Talk:Starweb

Reference needed for "...continues to be their best game"

I'm not sure how to add it, so I'll leave that to someone who does, but if you go to their webpage http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/ about 10-11 paragraphs down, you'll find Rick's own words... Our most popular play by mail game is the award-winning Starweb. --Walts0042 (talk) 18:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Pyramid link is dead

It's hidden behind a login, but the entire nature of Pyramid magazine changed a while back and those old articles are no longer reachable. Hcobb (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Starweb/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: The Rambling Man (talk · contribs) 20:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments

• Lead feels a bit bulky for such a modest article, I would suggest trimming a bit to get down to two large paras.

Trimmed to two paragraphs.

• "In early years, this amount usually ranged from 1,000 to 10,000 points" without knowing how often and how many points are awarded, this is relatively meaningless.

I added some material about point values accumulated in gameplay to provide perspective on this.

• "reviewer Timothy B. Brown" perhaps "reviewer and game designer"?

Agreed. Done.

• "by Flying Buffalo in" in the lead vs "Flying Buffalo Inc." in the infobox.

Fair enough. Their own website uses both styles, but a GA should be consistent. Done.

• "game, Nuclear Destruction, in" not notable enough for a link?

Wikilinked in the lead.

• "field in "roughly" 1976" couldn't this just be "field in around 1976"?

That works. Done.

• "Professional game moderation" wouldn't that have been human-moderated? Shouldn't that be mentioned/linked here rather than later on?

I don't think we can make that leap here. Rick Loomis says in this history of Flying Buffalo that he started with human moderation but he had a program made for Nuclear Destruction soon after its start. It's not clear how quickly he transitioned from human-moderated to computer moderated. Either method could have been professional game moderation (done by the company). [Added clarification: since he started Nuclear Destruction in 1970 and started the "Professional game moderation" in 1971, he may have made the switch to computer-moderation at the same time or before.]

• "the play-by-mail field" PBM.

Done.

• "invented Starweb.[6] Flying Buffalo released it as its second PBM" -> " invented Starweb which Flying Buffalo released as its second PBM"

Done.

• "mimeographed" pardon my ignorance, can you explain this?

I confess to being a novice here as well. It's an small, inexpensive, early version of a photocopy machine. I added a Wikilink to it. At first I was going to just remove it—and I still can if you think it better without—but I thought it would provide an interesting, and encyclopedic, historical aspect of these early PBMs and their origin period.

• "as play-by-mail magazines" PBM

Done.

• "Starweb is still available for play in the 21st century" Could you say "As of 2021"?

I changed it to "today" so it doesn't go stale next year.

Changed to "As of 2021" as you suggested based on WP:PRECISELANG.

• "available for play by mail" PBM

I changed this to "available for play by postal mail" since I was trying to highlight that it was still available for play in that format whereas PBM is somewhat of an umbrella term.

• "editors of Flagship Magazine provided" overlinked.

Delinked

• "18 turns" eighteen (as you have twenty in the same sentence)

Fixed. Good catch, thanks.

• "Rick Loomis, the founder of Flying Buffalo Inc., stated" don't think you need to repeat this factoid.

Agreed, removed.

• "issue of The Space Gamer.[21] Reese" overlinked.

Delinked.

• "game for White Dwarf in" overlinked.

Delinked.

• "issue of Challenge magazine" overlinked.

Delinked.

• Ensure ref dates are consistently formatted.

Fixed. They should be consistent now.

That's all I have on a first read. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 08:13, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Greatly appreciate the review The Rambling Man!--Airborne84 (talk) 01:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 06:54, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Starweb, published in 1976 and still available for play, "is arguably the best-loved, most widely known play-by-mail game in history" according to author and game designer Timothy B. Brown? Source: Challenge magazine No. 42., February–March 1990, page 76, in an article titled "StarWeb".
  • ALT1:... that Starweb, published in 1976 and still available for play, was the second play-by-mail (PBM) game published by Flying Buffalo Inc. after it launched the professional PBM industry in 1970? Source: Bob McLain, PBM: The Infancy of CyberSpace, Starweb Capsule Review in The Space Gamer magazine, Issue No. 29, page 30; Rick Loomis, The History of Flying Buffalo Inc.

• comment = Did you know nominations/Green Guerillas

Improved to Good Article status by Airborne84 (talk). Self-nominated at 00:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: This is all good outside the nominator needing to do their QPQ. @Airborne84: ping me when that's complete. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the review @Favre1fan93:! I did a QPQ review of the Green Guerillas nomination. Airborne84 (talk) 00:34, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

@Airborne84: Great. Hook is cited with an offline source so passing in good faith. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

This hook is a bit too promotional for my taste—it just feels like a good review, even if it is more in hindsight. How about:

ALT2: ... that the play-by-mail game Starweb was made by Flying Buffalo, Inc.?

ALT3: ... that the play-by-mail game Starweb inspired the first independent magazine about play-by-mail games? this one's a bit more of a stretch

either of those catch your eye? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 09:37, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest maybe this for ALT4. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 14:35, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

ALT4: ... that the play-by-mail game Starweb, first published in 1976, is still available today through postal mail or email?

I support ALT4. Play-by-mail and Flying Buffalo by themselves are topics that may not hook the average reader. ALT4 offers a bit more and seems interesting overall. Thanks. Airborne84 (talk) 00:37, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Great. Theleekycauldron if you're going to promote, can we go with ALT4? Thanks. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 01:17, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

ALT4 to T:DYK/P6