Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games

Removing MobyGames.com links

MobyGames.com is a commercial service. All the info available there should be available at Wikipedia itself and for free. Linking the user to a commercial service for info that should be available here is against the very purpose of Wikipedia. I also noticed that there are links on EVERY article; in a lot of cases these linked entries at MobyGames do not contain any actual information about the game at all, since MobyGames depends on the voluntary contributions of its visitors. These links smell a lot like they are there to generate traffic.

Here's a link to the discussion at WP's MobyGames article:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:MobyGames#Why_link_to_MobyGames.3F

I think it's time to stop this nonsense and start removing the links from Wikipedia. Wikipedia isn't a platform for advertisement. DCEvoCE (talk) 13:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, these links if i believe were mostly added by users going round to every article and tagging.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Spam/LinkSearch/Mobygames.com: this is a list of all the pages with a mobygames link on it. There was a discussion on WikiProject Spam back some time about MobyGames, talking about the edits. I say remove them, but take in regard the edit history. Salavat (talk) 13:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there any difference between Moby and IMDB (which is listed in the infobox for every film)? --MASEM 13:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Linking to Mobygames is fine, it provides information that Wikipedia doesn't, screenshots, credits, multiple box arts etc. Occasionally, I'll link to them if they helped out with an article I've worked on. That's not to say linkspamming them is fine which some members were found to be doing. What I don't like is pointless linking to GameFAQs and StrategyWiki. Why is linking to game guides important? - hahnchen 13:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how gameguides are less important than multiple box arts. Using your own words: "provides information that Wikipedia doesn't". --Mika1h (talk) 14:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Multiple box arts is a lesser point. But at least its from the developers and publishers. The main reason why I choose to link to MobyGames is that it provides individual credits. This is a lot more useful and encyclopedic than 100% collection guides written by people overly fond of ASCII art on CNET, or movelists on StrategyWiki. - hahnchen 16:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Mobygames doesn't offer any special information or resources. I mean, the only thing it has usually are a few screenshots. So what? By the same principles, the media sections of games on IGN should be linked. If the average reader wanted that, then they could easily search for it on Google. But it gets credit because the screenshots and staff credits are all collated on the same page. Such information can be attained anywhere in separate form. The worst of it is when the pages are linked indiscriminately at the bottom of every page. Yes, I realise that "it does no harm", but external links are supposed to be kept to a minimum, so why have that page when it's of minimal use? Then to mark it all off, you get these users whose sole purpose on here is to implement these links, and then revert anyone who disagrees. Rant over. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 14:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I know exactly what you mean by that last bit, we had that come up with the Street Fighter IV page where one fellow insisted on linking to his StrategyWiki page on it. And he really *really* fought with long winded posts to keep it, even though the simple point was "game isn't done, could change, guide not needed yet." It was a pain in the butt.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Probaby the same person linked StrategyWiki on Super Smash Bros. Melee. I reverted him once, but he replied with some bitter edit summary. I should have reverted him again, but I can't really be bothered with people like that. Doing so would be committing myself to some two-week debate with a person who won't listen to reason or see beyond their personal affiliations. It shouldn't be that way, but sadly it is. Oh damn, I guess I just assumed bad faith. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 14:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Truth be told I honestly assumed and still do that he just put the link up for advertising purposes. It served no other means really. The real problem comes in the manner they're handled: the fact MobyGames and StrategyWiki both have templates would imply to folks they have backing from Wikipedia when they don't. Additionally the better WikiKnowledge links ended up nixed in favor of StrategyWiki by some of these guys...yet the results would end up with 5 or 6 links on the same line to subsections, and wouldn't cover all of them. Isn't pretty.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

If the link to StrategyWiki or Moby does not add anything new, remove it. If someone reinserts it, just warn them about linking for promotional purposes, and they will be blocked if they continue to do so. -- ReyBrujo (talk) 16:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the StrategyWiki links came about when all gameguide material was banned from WikiBooks, so a lot of it moved across. I'm more fond of the single guide, GFDL, and link backs to Wikipedia that StrategyWiki has over GameFaqs. Still, I find that some people linking to them on Wikipedia seem overly enthusiastic. - hahnchen 16:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that MobyGames.com links are just there as a link to prove the games exists, but I prefer to link to gamespot.com for that as I feel it's a better site with better information normally. Govvy (talk) 19:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

GameSpot is just a mirror of GameFAQs. FightingStreet (talk) 19:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And what you pointed out Govvy is something that should be covered more by references within an article. Whether or not MobyGames lists something is not a good indication if the game exists or not.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 20:14, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick note on an argument used above, the fact that MobyGames has some more images is probably moot as we link to the game's official website, which probably contains more visual material anyway. For the rest, it is indeed redundant to the Wikipedia article. User:Krator (t c) 20:19, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It should be redundant, but we link because sometimes it isn't. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 23:15, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not a valid reason to link, per WP:EL "Links normally to be avoided" include "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." JACOPLANE • 2008-03-16 23:33

OK, to rephrase my comments (and thus, to copy paste someone else's :), "it provides information that Wikipedia doesn't, screenshots, credits, multiple box arts etc". That's what WP:EL is trying to imply, I think - it provides useful info that we don't. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 23:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I agree with your rephrased argument :) JACOPLANE • 2008-03-16 23:51

This was discussed to death at the CoI/Noticeboard in August 2007. Please familiarize yourselves with the details of that thread (I attempted a summation in the final subthread).

Is there fresh evidence of mass-adding/spamming the links, and if so, have the person/people adding the links been warned/welcomed with details of WP:EL yet? As suggested everywhere (this thread, that thread, policies, wikiquette, etc) each link should be judged on its own merit; if it adds to, or even just confirms any details in an article, it should be retained. There is no justification for an eradication of the links to that site (nor for displaying such hostility to the site, but that's another kettle of fish).

As a specific quote reply: "... in a lot of cases these linked entries at MobyGames do not contain any actual information about the game at all, since MobyGames depends on the voluntary contributions of its visitors." – in a lot of cases, the Wikipedia article information was sourced from Mobygames. Both Wikipedia and Mobygames rely upon voluntary contributions from visitors.

I will move the 2 template's instructions to a /doc subpage, to make it even clearer when to and when not to add them. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The original post is off base because there is no prohibition whatsoever from linking to commercial sites, like CNN or the Washington Post or near infinity other sites linked to. None. However it is also pretty clear that Moby Games is way, WAY overlinked. A few screenshots or credits don't merit an external link, and NEVER would if that info was on an official site. The bottom line is some Moby games links are very good; some are terrible; and a large mass of them are marginal/questionable that should be looked at on a case by case basis. If someone wanted to look through them all and remove low content ones, that would be fine, but just removing them all because the site makes money is not okay. (The COI spamming is sort of off to the side here. The fact it occured means there are bound to be some poor links that could be removed, but at the same time there is obviously support for these links being useful sometimes.) 2005 (talk) 00:23, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that my post isn't perfectly worded nor are my facts correct: Last time I checked MobyGames a few months ago there didn't seem to be any info at all (at least for the games I looked up). The links I checked today actually contained a few lines of text, credits, a few screenshots, etc. - However, I also didn't know that WP links to MobyGames on 6000 (!) pages. That is absolutely ridiculous. My impression is that WP is responsible for the growth of MG. Why does MG list the artists and programmers for games and not WP ? DCEvoCE (talk) 21:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

See http://web.archive.org/web/*/http%3A//www.mobygames.com/home. Mobygames has existed since 1999. I'm not sure why you assume that Wikipedia is responsible for their growth? Similarly, IMDB has existed since 1990, and Rotten Tomatoes since 1998. Wikipedia since 2001. See also, many of the others in Category:External link templates.

Mobygames also often link back to Wikipedia, which is more than most of the others do. -- Quiddity (talk) 06:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The thing I meant is that by linking to MG for developer credits, WP misses the chance to cover that information.DCEvoCE (talk) 02:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Addendum: I have no problem with MG at all. I just think that the info should be available here and that mass linkage such as those to MG should be avoided. DCEvoCE (talk) 21:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

We link to Mobygames precisely because we cannot include that information here. We don't list all the game credits for Final Fantasy X-2 at Final Fantasy X-2, or the film credits for Pulp Fiction at Pulp Fiction.

MG is currently the closest thing to an imdb for games in existence. Allgame is the only other resource that comes close, but it still has terrible retro coverage. If either of them were as consistently-comprehensive as imdb, they would probably be added to the default game infobox. Make sense? -- Quiddity (talk) 06:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Erm, no...!? And why do you assume that we cannot provide that information here, but have to link to MobyGames on 6000 pages instead ? Either way, it's consensus here (and at any other place the MG links are discussed) that we remove the links asap, so let's get it on. DCEvoCE (talk) 23:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

We do not provide complete listings of credits for films or games because of that's not the job of an encyclopedia, but instead the job of a film or game database. Which is why we link to imdb for every single film. (Did you see how long those lists of credits are, at the Final Fantasy/Pulp Fiction links above? more than 8 screens long... You'll get rapidly reverted if you add a list like that to an article...) The template {{Imdb name}} is used in about 45,000 articles. So is {{Imdb title}}. (Imdb is owned by Amazon.com)

There is no current consensus to mass-remove all links, please do not do so.

There is consensus (in general, not just for Mobygames, but any link) that every external link should be evaluated, to determine whether it provides either additional or corroborating information for the article. If it provides corroborating information, that isn't available from a more official site, then move the link into the References section, and/or properly ref-tag the relevant paragraph. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Not really true. If somebody came in here and spammed 100 articles with various links from one website, the proper response would be to NOT evaluate each link, but rather mass revert all of them without even looking. In this case we have a mix of good faith additions and COI and mistaken additions, creating a more difficult problem. No current consensus is required to remove these links, as no consensus was needed to add them. However, given the problematic issue, it would be ideal if someone(s) went through all of them and deleted the bad ones. It would not be inappropriate though to mass delete them. The burden is on those who ADD, not those who delete. The inappropriate addition of many of the links trumps the ham-fisted solution of just deleting them all, followed by individual adding of links in an appropriate way. 2005 (talk) 08:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You cant just remove the links for simply being there, you have to first look at the edit history, not all mobylinks were added by spammers. Salavat (talk) 00:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I haven't deleted one single link yet. However, I also noticed that consensus on removing all the MobyGames links was made in mid-2007 (that's 9 months ago!), yet there are even more (!) MobyGames links now than back then.

I also noticed something else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_Analysis_and_Development#Developer_hierarchy - That means Wikipedia does cover developers and game credits. Quiddity: Why do you claim that "we cannot include that information here" when we already do ?

"MG is currently the closest thing to an imdb for games in existence." - I am not here to discuss imdb. I am not happy with all these imdb links either, and I don't want the MobyGames links being referenced to in future cases --- exactly like you do use imdb to defend the MobyGames spam attacks. DCEvoCE (talk) 02:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development is a company article, not a game article.

As for consensus, that 9 month old discussion started out with a lot of agreement between link-removers, but was later balanced out by context. See also WP:CCC (consensus can change).

I'm not defending the poor link additions, I agree they should be removed. But there are enough useful links that it would do more harm than good to delete them all and start over (as agreed 9 months ago).

You said: "I am not happy with all these imdb links either, and I don't want the MobyGames links being referenced to in future cases". Does this mean you want to delete MobyGames links partially as precedent in order to delete imdb links later on? See my reply to 2005 just below. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Those template IMDb links violate the external links guideline and all should be removed (and are stunningly obnoxious anyway). IMDb links in the external links section are often good, but sometimes IMDb pages are nearly blank (like for some obscure 1930s movie). When nearly blank, the IMDb page should never be linked. It is never appropriate to automatically include a non-offical link. The fact that some people and some sections of the encyclopedia violate guidelines doesn't mean others should. The issue going forward here is pretty straightforward, Moby links should only be added when they merit it. The only issue is how to deal with the thousands of inappropriate links. Just killing them all is a valid option, though individual review would be better. The latter though is not as practical. 2005 (talk) 08:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If your beef is with external link templates in general, then go start a discussion at the Village pump or Category talk:External link templates to change our precedents/policies/guidelines/etc. Arguing about a large issue like that here, is pointless. Try removing imdb and allmovie from the {{Infobox film}}! (I'm joking, don't. You're in a minority. Users like those links. This is the worldwideweb. Please help to build it, rather than trying to dismantle it.) -- Quiddity (talk) 18:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I said nothing about templates so let's stay on topic. You are of course wrong about the IMDb links. The external links guideline is clear. External links should be in an external links section, not an infobox. Discussion on the external links guideline makes it even more of a clear consensus. Those IMDb links can be in articles (usually) but they should be at the end of an article, not an infobox. I don't know any user who would think putting external links in multiple places is anything but stupid. It's user friendly to have them all in the same place in each article, and all in the same place in all articles in general. And of course the additional point is automatically linking to a near blank IMDB or all movie page is horribly unhelpful to users. The Film Project is violating the external links guideline, but we aren't here to fight that battle. The issue here is abiding by consensus guidelines, and fixing problems. Also again, there is no need to get consensus to add or remove a link -- unless the specific link becomes contentious and a talk page discussion ensues. So removing thousands of Moby links does not require consensus any more than adding them did. 2005 (talk) 23:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Your very first sentence was "Those template IMDb links violate the external links guideline and all should be removed..."! Read your own words! ;-)

Like I suggested, your latest reply should be somewhere relevant, such as the village pump, or WT:EL, or a different project's talkpage.

Just as a tangential addendum, and because I enjoy pointing them out as being an interesting collection of labels/perspectives, our disagreement could be reduced to m:eventualism vs. m:immediatism. But we shouldn't, because shades of gray are good, and most perspectives should be welcomed here; that's why this site still functions, and is so widely embraced.

Is this thread (concerning mobygames) essentially concluded, if we can agree to calmly disagree, and simply slowly remove bad links - as has current consensus? (I can elucidate on the various separate issues raised by DCEvoCE, or ramble on more about wikiphilosophy, if you really wish.. :) -- Quiddity (talk) 01:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't start being silly now. "Those template IMDb links..." was talking about the infobox, not the templates at the end of page! C'mon, you know what we were talking about so let's leave this nonsense out of this. 2005 (talk) 21:18, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The edit history should be irrelevant. It's the content that is being linked-to that should be analyzed. If it provides or confirms factual information/detail, that is not available from a more official site, then it is useful. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

While true in a way, some moby games links are no good even if they weren't added by spammers. Some good faith editors have added bad quality links because they thought they were supposed to. Practically removing all the Moby Games links, then having good faith editors re-add ones where appropriate, would not be a bad way to go. 6000 links probably should be a couple hundred. Additionally standard practice on the blacklisting side is to remove all links if the COI spamming has been so egregious, so there is a precednet for just removing them all. At the same time, many of the links have been added in good faith and are appropriate so ideally someone will take a look at each one. Removing them all though is far better than leaving them all; fortunately though, that doesn't have to be the choice. 2005 (talk) 01:52, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

If you remind yourself of the timeline facts, in the COI/N thread, you'll see that none of the "spammers" at fault knew they were doing anything wrong - they hadn't been notified/warned - and in some cases had been encouraged to use the template years beforehand, eg Flipkin.

There are hundreds of 404 links in our game articles. If anyone is going to go through all the Mobygames links, it'd be nice if they checked all the external links (and references) in each article, at the same time. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Fault or mistaken suggestion is irrelevant. COI additions can and should be removed on sight. Removing other dead links is also irrelevant to this discussion. 2005 (talk) 08:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

In defense of StrategyWiki

I suppose I would be the overly enthusiastic person that you all are referring too. I don't think anything that I say is going to change your opinions on this matter, but I will at least attempt to give this a shot. I am actually the original author of the referred-to content that was once contained on WikiKnowledge. That content was moved to WikiKnowledge when WikiBooks decided to forgo the inclusion of any video game content. And the content which was moved from WikiBooks was initially moved there in the first place when it was determined that move lists were not acceptable content on WP, which I had attempted to add at one point, and was refused.

Look, I know that there are more important things in life, but the enjoyment of wikis is the ability to share information with people, especially information that you happen to be knowledgeable about. I had, and continue to have, a desire to share the video game knowledge that I have with the world. The problem is, WP practically makes that a crime if it's not somewhat academic in nature. And I don't think Ryu's fireball motion, or one of the ninth-key patterns in Pac-Man is ever going to fall under that criteria. As much of a shame as that is, at least we can finally say that that information now has an acceptable home, in StrategyWiki.

Now, ironically, I agree completely with you about Moby Games. It is a commercial entity that operates on some kind of business model, and the information isn't freely editable (although you can contribute information to it to some extent). But the purpose of providing the StrategyWiki links is to inform wiki users that there is an acceptable place to contribute video game information that is deemed unacceptable on WP. Which would you prefer, one harmless link to SW, or the need to constantly revert information that is not permitted by WP's rather stringent standards?

Just try to see it from SW users' point of view. We are as passionate about the information that we have to share as you are about WP's articles. SW was designed to work in cooperation and tandem with WP, under the same theoretical principals, only about a different subject. In that sense, I would really like to see members of the Video game WikiProject embrace SW as opposed to fighting it. I guess I'm getting off my soap box. Let the flaming commence... Plotor (talk) 20:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know you you were responding to, but the Wikipedia doesn't care about the "SW users' point of view". We're building an encyclopedia, period. What some other Wiki does is up to that other wiki, and is completely irrelevant here. 2005 (talk) 21:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Gee, you make a valid point, but try not to be such a dick about it. He explained his views quite politely, I don't see why you were so rude. 71.42.73.86 (talk) 01:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

@2005: he's talking to everyone in the main part of the thread above... @Anonymous: he's not being rude, he's being straightforward. Here's my two bits (this got a lot longer than I thought it would): SW is not-for-profit (i.e. traffic only goes to support the community and the site's hosting costs), under the GFDL (like Wikipedia), and open to anonymous edits. As a fellow admin over there, I agree we shouldn't use Wikipedia to link to SW unless the guide in question actually has pertinent (and "unique") information to 1) stick with WP guidelines and 2) get rid of the idea of "spamming" SW links and to actually make that link mean something (a.k.a. be useful). In some cases its definitely unnecessary, but in others there is content available that will never be allowed on WP, even beyond move lists and gameplay specifics (backstories, credits, cameos, etc.). I'm thinking that WP shouldn't allow SW links unless the SW guide is featured on SW (we only have like 5 at the moment), since that would restrict the number of links on WP and filter out the weak and empty guides (although most of the guides being linked to are pretty well done), to make sure they are actually full of stuff additional to WP. I think a lot of the admins at SW wish to work sort of side by side with WP, like we do with WikiBooks, but it can clearly get out of hand too easily. Anyways, it really comes down to a case by case basis, and I think whoever is linking to SW needs to step back and actually look at what it is providing, BEYOND game guide information, since WP doesn't acknowledge such data anyways. --Notmyhandle (talk) 01:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Under the "What Should be Linked" section, it states "4) Sites with other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article..." I feel this includes guides for video games or any other type of game. You'll note that Rubik's Cube has external links to solutions. So why SW over other guides? Simply because it is a wiki under the GFDL, editable by anyone.

Under "Links Normally to be Avoided" section, it states "1) Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." StrategyWiki does not fall under this, as long as the guide has material in it (no linking to guides that aren't complete or near complete, level four or five in StrategyWiki).

Under "Links Normally to be Avoided" section, it states "12) Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors. Wikis that meet this criteria might also be added to Meta:Interwiki map." You'll note that StrategyWiki is on that map.

It seems to me that if StrategyWiki has a completed guide (level 4 or 5), it should be allowed as an external link on Wikipedia. I also think that there should only be a link to the guide's main page and no other subpage. Any thoughts?--Dukeruckley (talk) 01:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Quick and semi reasonable question that maybe someone will answer: whats the difference between linking to SW and Bulbapedia on every Pokemon article? Evaunit♥666♥ 01:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Pokémon is a relatively young franchise and Bulbapedia only does Wikipedia-style coverage, so their pages stand a good chance of being suitable for linking. Game guides aren't so easy: many games need a lot of explanation, and there are tens of thousands of games with many more released every month! As a result only a small percentage of StrategyWiki guides are in a suitable state. Garrett^Talk 08:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I've only got two problems with StrategyWiki. First are cases when the target subject isn't even *completed* and it's already being linked. SF4 is a shining example of this: the article by far does not yet need any external strategy information. Secondly are cases where WikiKnowledge links got the axe for four or five individual character links linking to movelists depending on the character's version: this happened heavily in the Street Fighter character articles. And in the process, the links that were switched in actually covered *less* even when combined. There was no reason for it. In most cases in all honesty, if someone needs a guide they'll hit up gamefaqs or an easily readable page that gives all the info preferably in one shot. StategyWiki really isn't that.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

WRT SF4, I simply agree to disagree. I think you would have less beef with SW if we removed the link from SF4, which I'm prepared to do if it would generate some good will in the process. As for the SF characters, I agree that having one link is more desireable than having multiple links, but I contend that your statement of the new links containing less information is not true, as I was the primary author of both the WikiKnowledge content and the improved SW content. If anything, the combination of all the links contain more information, and in a far easier format to understand. I would challenge you to show me where information was lost. But that's not the point of this discussion. Those two arguments aside, can you see the benefit that adding SW links has had in other cases? Such as, for example, the link on the Pac-Man article to the SW guide which contains patterns for different levels, something which would never be allowed on WP, or the link on the The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past article that links to SW's very first featured guide which contains complete maps for every section of the game imaginable, or even the links to some of the lesser Street Fighter characters where content on WP has been reduced to scant descriptions of the characters, while I had to dig through the deleted history of their original pages on WP to find and move the content over. People once thought that material was good enough for WP, and then one day it wasn't, but it's still "alive" now thanks to SW. Truthfully, I wish we could do something about the multiple links. It's just that at SW, we don't have a policy for an article name that doesn't correspond to a released video game, so I can simply make a Ryu or Ken portal. We have something similar. If we actually worked together, we could probably solve that one... but I'm not getting the sense that anyone from WP is actually interested in that just yet. Plotor (talk) 03:12, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

The SF4 link was removed awhile back. You basically had three editors all say to you it was out of place there, so your insistence on it being there was unfounded. As for the rest it's silly trying to discuss it with you: there's no need for a portal or any of that other bull, just a simple one shot page of text with minimal images. SW doesn't even do that. Additionally it isn't WP's job or goal to work together with another wiki unless the guys running the joint decide that. Last I checked it was more necessary to fix what we already have first.

As far as StrategyWiki period, if it fits and does offer better information so be it. But there's that and then there's just being overzealous about it :P And really could you go with a shorter response next time?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 04:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Links to incomplete StrategyWiki content (usually completion stages 0 to 2, the same stage format as Wikibooks) should be removed, just as with MobyGames and any other site. Such links don't really help either site and tend to detract from the overall image. Garrett^Talk 08:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't typically edit WP articles, particularly because of obstinate attitudes of editors like KFM and 2005, who feel the need to piss on their articles to mark their territory. I've looked at the guides contained on StrategyWiki, and while there's a fair amount of crap on there, the articles that have been linked to from WP are of surprisingly good quality, surpassing the best efforts of GameFAQs by miles (although it's mostly for ancient games). I'm reading this thread, and I have to laugh, because you've got the SW staff reaching out and basically saying, "we'd like to help and work with you," and the WP staff sounding like a broken record because it offends you that someone outside of your organization might have something valuable to contribute. You're all just haters. Quiddity said it best: This is the worldwideweb. Please help to build it, rather than trying to dismantle it. 153.2.246.30 (talk) 13:47, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Nintendo DS vs. PlayStation Portable console war

Isn't the Nintendo DS vs. PlayStation Portable console war article redundant? It's basically repeating information found in the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable articles and there is already a Console wars article. --Silver Edge (talk) 17:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Certainly, it should be merged into the general article, otherwise we will soon end with a Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3 vs. Wii war. - Caribbean~H.Q. 12:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Console wars. xenocidic (talk) 13:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The same could have been said about ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but it reached FA. Obviously, this not as fleshed out as the re-rating article was at first, but the topic has potential. The article was created on the 20th, so it wouldn't hurt to give it a week before merging. Maybe it could be expanded into something more substantial. If not, then it can be merged. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC))

I doubt there is more relevant material outside of the one already covered in the console articles, but nevertheless if we are going to give it a chance to develop before merging we must begin by changing the current title, what is with "war" anyways? the term "competition" (as long as that will undoubtly make the already long title) is a lot more accurate. - Caribbean~H.Q. 16:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You're probably right, but it won't hurt to see if this can go somewhere. The term war shouldn't be that problematic. Numerous online and printed reliable sources have referred to console competitions as "wars". For another title, how about "Seventh generation handheld war" or "Second handheld war" (taken from the Console war article). (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC))

Well, it doesn't seem to have been touched in about a week and hasn't made much progress. I guess it's time to merge it. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 01:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC))

Yep, go for it. xenocidic (talk) 02:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Video games of unclear notability

Hello,

there are currently about 220 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. Based on a database snapshot of March 12, I have listed them here.

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability.

If you have further questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done about 15. User:Krator (t c) 14:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

What's bothering me about all this is some of these are notable at least, just in need of cleanup. And frankly the list format used here is terrible, because after an article has been cleaned up it doesn't get its mention removed from the page right off, you have to go back and do it yourself. Which is especially troublesome given we're dealing with a backlog that extends to last year...--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I've added third party sources to a few pages in the list. I agree with Kung Fu Man in that there are articles tagged here that are most likely notable (E.g. games released for PlayStation 2, SNES, etc.), and are just in need of cleanup and expansion. Perhaps some sort of guidance is needed for WP:VG that suggests using {{refimprove}} instead of {{notability}} for games that were released on a mainstream console. It's unlikely now that a licensed game will not have had some coverage. Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Not all the articles on the list are necessarily video games, however. There's quite a few on characters and other misc stuff (one of the first on the list, 'open tibia servers', doesn't seem to be notable, for example). A lot of the games can probably be fixed pretty easily though; Burnout is on the list for example... A pretty helpful list in general however. Bridies (talk) 17:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The list is definitely useful and it does help identify problem articles easily. My concern is that editors tagging for notability could be taking a more appropriate course of action with articles about actual games. Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I've gone through some of the list and added sources to some, cleaned up others and prodded, prod-2'd or AfD'd some. Are we keeping a list of progress on these anywhere centrally in a similar way to Krator's list of the 700? Gazimoff (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Further to this, I have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Assessment/Notability for us to be able to centrally check off articles as we go Gazimoff (talk) 09:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

NAA RSS feed

What exactly is the limiting factor for the RSS feed? Is it time (articles created within x hours) or number of articles (x newest articles). Either way, can it be changed to include more articles? It seems like the feed has to be checked every hour or a new article will be missed. MrKIA11 (talk) 15:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

When I created the feed, I tried to use a larger number of articles, but I had problems getting that to work with Feedrinse, the site I used to filter out the video game-related articles. Anyway, it seems the RSS system seems to have changed, so now I can only get the Special:NewPages to display the latest 500 new articles. Before I managed to get bigger feeds. Feedrinse filters out any article that contains either "Infobox CVG", "videogame", "video game", "Infobox VG", or "computer game". JACOPLANE • 2008-03-24 17:55

Oh, ok. Thanks for explaining it. MrKIA11 (talk) 23:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone want to try this site. It would allow us to have multiple feeds combined, so it could have the first 500 new pages plus the second 500 pages and so on. I just can't seem to get it to work. MrKIA11 (talk) 14:26, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I found another tool that discovers new articles: [1]. It seems that the database is down for the English Wikipedia for the moment, here is an example from the German Wikipedia: [2]. Hopefully the DB will be back up for en: soon. JACOPLANE • 2008-03-27 15:13

Archiving

I recommend that we decrease the age of threads to be archived to 7 days. Does anyone agree/disagree? MrKIA11 (talk) 01:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Given the current rate of discussion may be a good idea.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

How about 10 days? Though it lets thing get a bit cluttered, it'll help ensure topics don't get forgotten too quickly. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC))

That works for me. MrKIA11 (talk) 23:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

IRC?

The last time I was logged in (and the time before that), there were no users that are chatting at this channel (#wikipedia-en-vg) even though this WikiProject offers it. Do we have any plans to populate the channel of some sort? PrestonH 02:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I am on the channel at most GMT-sane times, but usually the only one. DHMO drops in at aussie times (and we tend to chat when I'm up early), and Jaco is there every once in a while as well. User:Krator (t c) 11:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know there was an IRC channel for the project. I'll be in the channel when I have the time. RobJ1981 (talk) 04:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Consensus sought for spinout articles

Contributions are sought at WT:FICT#Guidelines and consensus, to try to determine whether the inclusion of spinout articles without real-world coverage has consensus support. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

How to write a video game article

This has been a side-topic in a couple different discussions. Anyway, I figured I'd give it a go too. I took some ideas from User:Zeality/GuideWIP and User:Hbdragon88/vgimprove, and tried to expand on them. I've worked up a draft at my sandbox, and would really appreciate some suggestions, criticism, and general input. Feel free to make edits to it and expand/improve as you see fit. Hopefully this is something that can get done relatively quickly with enough people working on it.

One question I had was if there are any restrictions to screen captures of Wikipedia articles? I assume that because the content is under the GFDL, it can be copied in this fashion. I'm also assuming that any non-free images in the screen cap would be indistinguishable and could not be used to reproduce fakes. If that's the case, I'd like to add in at least one, maybe another.

Any thoughts? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 18:43, 26 March 2008 (UTC))

You could use some ideas from my recent draft at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Layout for the organisation section. I also have User:Krator/VG tips. User:Krator (t c) 20:06, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to incorporate some of that in. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC))

It's starting to shape up better now. I think the weakest part is the "Writing the article" section, specifically the "Writing style" and "Writing tips" subsections. Any other input and comments would be appreciated. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:42, 27 March 2008 (UTC))

I feel the "Writing the article" section is quite decent at the moment, but avoid using "present day". A game made in 1980 would not be "present day" when the article is read in 2025 (precise language as stated in WP:DATE). The example "the game is set in present day New York" could perhaps be changed to "the game is set in New York of the 1980s". The examples for out-of and in-universe styles should also have the (encouraged/discouraged) suffixes. I strongly feel the Misconceptions section should also have similar encouraged/discouraged examples. A short section on citation templates and examples (probably video game, web, journal, book) on how to use them in the article would be nice. Jappalang (talk) 01:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try to incorporate that in as well. Also, please feel free to make any adjustments and additions you'd like. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

A section about citations has been added. I'll try to standardize the examples and tips later. In the meantime, more comments and suggestions are welcome from anybody. Feel free to make any changes you think would help. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:34, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

Infobox reworking

I believe that we should add two new fields to the infobox VG, for games in a series, ie The Settlers. The fields should be "followed by" and "preceded by" or something along those lines, rather than having a category box in the bottom of the page. Because personally speaking I believe that it would work so much better! (and also, I am not wanting to remove the category boxes from the bottom fo articles, I think we should add these fields whilst keeping the category box, so if for example; person A is trying to The Settlers IV, he doesn't have to go from The Settlers II to The Settlers III etc.) What do you think? Philbuck222 (talk) 21:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

This has been asked for before, but generally disagreed because while it is easy for some series to include, other series that have expansion packs before the next version number increase is difficult to plot this way: should "Guitar Hero II" be followed by "Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s" or by "Guitar Hero III"? On the other hand, it is highly suggested that navboxes should be used for navigation between entries in a game series. --MASEM 21:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

You do bring up a good point, spinoffs make it a complicated issue. Philbuck222 (talk) 08:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

How would this work for in a series like Metal Gear Solid? Chronological order? Order by date of release? Do we include spinoffs of the game? Do we include video game novelizations? and so on.. Strongsauce (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine that for series like Metal Gear it would be Release Date. (At least that is what I would prefer if i was a regular reader). Philbuck222 (talk) 08:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose the change. Navboxes already present this information in a greater context and usually without debate. I see no compelling reason to add this to the already-large infobox. Pagrashtak 15:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Move request: video puzzle game to puzzle video game

Please see the [puzzle game talk page]. We need to show there's a consensus before asking an admin to do it. (Apparently, puzzle video game already exists... as a redirect to video puzzle game.) Randomran (talk) 07:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

done. thanks for checking in, guys. you'd be surprised how much a quick comment can help! Randomran (talk) 16:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Need some help with sourcing for List of songs in Guitar Hero (FLC)

I am trying to get List of songs in Guitar Hero as a featured list, and everything about it seems ok in the current review save for one aspect: the game has two songs ("Trippolette" and "Graveyard Shift") that aren't accessible unless you use a device like a GameShark to access them - this information is found on numerous forum boards and blogs, as well as on a page that was created by the supposed author of one song ... but all of these are dubious reliable sources. The most reliable source I found mention of them was Kotaku, but that basically (Following the links) pointed back to the author's page. I have been pointed that the Summer 2006 Gameshark code book has the code to unlock one, which at least gives me a printed source to work from, but if anyone has other sources to be able to provide, that would be helpful. (I'd also need the Gameshark codebook reference if anyone has that.). I'm tempted to remove the songs as well, making the rest of the article fine for sourcing, but I feel that its doing an injustice since its apparent those songs exist, its just that because of the difficulty unlocking them, they haven't been covered by even minor press. --MASEM 13:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Kotaku is listed on WP:VG/S, so it should be fine. If you really want a printed source, I'm sure a discount bookstore like Half Price Books might have that particular volume. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 13:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC))

Yea, I guess that one could be included, since they comment on the style too. --MASEM 14:08, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Twinking edit war

Lately there has been a lot of conflict at the Twinking article. In perticular, there has one IP user (or he's choosing not to sign in, I can't tell for sure) who has been constantly bringing up the same thing on the talk page. He keeps claiming the same "facts" but doesn't not provide sources for any of them. I hit him with every Wikipolicy and guideline that I can think of, but it doesn't seem to be doing any good. Can someone please help me resolve this? The discussion is at Talk:Twinking#POV edits. Thank you. --Eruhildo (talk) 05:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You are probably talking about 66.227.231.91, a quick browse trough his contributions reveals a tendency to post POV on articles, there appears to be a obvious conection between the anon and User:Mattelot based on the edit patterns and this edit. - Caribbean~H.Q. 05:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that's him. What course of action should I take if I can't resolve this by talking it out? I hate blocking people if I can avoid it. --Eruhildo (talk) 07:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure a block is actually justified in this case, yet. For the edit in question, neither version is sourced, and both versions seem acceptable to me. The edit war is over the choice of wording, and that's POV both ways. The best step to take right now is to find a good source and base the wording on what can be cited. Then, assuming that there is still an edit conflict, it at least establishes who has yet to meet the burden of proof. Alternatively, simply incorporate both wordings to reflect that there is no apparent de facto definition. I'm not sure what you meant by throwing policies at him, but from the discussion page it looks like you were asking for citations from him, while not providing any yourself. While I'd agree that his approach is unfriendly and unilateral, that doesn't give you a free pass either, I'm afraid. Ham Pastrami (talk) 13:27, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, pretty much the whole article seems to be original research. Bridies (talk) 13:37, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I need to take a cool down. I keep assuming I'm right and he's wrong, but it's not like I have sources either. I think I'll take a break from it for a while. Thanks for your help. --Eruhildo (talk) 14:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Disclosing of copy protection

With respect to PC titles, I had proposed the addition of a "copy protection" field for the VG infobox, but that apparently wasn't accepted. To me, and anyone else who might be conscious about the consumer rights issues behind some of the more invasive types of copy protection (ahem StarForce), the type of protection used is an important fact but one that is a bit awkward to bring up out of the blue, in prose. I also considered a category but this seems like non-defining criteria. The problem is, if it's not an infobox field or category of some sort, it's usually omitted from the article, because as I said it's awkward to just make a mention of it out of the blue. I'll continue doing that but I hope the community can come up with a better solution. Ham Pastrami (talk) 13:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Something like that sounds like it could fit in well enough in the "Development" section. Do you have an example of one that is out of the blue? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

VG Barnstar question

Just a quick question. Should the {{Barnstar VG}} be listed on the Wikipedia:Barnstars/Topical or Wikipedia:Awards by WikiProject page? I noticed it wasn't on there and wasn't sure if it just hasn't been added yet, or if there was a special reason why it isn't there. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

You've just doubled the length of the "what links here list" on it. :) - X201 (talk) 16:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

One question. What's a barnstar? Gazimoff (talk) 16:21, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

An award for editing, see WP:STAR - X201 (talk) 16:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

So I assume that's a yes to adding them there? :-p (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

Yep. I've added a doc subpage to it with an example. - X201 (talk) 16:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool, it has been added to Wikipedia:Barnstars/Topical and Wikipedia:Awards by WikiProject. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 17:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

Category:CRASH Smash Winners

I spotted this in the new article announcements section. This category is a very bad idea, CRASH was a very important magazine for the Spectrum, but we should not categorise games by their critical response. The Crash Smash was awarded to games receiving over 90% in the publication, this was not particularly rare as you can see from the category. Having a category for Crash, means we should have categories for all major publications, I do not think this is a good idea. I am not opposed to a List of Crash Smash winners article, if needed, but unless there are serious arguments for keeping this category, it's probably going to end up at CFD. - hahnchen 18:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't think of a reason to keep it, and as you've stated there is no reason to categorize games by critical response. I also don't see much reason to have a "List of Crash Smash winners" either. But then again I don't see why there should be a 2001 Webby Awards. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC))

Go ahead and put it up for CFD. Otherwise some magazine fans are going to get inspired to create many Category:Insert-Name-Here Magazine Award Winners. Jappalang (talk) 00:25, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree with reasonings above too, so have proposed it for deletion via CFD process. --Oscarthecat (talk) 09:30, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Forum sources

I also have a question: if the developer posted in the forum - is that regarded as an, at least, acceptable source, as long as it is certain he is the dev? diego_pmc (talk) 21:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe that is fine. Strongsauce (talk) 23:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:SPS, "forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable." Normally you wouldn't want to use the developer as a source, except to quote the developer about something. If it is a significant thing said, it probably will be published on an independant site. If is is something wholly non-controversial, you might ignore the policy, but forum postins as sources should be extremely rare. 2005 (talk) 23:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

To add on, if it is the developer posting on their official forum, and there is proof the poster is the developer (usually a title, or staff section detailing which nick is who), then he might be considered a reliable source for development information. Posters on other forums without verifiable identities are not likely to be reliable (anyone can claim to be a developer). Jappalang (talk) 00:23, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, as Jappalang said: WP:VG/S (at the bottom of the 'fansites' section). Bridies (talk) 02:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, agree with Jappalang and Bridies. Just be careful when using them and make sure you cite them well. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Halo Wars

Since alot of info has been released since the initial Halo Wars article, I think a team should help bring it up to date.-- King Rock ^{Go 'Skins!} 23:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Since the recent theme here appears to Be Bold, you're welcome to give it a shot yourself. If you run into any problems or get stumped, just post back here. Also, we're working on a new guide to writing VG articles. It's still in the drafting stages, but I think it could still be of help to new editors. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC))

Question

I was just curious, WT:VG, if a video game localized by Nintendo were to use a name as the game's series, despite there being another name for the series in Japan (and this name not being used over that other name at all in any English games), would you consider that official documentation that Nintendo considers that name to be the series name in English? - A Link to the Past (talk) 01:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm really a stickler for "English wikipedia, English localized names" such as the case of SaGa vs Final Fantasy Legend. If later English items refer to a game series by a certain name though, then they override the others. However the game is still referred as Earthbound (I checked your contrib history to see what you might be referring to ;P). Look under "Jeff" on this page. It's also mentioned here. Given Brawl's the latest reference and this is from Nintendo themselves, nobody can argue with it.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I didn't want to mention the series, since some people might let their bad judgment get the better of them. I totally missed that EB mention too in the second link provided. - A Link to the Past (talk) 02:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Nom backlog

A lot of you guys probably already know this, but the GA Noms are backlogged right now, particularly the video game section. Yesterday, I reviewed an article that had been queued for around 3 weeks. I just want to encourage everyone to take the time to review an article. Thanks, and see you around. -- Noj r (talk) 03:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd love to, but looking at some of the comments on the talk page "should never have been passed" etc., getting involved will probably do more harm than good. Particularly as everyone seems to have different standards, if it's not wrong by the GA project then it's probably wrong by the article nominator.. "that isn't necessary to pass" etc. Nah. Someoneanother 14:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't be afraid of making a mistake with GA's : there's several checks in place that can help. If you try to review something and not sure if it meets or not, you can let that be known on the talk page of the article, or you can asked for a GA second opinion from someone experienced in GA reviews. If you fail an article that the editor felt was good, they can take it to GA Review where it gets a larger evaluation. GA Sweeps are "periodically" performed to check the quality of GAs. Mistakes are good: they are a learning process; the only point that will get you into problems is if you are overly stingy or overly lax on what you fail or pass over repeated reviews. --MASEM 14:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Which is what bothers me, how am I supposed to know unless an experienced reviewer double checks the article, it's history and the reviewer comments? They might as well do it themselves and save time. I've spent a good deal of time looking over the page, looking over nominations and DH2O's guide, and the only impression it's left is one of a minefield where every action and statement goes against something somewhere beginning with WP:, someone's sensibilities or 'the norm' for the GA project. Reviews of subjects I was looking at brought up problems that didn't even register, or went through when I thought they would fail. It's a nice idea, but I can live without feeling guilty and additional headaches. Someoneanother 15:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

If that's how you feel, that's cool. You shouldn't do anything you're not comfortable with. But just to emphasize the point again—Masem's right; it's ok to make a mistake here. We've all done it before and will continue to do it again. So if it's something you or anybody here would like to do, Be Bold and do it; it's one of the best ways to learn sometimes. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC))

Another piece of advice is to participate in FA reviews - here, you're one voice among several, and you'll get the feeling for what GA is looking for. Or participate in Peer Review which is also backed up (not just in VGs). --MASEM 15:41, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll think on what you've both said. Sorry my first comment looks like an out of the blue downer, been itching to help with the backlog and felt cheap for not doing so. :( Someoneanother 15:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

No worries, we all started out there before. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC))

I was looking at this myself as well and I'm still nervous about helping out. The great thing is that I know with assessments and FA work that I can make the occasional mistake and the VG people won't bite my head off :). I'll try to help out with peer reviews as well as getting more assessments done. One thought though, Someoneanother, would you like to team up to work on the GA backlog? --Gazimoff (talk) 16:12, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we take one of the FF music articles each? There's two there, they're both good quality and some have already passed GA, meaning there's a good comparison available. It'd be a chance to get our brain-boxes onto the right track without some 'holy cow' faults. :) Someoneanother 16:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! Gazimoff (talk) 17:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Take your pick, I'll do the other one. If PresN wants to kill us he'll have to catch us first XD Someoneanother 17:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I've grabbed Final Fantasy X and marked it as On Review, if you want to grab the other one. And yes, we can always flee if he comes after us! Gazimoff (talk) 18:13, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Rarr, I'm coming after you! Really though, thanks, both of you guys did a great job reviewing the articles! --PresN (talk) 14:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been busy with my own FACs, so I haven't been active at GAN like I usually am... my suggestion to new reviewers is to pick high-quality articles that are similar to good article candidates to review; it's much easier to see the GA criteria in effect than to just check an article against the list. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 16:59, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Will do, thanks. Someoneanother 17:16, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, didn't expect to see such a big turnout. Kudos to Someoneanother and Gazimoff for being bold. Now I had a question: How often should wikipedians be allowed to review articles? Since I have already reviewed one the other day, I felt at least a minimum of a week should pass before considering reviewing another. Is there any precedent on this or is it simply a personal matter? -- Noj r (talk) 20:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Occasionally I get off on sprees where I review the entire backlog at once. There's no reason not to review as many as you feel like, but if you're just starting off I suggest getting a feel for the process and for the criteria. If the article has issues and needs to be put on hold, I tell them to ping me at my talk page when they feel they've finished the changes; that way I can keep track of my noms' status a little easier. If you have the time to do good reviews for all, then the follow-up isn't too big a deal and you can do plenty of noms. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. I too am new at reviewing GA articles. Since I want to become a better contributor, I decided to be bold, help with the backlog, and review an article. However I did not want to overstep my boundaries as a wikipedian. With that out of the way, however, I think I'll review another article soon in the very near future. -- Noj r (talk) 20:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

4X strategy game: requests for copyedits, feedback, etc.

A group of editors have added a lot of good information to the 4X game genre article. I've tried to clean it up and provide better references. I think it could use a second or third pair of eyes. There's probably typos and stuff. Plus it would be helpful to identify any other weaknesses in the article, to guide further edits. Randomran (talk) 20:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll take a look when able. Kudos to writing an article on a video game subject, by the way: it seems our essential linking articles suffer from a lack of attention. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Requesting 2nd opinion

I am currently reviewing the article Sega Mega Drive for GA status. However, half of the references used appear to be highly unreliable. I almost quick-failed the article per criteria (1), but after checking the SNES article I noticed that there are questionable references in there as well. And its an FA! As a result, I felt it was fair to get the opinion of others in this matter rather than brashly fail it. The GA review is here. Thanks for the help everyone. -- Noj r (talk) 05:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Judge the article on its own, not by other article's failings. You can refer to the essay Other stuff exists for the whys. GameFAQs are straight out unreliable for use as citation sources. The same goes for MobyGames. Fansites are also out. Personal websites would qualify as reliable sources if their authors are acknowledged by industry sources as experts in the field. If Home of the Underdogs is used as a citation source, the citation must not have a link to avoid linking to copyright material as discussed in an archived discussion (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 37#Underdogs links under attack). Jappalang (talk) 06:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The SNES article isn't a failure. I was using it to find out what kind of sources are acceptable for a console article, and I discovered some questionable ones. To be frank, I didn't want to be rash with the Sega Mega Drive article if more leniency is granted towards console article references. As it stands now (thanks to your advice), I truly believe half of the references are unacceptable for reliable referencing and thus fails the quick-fail criteria (1) of a GA nom. Anyway, anybody else got 2 cents to throw in? -- Noj r (talk) 07:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sidenote: I did not mean the SNES article failed, but rather its failings, in other words, its inadequacies for having reliable sources. The older FAC process tended to be more lenient than the current ones in light of new policies and guidelines. If you are daring, you might want to present the SNES article at WP:FAR, although it is well advised to raise the issue at its talk page first. Instead of quick failing the Sega Mega Drive article, you could give its contributors a week to rectify all the unreliable sources (only) if you believe they can find reliable sources within that time.Jappalang (talk) 07:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If lack of reliable sources is the only reason you're holding off on passing the article, then I would give the editors a week to fix that. They may not be able to fix that in a week, but best to give them the benefit of the doubt. If there are more issues, like being poorly written, lacking fair use rationale on images, and/or inaccuracies, then it would probably be best to fail the article. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 13:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC))

It meets the Quick-fail criteria as there's citation banners and "citation needed" tags, so it should definitely be failed regardless. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 15:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

All added by me today in response to the GA report on the talk page. You can't quick fail it just because I acted on the GA report and marked the parts that were deficient. - X201 (talk) 15:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Well I obviously thought that these were added before the nomination. To be honest, I don't see much point in tagging these until after the GA nom if it fails. Ashnard _Talk ^Contribs 15:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I put the review on hold so that they can at at least try to get some reliable sources. The thing is, the article is GA material, besides the questionable references, it just had some minor quibbles. Anyway, we'll see what happens -- Noj r (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Peer review of Ninja Gaiden (2004 video game)

I have done a major brush up of the article and put it up for peer review. Please take a look. Thank you. Jappalang (talk) 15:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Official blogs as reliable resources

I don't know if this has come up before or not. But while reviewing Warhawk (PlayStation 3 game) for GA, I noticed some of the sources listed were from blog.us.playstation.com, which I believe is SCEA's official blog. Do official blogs qualify as a reliable source? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC))

Blogs are classified as self-published sources (WP:SPS), so the restrictions there should apply to corporate blogs. Jappalang (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it is WP:SELFPUB that would apply in this case. xenocidic (talk) 15:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that clears it up. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC))

beatmania IIDX articles

I've begun work on some Beatmania IIDX articles for all the versions like the DDR articles (since IIDX is just as big as DDR and thus deserves it). I've started my work with IIDX GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD for starters. I'm going to try get that person who started the DDR mini-taskforce to start a Beatmania IIDX taskforce, but if anyone else wants to help, that'd be great. ViperSnake151 21:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Images from magazines

This might be a better question for the Video Game Images talk page, but I figured this would get a broader range of input.
Anyway, I was wondering if anybody knows what copyright tag would be needed for an image that was scanned from a magazine or book. Nothing that would feature a model or any real-life person. But say there's a development photo that shows the wire frame from motion capture, or a diagram illustrating gameplay mechanics. Something that I haven't seen on websites and would be great to include in an article. What kind of licensing tag would that need, or is there even one for such a purpose? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:02, 2 April 2008 (UTC))

I presume it would fall under 2D or 3D arts just like concept arts and renders. Check out Image:Freelancer Bretonia City Concept.jpg and Image:Karas Nue CG.jpg. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Jappalang (talk) 01:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a fit. Thanks. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC))

Traffic statistics, again

Please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Traffic statistics. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 15:08

Wow, very nice Jaco. There have been pretty steady increases in the number of views all around the project. That's very encouraging. Is this something that will be updated regularly? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC))

I'll update that page every month, at least if the traffic tool doesn't go offline. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 15:23

Question: should I add any other pages to the traffic page? Perhaps the Newsletter page (I really hope this will be a successful endeavor, btw)? Also, when we see that pages like the Suikoden task force consistantly have under 50 views per month, should we have a discussion about the viability of such a task force? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 21:56

Portal

One thing that becomes clear when looking at these statistics is that we should probably put some energy in keeping Portal:VG more up to date, since it is the most viewed page in the entire project. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 18:42

What did you have in mind? Adding more Featured articles to the que, and updating the Current events section? Or are thinking more along the lines of a redesign? We could add in the collapsible FA and GA lists like on the Project page. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC))

Yeah in any case I need to update the Featured article list, since the current list is no longer up to date. The current events also needs a definite overhaul. Maybe the portal should be redesigned, do you have any ideas? JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 19:34

I liked the idea, so I went ahead and added in the collapsed FA and GA boxes --PresN (talk) 19:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What should be included when updating the Current events? Obviously the high profile stuff, but do we have any guideline as to what that should include, or just what ever sounds reasonable? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC))

Back in the day when there was still a VG-current events page, I made a page that lists current-events sources here. That might be useful. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 20:15

Cool, that'll be helpful. How does updating on a weekly or bi-weekly basis sound? And we should probably get a handful of editors to contribute in case one of us is too busy or on a break. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC))

Basically we should update whenever there is a notable story. Here's an example of the old VG-current events page. Of course, that page was more detailed so more stories could be added, but as long as there is a reliable source to back up the story and the relevant articles have been updated to reflect the new information, it can be added. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 20:53

Hey Guy, this will put another feather in your cap, make use a Featured Portal :) Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Essential articles

We need to do a much better job with our essential articles. Especially "General" and "Genres". These are the articles that the rest of the video game category rest upon. We ought to get a few of them to GA status, and reduce the number of stubs and starts. These should be front and center of our portal. Randomran (talk) 22:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, definitely. The essential articles was set up a long time ago in the hope that we would be able to release a WikiReader. If we could get a number of articles up to GA-status, then I'm sure we could find a publisher who would be willing to publish the book for us. I for one would love to have a WP:VG core articles encyclopedia in print. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 22:38

Talking of genres, you're not gonna believe what literally just got delivered - Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008. It contains details of pretty much all of the main genres and the original games for each. For instance, Utopia is described as the first god game. Nothing's covered exhaustively, but there's interviews, hardware, genres, individual games etc. It describes RuneScape as the largest free MMORPG. It reckons Street Fighter II was the first game to introduce combos to fighting games, 500,000 arcade cabinets of the game were sold.... Frigging jackpot! :D Someoneanother 10:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow oh wow. That's gold. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

And would be a wonderful addition to the magazines project, hint, hint. - X201 (talk) 10:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Heh, it's a 250 page book *dies*. I'll try at some point when I've got the time, it's why I bought the thing. Someoneanother 11:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I know. I'm still recovering from the wiki linking on issue 80 of Edge- X201 (talk) 11:52, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, that does sound like a jackpot. It sounds like it could be used to boost our "history" articles too, which are pretty essential. Randomran (talk) 14:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a very cool book. I picked it up this week too and it's much better than I thought it'd be. So don't worry Someone, you're not alone of that sizable en devour. :-p Also, Next Gen posted some of the content on their website here. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC))

Any thoughts on restarted the collab of the (rather than week) fortnight to do some essential article work? dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I think we should actually build a task force. There's lots of task forces for individual games or series. But no task force for our essential articles. Nobody's building our backbone. Randomran (talk) 14:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There's definitely a lot of editors supporting the idea. But we somewhat put it off until we got the VG Newsletter off the ground. We hope the newsletter will keep everybody more connected so the multiple departments and collaborative efforts won't die out. Masem set up a talk page and first draft for the newsletter. We're shooting for April 9th as the first date, and feedback would be appreciated. After it's up and running, we'll probably going to cleanup inactive projects and taskforces and then start the article collaboration. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC))

That seems like a sensible way to go about things. Either way, I hope that a task force devoted to some of those backbone genre/history/basic conceptual articles will be in our near future. Randomran (talk) 17:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

New article announcements

Another thing that becomes clear by looking at the traffic stats is that the "new article announcements" page is really taking off, probably mainly due to the efforts of MrKIA11, who has been amazing in maintaining that page. He could probably use some help. I've created a RSS feed that filters out video game-related articles that you can add to Firefox as a live bookmark. That way whenever you have nothing to do you can easily update the new articles page. JACOPLANE • 2008-04-3 22:52

First of all, thanks. I try to update it as often as possible, as it only takes a minute or so with RSS feed. The main way I could use help is if someone could figure out a way to increase the RSS feed size, as 500 pages are created more often than I am able to update the list. It is currently limited by the fact that only the last 500 articles can be filtered, but if someone could find a way to combine multiple feeds then it could combine the first 500 pages, the second 500 pages, and so forth depending on how large the feed should be. I found this site, which can combine multiple feeds and would work great, if it worked. For some reason I can not get it to recognize that I put in my e-mail address. If someone could try this site to see if they can get it to work, that would be great. MrKIA11 (talk) 23:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Your work's much appreciated, the more active individual sections of the project are, the more contributors and readers will be attracted to the project. Excellent stuff. Someoneanother 12:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup requested for Insaniquarium

Hello, I'm not a member of this WikiProject, but I'd like to request someone with more experience with video game articles take a look at this article and edit appropriately. Perhaps you could add this to your to do list in the cleanup section. The article seems to have too much "gamer" info and reads like a GameFAQs faq/walkthrough. Any volunteers? Thanks. ~EdGl 22:01, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

eek. I've watchlisted and will try and help out a bit. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've removed a lot of gamecruft and decorative fair use images. Some info about development/reception/anything but gameplay! would be good. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I've had a quick poke. At the article that is.. oh never mind. I own the game so it'll be a lot easier for me to fix up, there's a gamedev.net interview with Flying Bear and other sources, I'll stick it on my things to do list and fix it up at some point. Someoneanother 11:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow, looks really good now, thanks! Consider that a barnstar-equivalent compliment ;) ~EdGl 14:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

We do our best :) The information is there for some improvements so it should get better in the near future. Someoneanother 15:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Nice work, SA. I might leave it to you now...I haven't played that game in, like, 3 years...(good times though!). Good luck; EdGl! Cheers, dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:Video game companies of the United Kingdom

Hi! Do you think Category:Video game companies of the United Kingdom should be organized in subcategories (for England, Scotland, Wales, and maybe Northern Ireland) or should it remain as a single category, considering there's currently only 9 Scottish companies listed and 1 Welsh one? Megata Sanshiro (talk) 19:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm personally of the opinion that it should all be in a single category for the UK. We don't have categories for developers in Bavaria and developers in Saxony, nor do we have them for developers in Tennessee and developers in Alaska. While I'm fully aware that the political structure of the British unitary state differs from that of the many federal nations, I don't see the need to localise the categories to that extent. -- Sabre (talk) 19:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd class it as the UK. and leave it at that. Anything more is overcategorisation Gazimoff (talk) 19:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Copyrighted trailers linked in articles

Are they allowed? I tried to remove one from Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. but got reverted and accused of vandalism. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 20:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

If put under the external links, I guess they can be borderline accepted, although I personally I don't like that sort of usage. Far better that they are used for some sort of reference purpose (very dependent on the type of trailer, conventional trailers aren't good for that but ones like development commentary are) and linked in the reference footnote. They certainly have no place in the article after a game is released unless there is some encyclopedic value to that aspect of the marketing for the game. -- Sabre (talk) 21:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Key addition to what S@bre said. The link to the trailer should not be a copy violation. In other words, the trailer must be uploaded to the linked/cited site by authorized sources of the copyright holder or the holder themselves. In the H.A.W.X case, IGN should be okay, but I doubt the trailer adds substantial information to the article. Jappalang (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

EarthBound revamped, requesting PR

Revamped the EarthBound article and have initiated a peer review. I want to take the article to GA and later, FA. You can help here. Thanks. -- Noj r (talk) 01:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Coordinator

Does this project have a coordinator? I work for a major video game magazine and would like to interview someone about the work being done here.