Talk:DigiPen Institute of Technology

DigiPen's Suggested Changes

Hello,

First, in accordance with Wikipedia’s plain and simple conflict of interest guide, I should state that I am an employee for DigiPen Institute of Technology, and have been tasked with reviewing the content on the school’s Wikipedia page.

I have taken a strong look at the page — taking into consideration the aims of Wikipedia as well as DigiPen’s inherent interest in its web presence — and have come up with a list of recommended changes for this page that should mesh with Wikipedia’s goals as well as address many of the issues mentioned on this Talk page.

To formulate my suggestions, I have looked at the Wikipedia pages of other for-profit and private universities. My goal is to simplify and clarify the points on this Wikipedia page so that readers can gain an informed understanding of DigiPen and what makes the school, its students, and its faculty notable. I would like to encourage a neutral editor to look over my suggested changes (they are relatively light, and are mostly redactions rather than additions) and input the changes at their discretion. I'll be watching this page if anyone has any questions or suggestions.

Now with all that said, onto the suggestions!

As CorporateM suggested below, I have moved my (lengthy) suggested changes to my user page. I encourage anyone interested to take a look.

--Infinifold (talk) 22:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Whoa. I've taken a shot at some serious cleanup of the page, removing most of the unsourced and/or promotional material. Regarding the draft above, the only sources I saw at a glance were primary sources from the organization itself, whereas the primary basis of the article should be credible, independent sources. Also, you should place draft material in a user space draft, as it creates a huge mess on the Talk page trying to do it this way. You can do this by going to User:Infinifold/sandbox then using bold and strikeouts to indicate suggested changes. CorporateM (Talk) 01:53, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Independent Sources to Cite

Hello,

I am the same employee of DigiPen as User:Infinifold, above; I decided to create an account specifically for the purpose of suggesting changes to this Wikipedia article.

As User:CorporateM suggested, I have moved my proposed edits to my sandbox to avoid cluttering this Talk page. I think you will find that my edits are in line with Wikipedia's terms of use, though User:CorporateM is correct in stating that there is a lack of credible, independent sources cited. I aim to address that issue in this post.

DigiPen has won numerous awards from the Independent Games Festival (IGF), IGF China, and other game competitions around the world. I think this is definitely worth a mention in this article, since a lot of people show up to these competitions and they're a fairly big deal for independent game developers. While the websites below don't summarize the total number of awards DigiPen has won, they do list winners/finalists by year:

• IGF (USA) - http://www.igf.com/02studentfinalists.html
• IGF China - http://www.gdcchina.com/events/igf_finalists.html
• Pax 10 - http://www.indiegames.com/2010/07/the_pax_10_finalists_for_2010.html
• Indie Game Challenge - http://www.indiegamechallenge.com/2010-winners/
• Indiecade - http://www.indiecade.com/games/awards/

Even if the article just mentions the winners from DigiPen for the latest years (or just the most notable games that have won), I think that would be a valuable addition to the article.

Another aspect of DigiPen worth mentioning is that some of its students' games have gone on to become blockbuster hits in the video game realm. For instance, the student game Narbacular Drop went on to become Portal after Valve hired the DigiPen students who made it. Here are the relevant references listed in the Portal article:

• http://web.archive.org/web/20070928221628/http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/news.html?46
• http://web.archive.org/web/20071002110610/http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200608/N06.0825.1923.12789.htm

Another DigiPen student game, Tag: The Power of Paint, earned the student developers places on the Valve team to produce Portal 2.

I would appreciate an editor looking at these sources and adding anything they see relevant to the DigiPen Wikipedia article. Thanks!

PatrickR dP (talk) 17:28, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

For awards, please see WP:ORGAWARDS for how to identify secondary sources that validate the award's significance. Interviews like this one cannot be used in most cases, except for any content that is in the voice of the reporter, or for non-controversial information like date of birth and the article-subject's opinion. They are essentially primary sources, because the content is coming from the article-subject, not really an independent source, which is just publishing the article-subject's responses without fact-checking. This is not a good source either, as it's just a trivial blurb probably repeating a press release. A quick Google Books search reveals some sources that might be usable and do say that DigiPen is one of the top schools. In-depth profiles in major newspapers are also the most ideal sources to serve as the foundation of an article.

Hope this helps, even if it's not what you were looking for. I am going to leave the Request Edit open so you can get another editor to chime in, but they will likely provide similar feedback (a few months later) CorporateM (Talk) 17:36, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, User:CorporateM. Do you have any thoughts on my suggestion to include mention of Portal/Portal 2 and Narbacular Drop/Tag: The Power of Paint in this article? DigiPen's notability in the creation of those games is well-documented in the sources I cited as well as other sources, I'm sure. PatrickR dP (talk) 21:25, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

So I would compare it to a "Notable works"-type section that is de-facto among most professional services companies. We don't want an indiscriminate list of every game that was developed by alumni, even if technically it could be sourced to reliable sources. We need sources that verify its significance in the context of this organization, not just of the game's significance in general.

Generally speaking, if a profile where this organization is the subject of the article covers it prominently, this irrefutably belongs in the article as we follow the judgement of the source, which felt it was significant enough to include (same goes for awards and many other things where weight may be debateable). If you have to rely on primary sources, blurbs, blogs, etc. to include it, than you may be creating an indiscriminate list. If there are high-quality sources that discuss it, but perhaps they are not profiles on Digipen, but news-of-the-day type articles or articles about the game, not Digipen, you start entering grey waters with no clear guides except "good judgement".

It is unhealthy for an editor to approach a problem in this way: "what sources do I need to get to include the information I want to add?" Rather you should find the best sources about the organization first, then work on adding content that is representative of the source, whatever it includes. CorporateM (Talk) 21:36, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

There has been no more conversation in over a month - and it appears that the request was not deemed to be an improvement.--CaroleHenson (talk) 11:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20161123052925/https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?443410-DigiPen-Institute-of-Technology to https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?443410-DigiPen-Institute-of-Technology

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References are mostly from DigiPen itself

It was mentioned that DigiPen does research for companies without references to the said companies' public press release or objective sources. The references are to articles on DigiPen's web page. Thus, this article reads more like an advertisement than anything else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:600:8080:11AA:182E:6828:C95E:F5C4 (talk) 00:57, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Regional accreditation

An unregistered editor is insisting that this article specifically say that this institution is not regionally accredited. That is true but it's completely unnecessary; the institution is accredited by a reputable national accreditor and there is nothing critically important or meaningful about regional accreditation (or lack thereof). ElKevbo (talk) 15:37, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Jim Sterling Video: Unrelated?

The additional citation for the Jim Sterling video feels unrelated / unnecessary. The video, while potentially notable for prospecting art students, is not really influential in a macro sense. 4.16.175.130 (talk) 22:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)