Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20150107/Interview

Featured editor: Marasmusine

Interviewed by Thibbs

This issue we interview Marasmusine, a longtime WP:VG member and administrator who has provided assistance in numerous corners of the WikiProject. From the Sources, Deletions, and Requests departments to assistance in taskforces like the Silent Hill taskforce and the MUD taskforce, Marasmusine has helped foster a collegial atmosphere and has worked to enhance and make encyclopedic many of our numerous list articles.

1. What drew you to Wikipedia, and what prompted you to begin editing?

   My first serious editing was obsessively categorizing video game articles, I can't remember how I latched on to that, it was 10 years ago, but video games have always been my passion.

2. What's the significance of your username? How did you select it?

   I took the name from some awful fiction I used to write. The etymology is marasmus with the suffix -ine. Nothing to do with mice - musine - as has been suggested.

3. How did you become involved with WikiProject Video Games?

   I started dipping in to the project's talk page to ask questions about formatting and so forth - then you can't help but be dragged into various taskforces. I also helped maintain the AfD lists for a while.

4. How much of a gamer are you and what type of games do you gravitate toward?

   My first game was was Lunar Jetman on the ZX Spectrum, and computer games have been my principle hobby ever since.I like FPSs, ever since Doom got it's claws into me. I've put 500 hours into Planetside 2, and on Xbox Borderlands 2 to me is a perfect game. But I had to pick one game to play for the rest of eternity, if would have to be Civilization 5, I'm coming up to 800 hours playtime and I'm still not tired of it. When I can I dip into indy games like Dwarf Fortress - I like anything with the promise of emergent gameplay or procedural generation.

5. What would you say exemplifies your best work on Wikipedia?

   Dark Sceptre and The Train Game are examples I found satisfying to write, I think I've summarized the gameplay and critical reception sections well, infoboxes, screenshots and categories are in place. Perhaps I pick obscure games, my articles don't get developed much further by other editors, but not every game has to have a sprawling page like a Triple-A title. On the flip-side I like how my Cheating in video games stub was rapidly developed by the VG community not long after I submitted it. I worked on Rebelstar (series) and Codename MAT to show how multiple games can be accommodated on one page. Finally, for lists, I think I've put the most work into List of Tetris variants... so many citations...

6. Your most prolific editing throughout WP:VG has taken place on list articles. Why is this? Is there something about the list format that draws you or do you simply find that they're the articles in most need of repair? Or is it something else?

   In one way it's a progression of my fascination with categories - indexing and structuring - but a lot of users want them to be exhaustive lists of all types of some gaming aspect. We have lists of mods, game characters and so forth that are easy to populate with all kinds of trivia, but this dilutes important entries. I wanted to show that it was possible to develop a list in which every item has a citation from an independent source. In terms of indexing, I admit I am drawn to having some overly narrow criteria ("List of 8-bit games featuring bees" or somesuch), we have to resist those temptations.

7. You've been active in the WP:VG areas of Deletion, Sources, and Requests. What are your thoughts specific to these topics? Do you tend to lean deletionist or inclusionist or are you somewhere in the middle? Do you think WP:VG's sourcing requirements are too stringent or too lax or just right? Any good ideas about how to motivate editors to dive into the requests to cut them down a bit?

   I suspect I'm a deletionist. It's one of the oddities of popular culture that there are obscurities that have received attention in gaming magazines; and popular games with a strong fanbase that haven't. With the latter, that fanbase might complain about our sourcing standards, or say "you can't expect this game to have featured in The New York Times" (an actual specific excuse I've seen several times), but I'm firm on us being a tertiary source.

8. Are there any other areas of Wikipedia where you involved yourself beyond WikiProject Video Games?

   Lots of side projects that I couldn't keep up with. I was part of the categorization project for a while. I had this crazy idea where I was going to go through some of my military books and add pages for vehicles not yet on here. Every time I read a non-fiction book I feel pangs, urges to get into WP and start adding citations, but there just aren't enough hours in the day. If I was serious about devoting some time back into WP, I would invest in the Skepticism wikiproject, those guys need all the help they can get.

9. It's not too common to find editors with a significant history of image uploading. Tell us a little about your interest in photography.

   I like buildings and I like bugs. They're the two most common things I come across that make me think "What in the blazes is that?". The Wikimedia Commons image of a wasp stripping wood from my fence ended up being used on a Spanish newspaper's website, which was nice.

10. What has been the most difficult part of editing Wikipedia?

    It's deciding what to drop. I found myself determined to maintain this list and that list, ever fearful that someone else will come along and sully them! But it's like spinning plates. It's not possible to keep them all in my heart. I have to let things go and trust the community! (Hmm let me just check Music tracker... damn, yes, it's full of external links to people's pet trackers again. Leave it, Marasmusine, leave it...)

11. What advice would you give a new editor interested in working on video game articles?

    Actually pretend you don't know anything about the subject you're writing about - rely on your sources and report what they report. Use your stack of gaming magazines, learn how to use Google Books/Scholar, learn the citation templates. Use your knowledge of the subject to guide what to look for and what to write about.

12. You began seriously editing Wikipedia in 2006. More than 8 years later, do you find that your editing has slowed down much? Is it still easy to get yourself motivated for major editing sprees or do you find that you are now more bound by the exigencies of real (i.e. off-wiki) life?

    Wikipedia editing is unfortunately one of the many hobbies I had to abandon due to having not one but two - Two! - children. We are homeschooling as well, so personal time is like a precious resource to be spent wisely. My son has picked up my passion for gaming, so when he's old enough perhaps we'll see a new member.

13. What are your plans for the future? Are there any projects which you are thinking about starting?

    My immediate plan is to wait out the next 18 years until my kids have grown up, and then I can get back into my various hobbies. Projects I want to start include three or four board game designs that are buzzing in my head. I've had Crusader Kings 2 and its DLC for a year now and have yet to really get stuck into it. You know, I used to have an Amiga 1200, and next to the Enter key there was a blank key (Google it, you'll see). I wrote on it in pen, “MORE TIME”. It was my More Time button. I would press it over and over but it never worked.

14. Anything else you want to say to our readers?

    Right now! Grab the nearest gaming magazine to you, flip to a random page, and use it to improve an article!

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