with anything that looks like faint praise (and having written the main The World Ends with You article, I absolutely can say that the above example for Neko is overblowing the character; it was the character set as a whole that the game was generally praised for). --MASEM (t) 00:18, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The crux of my points, which I've detailed above, is that such a viewpoint is flawed IMO as it is based on misinterpretations of Wikipedia policy. The argument that we should redirect character articles in this discussion revolves around GNG and INU - but, like I said, whether something is in-universe or part of a "top 10 list" is completely irrelevant to GNG and INU is, like you said, only about writing style and not "details being emphasized" - you can't apply a guideline to something it's not meant to be used for. There is absolutely no Wikipedia policy barring reception from "focusing on a gameplay element", just like there is no policy barring in-universe coverage (when WP:INU is about writing style) or coverage with other characters. I wouldn't exactly say that "Sonic's speed" or "Taki's efficiency" is gamecruft when they've been mentioned by RS coverage and thus forms a notable facet of their character.

However, I feel we're going off-topic here. So, a quick, tl;dr summary of my points: WP:GNG should be the one and only factor in judging the notability of a fictional character. Everything else is irrelevant and immaterial. Whether the coverage is in a list article or a game review is irrelevant, as GNG explicitly states that the character does not have to be the main topic. WP:INU is irrelevant, as the guideline is not about notability and in-universe writing can be easily fixed anyway (as demonstrated by my examples above). If a character has "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject", then I feel the character deserves an article. No ifs, no buts, and no misapplication of guidelines or taking them out of context. My apologies for being blunt, but I feel that's the quickest and most straightforward way to express my points. Thanks :) Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 00:59, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The Case of Ken Rosenberg

I think there are some suggestions above that would make some really easy resolutions for WP:VG/GL, but before we get there, I thought I'd toss this out for the weekend: This morning, Game Informer "Top 10 Grand Theft Auto Characters of All Time" was suggested as a substantial "listicle" not deserving of the term's pejorative connotations. I would ask that you click on it, for your frame of reference. I read this article as the epitome of the articles we should be ignoring when determining whether a character is sufficiently notable for their own article. There is a lack of depth or interest in each list item such that each is treated in a cursory manner closer to an item in a Letterman top ten than to an AFI Top 100 entry (and this isn't even to address how meaningless it is to count inclusion on this list as some kind of meaningful superlative). So, playing along, if this Game Informer Top 10 "counted" towards Tenpenny's notability (as originally cited above), what else would count? I picked the next character: Ken Rosenberg. So in addition to the aforementioned Game Informer piece's paragraph, there are also paragraphs at IGN's favorite badasses, IGN's best supporting characters, and IGN's economics of Vice City, each with a paragraph on Rosenberg. I implore you to actually check the four articles rather than me copy-pasting here. Rosenberg is only notable in an ultra-literal read of the GNG that acknowledges four separate paragraphs in four separate articles about him as making him notable, when anyone actually reading the content sees that there is nothing of substance in those four articles. I'll go further. I used to have a literal read of the GNG until Trade In Detectives—I found multiple articles that covered the company in depth and thought that was that. But if the articles (which cover the company in more depth than these articles cover Ken Rosenberg, Tenpenny, or Sarah Bryant) have a promotional air or just aren't very good reporting, WP doesn't count them for notability. That's why we don't have an article on Ken Rosenberg, that's why we shouldn't have one for Neku Sakuraba, and that's why we should be enforcing the source quality we require of other types of articles. It's a cop-out to say that listicles are okay on a case-by-case basis (because anything can be okay on a case-by-case basis)—the point should be that listicles (articles from RS presented in a list form without editorial credence to the difference in rank and, come on, usu. intended as clickbait) are predominantly unacceptable at AfD until proven useful, the same way that being included in a BuzzFeed listicle wouldn't "count" in any culture-related AfD. We never get anywhere at AfD particularly because someone refbombs a bunch of low-quality or otherwise vapid sources (not unlike the Neku text above) and a horde of passersby at AfD vote to keep without actually reading the sources for what original contribution/commentary they make and how that would make an encyclopedic article. Bon week-end, czar 01:45, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I think you've identified the problem. "Rosenberg is only notable in an ultra-literal read of the GNG" - thing is, the GNG, like all other Wikipedia policies, should always be read literally, because otherwise editors are free to personally interpret (or should I say misinterpret) key policies to fit their own agendas, there would be millions of different arguments based on these misinterpretations and nothing constructive would come out of them. Editors would also be free to introduce arbitrary restrictions on source usage, such as the "list articles are not proper sources" dilemma which has repeatedly plagued this WikiProject. As for the four sources you've nominated, I daresay that all four of them would contribute their part to Rosenberg's notability as in each a reliable source discusses their opinions on a character. I fail to see how that is not "substance". Listicles from reliable sources should be presumed reliable until proven otherwise, not the other way around.

p.s. Rosenberg doesn't have an article not necessarily because he's not notable but simply as no-one has bothered to make him one (excluded the stub way back in '04). Thanks, Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 02:46, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind that policies are not to be treated as strict law. They're descriptive of our practices, not prescriptive. That's what's been argued here is that if you consider how these have been applied in the past, we would normally handle articles in a certain manner, that if you take a very exacting read of the guidelines and policies may seem off. --MASEM (t) 06:11, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

With that AFD example you posted, just because consensus was against your keep on there with the sources you provided does not mean we should now be enforcing these notability standards elsewhere. Besides, there's also been AFDs that has closed with keep without any sources provided whatsoever. As for "vapid" sources, that's a very subjective term, and is genuinely something that should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as I've mentioned before. And yes, many of these listicles come from sources are considered reliable at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources, so unless proper evidence can be found that a listicle at one of those sites shouldn't be reliable, they should be presumed to be reliable, like how the source already is in general (unless it happens to be user-submitted, of course), per WP:NEWSBLOG (under the assumption that listicles can be treated like blogs), which merely says to use them with caution and not for extraordinary claims. It even suggests that such sources are fine for opinion pieces, which is what reception is. As for Ken Rosenberg, I agree with Satellizer that most likely is the case that no one has bothered to create an article for him. In fact, if someone were to create an article for him or anyone else with similar sourcing, I would be in favor of keeping it, based on those sources. Kokoro20 (talk) 05:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Reading WP:GNG as ultra-literally as possible and most of the listicle detritus that supports character articles (such as the Rosenberg links) still don't magically become "significant coverage". Satellizer brings up the point above, "The differences with characters and other elements of a game is we normally accept character articles on Wikipedia", which is why I think the problem goes way beyond video games. - hahnchen 18:37, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I feel a bit lost. For example, both Ken Masters and Sagat (Street Fighter) are notable for being overpowered (that they have to strong moves). Chun-li is popular for being the first female fighter. This results in top tens used in many of these articles. If the top tens or something like that can't be used then I'm afraid lots of fighting game characters should be merged.Tintor2 (talk) 20:15, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Most of the "top ten" listicles/mentions are not worth individually citing (e.g., "X from Magazine said she was "attractive"), or can at least be combined (e.g., multiple refs added to a general statement). And I think the overarching point is that when a set of characters primarily receives coverage as a group and not as individuals, they're best covered as a group and not as individuals. As for the individual characters mentioned above, if there is little secondary source coverage after the top list refs are combined—for example, if a character is only known for a one-dimensional character trait and has no other commentary—it is almost always best to cover them in a series character list. czar 15:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

• There's also the case of Horstachio ([9][10][11][12]m[13][14]) ... the point is that it's extremely easy to string together mentions of a major character within any franchise, but it doesn't mean that the character is independently notable (i.e., having enough coverage to justify its own Wikipedia page) from the series article. czar 15:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Rosenberg resolution

[15] - I figured this could be of help to expand reception sections, especially if anyone is working on an article that needs "just one" more source to really make it feel complete. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 12:14, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Sheesh, what a terrible clickbait article. I can name a thousand objectively worse games. What makes these 100 "the worst" -- how do they justify their selection, how do they compare them to other games? How can they include games they haven't done full reviews on? Where are all the games that hold near-universal negative reception? All these have actual graphics, where's all the terrible ASCII DOS games and 1990s shovelware or iOS Flappy Bird clones? Quotes like "we’re sorry we even brought it to your attention" -- yeah, great journalism. A couple paragraphs is not sufficient to make extraordinary claims like "worst game of all time" -- what if a top 100 list did so? I would stay far away from using this as source unless it's to pad out a generic statement on poor reception. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:32, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

So did all they do is update their bottom 100 list they had before? Wouldn't it have made sense to at least make a new one? I mean I know PC Gamer does that and its excessive (they and GamesRadar are also owned by Future plc), but I find a problem with them recycling their lists. GamerPro64 17:10, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

The source would not be used for the sake of verifying worst-game-ever status, merely that it was included on such a list with an explanation of "why." The reason why most worst-games-ever lists aren't full of DOS games or Flappy Bird clones is because in all likelihood - at least one can hope - the people making the list are weighing games that they've played. The only thing that can really be said is that a lot of the placements (and often inclusions) are made because they're famously bad rather than legitimately among the worst ever. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 18:28, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I noticed that the GameTrailers website has been getting a facelift, but now, when I try to search for a video review for Power Stone Collection, it never appears in the search! Same goes for these three links for the game review: they've all vanished or are replaced! It seems that all the video game reviews from 2005 all the way to 2015 have vanished! Why? --Angeldeb82 (talk) 19:33, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

The website is still undergoing restructuring. I've been going back to it for a while. When I tried checking out their retrospective show when I first noticed, I couldn't find it at all. Today, some of the videos are available, and their video playback system has been greatly improved. I think that the reviews will be put back into place at some point, when the facelift is complete. If you check their Twitter, it is stated that some of the key staff are away, so the restructuring will take longer than might be liked. Don't write off the reviews as lost for good, but I agree that it's a niggle. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:43, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

I understand now. I'll wait until the website facelift is finally complete before I can continue on with the video game articles. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 20:02, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

How much longer do we wait until we have to contact GameTrailers or Defy Media on these link issues? I get that the transitioning process will take a while but God help us if GameTrailers isn't going to be the next big website to shut down in the future. GamerPro64 20:03, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@GamerPro64: I can't decide this. I'm not a member of their community. If you know someone who is, it would be good if they could drop a line about these issues. And yes, it would be very awkward if those links went dead permenantly. But while the URLs remain there, I have some hope. When Andriasang went, the urls went too. --ProtoDrake (talk) 20:13, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

If Gametrailers shuts down, its likely that the content will be gone forever. Same with all video sites. Archivers generally do not save video content, even when the rest of the page is preserved. Instead, it will merely contain a reference to the site/cdn where the video was previously stored. This is useless, so if you can replace a GameTrailers source with an non-video source of equal quality, do so. When we want GameTrailers reviews, we'll have to do it directly still, but if its news, it can be replaced with a non-video source. - hahnchen 21:48, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

This. I haven't used GameTrailers in years and I suggest that others don't either. It's linkrot waiting to happen. czar 22:00, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I am going to guess that no one has access to it, but... might as well ask before I import a used copy. Does anyone have a copy of the November 2011 issue of Famitsu Xbox 360? I'm after the Code_18 review in it.--IDV^talk 10:44, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

So I noticed this article, Video game rehabilitation is up at GAN. What I couldn't help but notice is that it was primarily made by two editors who identify as college students. Saying they're getting it complete by December. Honestly with it all being referenced with books this might be a doozy of a review for anyone. GamerPro64 02:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like it is an article being done as a class project, which isn't a problem. And all the references seem legit (eg all scholarly articles but obviously I can't check them all). I really don't see it as a problem as long as they aren't engaging in COI or the like. --MASEM (t) 02:35, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I left a comment on the talk page about original research czar 03:51, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The article was brought to my attention a few weeks back too, but this was more or less my reaction too. It could use some eyes of some experienced editors, and probably isn't a GA yet, but it's mostly an okay article. Sergecross73 msg me 03:54, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

There is a problem here, which is that a glance through the source list indicates that academia has yet to define the concept of "video game rehabilitation." Only one article even appears to be a literature review, and it uses a different, and likely less inclusive, term. If reliable secondary literature has not yet defined this topic, then it fails WP:GNG handily. Honestly, while I am sure the authors have the best of intentions, this reads like a term paper, not an encyclopedia article. Indrian (talk) 05:21, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

@Indrian, let's continue this discussion on the article's talk page? I had raised a similar point czar 05:32, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, I'd like to know if it is in any way possible to use emails from a person as a source or reference to edit and improve that person's Wikipedia article with the information they provide over email. I've had a long, productive, knowledge-packed email conversation with Jess Cliffe, co-creator of Counter-Strike, and I'd like to use his answers to my questions to improve his Wikipedia page. He is okay with this and has given me permission - however, I know how picky Wikipedia is about saying things without proof, which is why I'm asking this question. Please describe if there is any way of making the emails public or quoting them and, if there is, any way of redacting information related to upcoming game changes which Jess would not like to share at this time. Regards, Paul Benn

No, because that would be original research. --The1337gamer (talk) 16:58, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Can anyone give a more complete answer, please? I'd like to know if it is possible to do this in any other way. I'm looking for advice on how to use the information he has given me. It's hard to believe that the person whose Wikipedia article I am editing is not allowed to provide information on himself. Should I ask him to make a post online somewhere? Regards, Paul Benn —Preceding undated comment added 17:04, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You would need a reliable source to publish (and fact check) such material (to whom you would disclose your conversation). It is similar to how interviews work, which is a problematic area in itself. Bluntly put, Wikpedia doesn't care if it's true, but whether it is verifiable. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:12, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if this couldn't fall under WP:SPS. Forward the email chain (or have the author) to WP:OTRS and then cite the email from there. I suppose also you could have a website known for reliability publish the info as well. --Izno (talk) 17:29, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for all your answers. What section of WP:OTRS should I forward it to? I'm assuming "Article requests"? Also, I'd like to know why Jess Cliffe is not considered a reliable source in his own article. Is there no directive for editing one's own page? One more thing: how do I cite the email from the OTRS system and why would this be valid? Regards, Paul benn darias (talk) 17:47, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales isn't a reliable source for Jimmy Wales.[16] Wikipedia doesn't trust what people say about themselves, else it would be full of self-aggrandizing autobiographical trivia. Wikipedia places its trust in reliable sources, independent publications that both vet that material and deem it important. OTRS would generally only intervene in the case of slander/libel/hoaxes. - hahnchen 21:32, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Ah, but what if none of the information he has given me is self-aggrandizing? Stuff like his date/place of birth, year of starting work at Valve, current job, side projects, a picture, etc. What other way is there to know this stuff if it doesn't come from the man himself? Paul benn darias (talk) 21:48, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Forward the picture, as well as free-use declaration to OTRS. The picture must be freely available for commercial reuse, use the instructions/template at Commons:Commons:Email templates if it helps. If information hasn't been published elsewhere, Wikipedia asks, "then why is it important?" I don't know if we consider birthplace/date vital/public information, but I'm not too familiar with our biography guidelines. - hahnchen 22:06, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

• (1) Any self-published info from the subject needs to meet the self-published source standards. (2) Personal info can be cited this way, but a reliable source always overrules a primary source. (3) Email has its own host of verifiability issues. Have the subject write a tweet from his account or submit the interview to a regular gaming website (ideally with fact-checking) for us to reference. It is not a good idea to cite OTRS for text or anything more than author copyright permission. (4) If an individual is important, their details will be covered by extant reliable sources. That we're even having this discussion is a sign of original research: that these details are not important to the public (if they were, reliable sources would cover it). What other way is there to know this stuff if it doesn't come from the man himself? A reliable, secondary source will figure out what's right—that's the job of a journalist, not a Wikipedian. czar 22:09, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

For a slightly more hopeful answer... you can post an article on your website / blog. Now, to warn you, random websites are considered very low on the totem pole of reliable sources, but if there's some sort of evidence you didn't invent the interview entirely (e.g. some way to confirm this is for real), then it's probably okay, at least as a "what the designer claimed" type deal rather than "this is indisputably the truth." However, "emails in my inbox" are basically never going to fly because others can't ever possibly check them. SnowFire (talk) 05:07, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you guys for all your help. I will try and get a reputable gaming website to post the email chain in interview form with Jess's permission - it seems to be the answer with the most probabilities of success. Paul benn darias (talk) 14:45, 7 December 2015 (UTC)