Talk:Jennell Jaquays

Semi-protected edit request on 10 January 2024

Janell passed away 1/10/2024 according to her wife, Rebecca. Matthewh12 (talk) 10:31, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

https://twitter.com/burgerbecky/status/1745019247955181958

"Jennell", not chastising, just correcting.

Be well LagothZanta (talk) 10:40, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

My apologies that I didn't catch that error. Matthewh12 (talk) 10:45, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

 Already done Lightoil (talk) 15:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 January 2024 (2)

Jennell Jaquays passed away today, we should edit the dates TheEnoza (talk) 11:07, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Oh no! :o That's so sad. We need a WP:RS to confirm this, which I'm sure will be forthcoming shortly. BOZ (talk) 13:01, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Rebecca Heineman set up a gofund me campaign to raise funds for Jennell's medical expenses: Jennell Jaquays has a long road back after Jennell fell ill on October 15th last year, with Guillain-Barré syndrome. (It turns out I can't link to it, as Wikipedia has blacklisted the site, but you can go there to confirm.)

The last update, from Rebecca is:

"Today, Jennell’s heart stopped 4 times. She didn’t recover. I’ll be paying down her medical bills and will be making funeral arrangements.

I will be grieving for a while.

Thank you for coming out to help Jennell in her time of need."

I don't know if someone's spouse counts as a "secondary source", but Rebecca is certainly a reliable source.

I've had a look around, but the only other source I see at this time, is a forum discussion, called Jennell Jaquays has passed away (Donkey Kong, Quake 2 & 3, Age of Empires 3, Halo Wars). Big Mac (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

• I'm 100% convinced of the death, but that's OR. Please bring sources here when we find them. I would expect to see reliable sources about this death in the next 24 hours. As an aside, the page is in good shape; we might nominate this sourced article to recent deaths at ITN. BusterD (talk) 16:23, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

One more correction. Jennell and Becky hadn't lived in Seattle for quite a few years. At the time of her death, they were living in Texas. 50.46.253.114 (talk) 00:34, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm kind of always leery about including "currently lives here" information, unless it's well-documented or particularly relevant. BOZ (talk) 05:31, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Please move notation of Jennell's birth name to the Summary Box

It's somewhat incorrect to have Jennell's birth name (deadname) listed in the very first sentence in the main text of her bio, when it is not the name she went by after her transition. I would like to suggest that, as with the entry of her wife Rebecca Heineman, notation of her birth name be move to the summary box next to her date of birth. This preserves the information on the page, but moves it to a more discrete and appropriate location. AtomicOvermind (talk) 03:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

The issue here is that it is the name she was known by when she did almost all of her notable work. (See MOS:GENDERID for the policy but TL;DR we want to be sure that someone coming to this page who is only familiar with her notable activities from before her transition knows they're in the right place.)

In cases where an article subject did only a little bit of notable work before transition I'd be fine with moving their birth name to the infobox, but here I don't think that's really justifiable. Loki (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

In keeping with the above points made by Loki, recognizing that this person was very notable for pioneering work in the roleplaying game and early computer game fields created under their birth name, I reverted the edit by Oddfox that removed the birthname from the lede and referenced MOS:GENDERID. But my edit was in turn reverted and I was accused of deadnaming and hiding behind "transphobic policy". Suggestions? Guinness323 (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

If there is something wrong with the policy, then discussion about it should take place on the policy page. BOZ (talk) 22:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why special treatment is warranted for listing of their name. In fact, this page is already more accommodating than other wikipedia pages, seeing as Charlie Sheen's page lists his original name first before anything else, unlike here. MutedL (talk) 16:43, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Jaquaysing the Dungeon

Jennell's name has famously been used for a particular model of dungeon design known as "Jaquaysing the Dungeon." This term was introduced by Justin Alexander on his blog, The Alexandrian, in an article entitled "Jaquaying the Dungeon." In November of 2023, Justin Alexander renamed the article "Xandering the Dungeon" to some controversy.

A more robust version of this segment of the article ought to be written. BeingForOthers (talk) 21:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I was unsure what my role ought to be in writing that out here, or if someone else needs to do that. BeingForOthers (talk) 21:57, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

@BeingForOthers: A good first step would be to gather some sources so here is the policy on Wikipedia:Reliable sources. While this guide on sources is geared towards articles that fall under the Video Games Project, I think it is fairly useful when doing research on TTRPG/board game related articles. If you'd like to draft something on this, keep in mind that a neutral point of view is one of the cornerstones of Wikipedia especially when covering controversies relating to real people; the policies outlined in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons are key. Self-published sources (such as blogs, forums, social media, YouTube, etc) are typically not considered reliable sources especially for contentious material. For example, a Tweet from an RPG publisher might be an okay primary source for the release date of a product but a random person on Twitter recapping something controversial in the RPG community would not be reliable source. Hope that helps you get started! When in doubt, bring your questions over to the Wikipedia:Teahouse which is a great resource for newer editors. Sariel Xilo (talk) 22:22, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Today's New York Times has a staff-written obituary, which is pretty impressive. The obit happens to mention the subject of this thread specifically here. BusterD (talk) 00:44, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Good find! The obit doesn't talk about the recent controversy but could be used as source for terminology. Something like: The New York Times noted that "two of her earliest D&D modules, Dark Tower and The Caverns of Thracia, are renowned for their pathbreaking designs". Many contemporary modules had linear designed dungeons while Jaquays's adventure modules "often contained several possible entrances and multiple avenues, some of them secret, by which players could accomplish their goals". In game design, her name has "become a verb — 'Jaquaysing the dungeon' means creating a scenario with myriad paths". Sariel Xilo (talk) 01:57, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Went ahead and added that in a new Legacy subsection under Career. Feel free to adjust/expand especially if you find additional sources! Sariel Xilo (talk) 02:03, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Adding the Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide to credits

I can see that the article is edit-protected right now, but would someone with sufficient access consider adding this book to her credits under the "Judges Guild, later independent role-playing projects, and TSR" header? If I could edit, I would want to add something like "In 1990 her Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide [include link to its existing article] was published by TSR. It is widely regarded [add references to the two reviews quoted in the book's article] as one of the best advice books published on GMing tabletop RPGs." just before the current sentence "From 1993 to 1997, she returned to full-time employment in the table-top gaming industry as an illustrator for TSR, including a six-month period as Director of Graphics." Mannahnin (talk) 15:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)