Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 140

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Raze (magazine)

I thought I just put this article out there, was wondering if this article should be improved or sent it to AfD or PROD. Govvy (talk) 17:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

If a mag is long lived, it's more than likely relevant. However, that one was only around from 90-91. So I don't know. Likely not notable. There's tons of JP and foreign mags that were longer lived, but don't have pages. Harizotoh9 (talk) 05:24, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
I added one source, which is really just that the fact that the magazine existed because all the published copies are archived on archive.org, the problem is added multiple independent sources, under current GNG the article is failing pretty badly. Govvy (talk) 13:06, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm thinking that since it was so short lived, it isn't notable. So the article should probably be merged into the publisher, Newsfield. Instead, the magazine's main use is as of a source. Since it was so short lived, it'd be easy to go through it entirely, catalog what games it discusses, and use it as a source. Harizotoh9 (talk) 14:55, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
heh, that's what I've been doing, been added Lynx reviews mainly. Sounds sensible to merge into Newsfield. Govvy (talk) 15:18, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Is it okay to copy the text across, or should there be a history merge? Because I don't know how to do that. Govvy (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, I merged some content over and sent it to AfD if anyone is interested. Govvy (talk) 15:15, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

IGN Nintendo Editor - Plagiarism Accusations

Don't know if any articles are affected by this, but it's worth a heads up just in case. IGN Pulls Ex-Editor's Posts After Dozens More Plagiarism Accusations Surface - X201 (talk) 14:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I already did a search and found only one case of an IGN article written by him used on WP, and added a second backing source for it. The situation is described over at IGN otherwise. --Masem (t) 14:10, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
Yea we already went through it when the news broke last week and pruned him out (thanks WP:DISCORD folks!). Now Miucin only appears (1) in a section in the IGN article discussing the mess, (2) in a citation to a non-review news piece about Switch sales he's credited as the author of (which could be replaced but OTOH all news websites churn the same news pieces so can't really fault him for much there, and Masem added another source) and (3) in the article about his old band. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=Miucin&title=Special:Search Ben · Salvidrim!  15:39, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

New Articles (August 12, 2018 to August 18, 2018)

 Generated by v1.10 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 01:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

August 12, 2018

August 13, 2018

August 14, 2018

August 15, 2018

August 16, 2018

Small week, as the 1.0 bot broke over the weekend so there's no 17th or 18th; when it runs tonight it will merge those into the 19th. Changelog:

  • New sections for deleted templates (previously mixed in with articles) and deleted categories (previously skipped)
  • Condense each line's output and height --PresN 01:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • I'll keep an eye on those drafts, as they seem to be stripped straight from a wiki, and need pruning if to make main space. I don't think they are notable.Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:14, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I made the page for Yasuhiro Wada (video game designer) because I stumbled upon him (never heard of him before), and noticed he got a lot of interviews and profiles in online sources (both ENG and JP). But, I've never played Harvest Moon, and probably won't put much more effort into the page. Harizotoh9 (talk) 16:30, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Defender release date

Recently, someone changed the release date for Defender. That got me thinking. The current source for this is arcade-history.com, which is marked as "unreliable" at WP:VG/RS. We know Defender was shown at the Amusement & Music Operators Association trade show in November 1980: Gamasutra source. Does that count as a release? Or is that just a promotional demo? If you do a Google search for jarvis defender 1981 OR 1980, you get a mix of pretty reliable sources that use either year. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 01:24, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that AMOA shows are considered release dates (or at least I don't use them as such when I do arcade articles). Showing at AMOA just means that they had at least 1 (possibly custom) cabinet to show off the game to distributors/buyers, it's not playable by regular players. It's like you made a game and then showed it at E3 to try to find a publisher. I'd say "release date" for arcade games is when they first started being in locations. I know sometimes Atari at least would announce releases in Cash Box magazine, which was the trade journal for essentially the kinds of things shown at AMOA, so you might look there. --PresN 01:37, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
It's interesting that many sources I've tried all go something like "Defender, introduced at the AMOA show in 1980..", and places like Wired and Gamasutra all list 1980 as its date. Also we have the fact that its loading screen gives the 1980 copyright date. The problem is identifying a date when it was sold to arcades in general. --Masem (t) 01:54, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Wow, that's really useful. Cash Box verifies the November trade show and says samples were shipped in December 1980. In their "1980 in review" column, they describe 1980 as the year Williams entered the video game market. In January 1981, they said Defender was a hit at the test locations. On March 7, 1981, they said Williams started domestic production last week. Hmm, that's pretty interesting stuff, but I'm not sure what to make of it. Clearly, something must have shipped in December 1980, but it sounds like it didn't go nationwide until 1981. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:34, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
So, typically for arcade games (though I've only worked in early 1970s games) I don't get more specific than the month, as arcade games don't have "release dates" like a modern non-arcade game does. That said, I'd go with "March 1981" here. In December 1980 they were shipping samples and taking orders, and by January 1981 it was in test locations, but test locations means that the game wasn't actually finalized. So it wasn't until March that they started producing the final game, and typically that meant that it rolled off the line onto trucks to go to the distributors who had started placing orders back in December, and so would be on locations shortly thereafter. Without any proof to the contrary (e.g. that it took more than a few weeks to get the machines into arcades) that says to me that "March 1981" was the "release" date. --PresN 04:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, many thanks for the link to the useful source, PresN! I had no idea Cash Box had any coverage of video games. I've already made good use of this in an article.--Martin IIIa (talk) 00:26, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Seeking source: Games, Australia?

I've been trying to do a bit of cleanup at Dizzy (series), and it includes an old reference that was added in 2005 before current citation standards. That is, it was just added as a reference at the bottom of the page with no indication of what part of the article is referencing it. Based on when it was added, I'm guessing that it's at least the source for an otherwise-unsourced quote on the page, so I'd quite like to track it down. The reference is listed as:

  • Games, No. 27, pp. 104–109, Australia

My searches for it have turned up nothing, though that might just be because of the extremely generic name. Is anyone familiar with the source? Or, even better, does anyone have a copy? Lowercaserho (talk) 08:06, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Here's the diff where it was added - X201 (talk) 09:18, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
The Australian Times has a magazine called Games, but it uses Volume numbers, not issue numbers. But might be worth a look. - X201 (talk) 09:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
Looking at that, their volume 1, issue 1 was only in 2013, so it doesn't seem likely, unless they relaunched under a new numbering scheme at some point. Was worth checking, though. Lowercaserho (talk) 10:35, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I've checked Games TM as well, just in case it was a typo, but those page numbers are smack in the centre of the reviews section. - X201 (talk) 11:17, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
I did eventually manage to track this down. It was an Australian version of GamesTM with content and issue numbers not corresponding to the UK version. The article in question (with the quote added in the same diff) was in issue 33 of GamesTM (UK). Lowercaserho (talk) 11:54, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Request to update the Polygon article

  Resolved

Hello! On behalf of Vox Media, and as part of my work at Beutler Ink, I've proposed some updates for the Polygon (website) article here. The article has been promoted to Good status, but back in 2014, so some updating is needed. I've suggested three updates, and provided reference markup for easier implementation. Are any WikiProject Video games participants willing to take a look and update the article appropriately? I do not edit the main space directly because of my conflict of interest, and the requests should not take long to review. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 17:30, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

On it. Will be responding on the article's talk page. Lordtobi () 18:27, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
Thank you. Inkian Jason (talk) 18:28, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
This edit request has been answered. Inkian Jason (talk) 19:40, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I feel like I've fallen into the Twilight Zone- did a PR firm just get an update into an article by proposing clear, referenced changes on the talk page and notifying a relevant wikiproject, instead of just editing unsourced puffery into the article directly with a username like 'beutlerintern3'? --PresN 21:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

This is a cracking example of how WP:COI editing should be handled. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 09:03, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah seriously, we need to save this and have it on hand as an example of how to do this right... Sergecross73 msg me 13:57, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
We did it a while back with someone at Rare. I think the main problem is getting the vested interest to know that we exist and are willing to help. It feels like we need some kind of contact/outreach/publicity program in place. - X201 (talk) 15:08, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
There is a significant force on-wiki that thinks COI editing, and in particular paid editing, is a vile practice that must be excised entirely. I'm a bit more practical, myself. --Izno (talk) 17:47, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
And Ikian and his colleagues are proof that COI/PAID and constructive contributions are not mutually exclusive. I hope I remember this example for the next such discussion. Regards SoWhy 17:14, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all for your kind words. Related to this request, I've submitted a request here to update the overview of Polygon at the Vox Media article. The current summary has unsourced claims, unnecessary detail, and a list of names of non-notable people. I've suggested a sourced summary based on the existing Polygon article. Thanks again for your consideration. Inkian Jason (talk) 16:36, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

This request has been answered as well. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 16:56, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

More opinions wanted for a RM of Persona 3/4

Discussion here. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 15:26, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

  • Adding upon this, but I opened up another relevant discussion on how to handle the series in the infobox here. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:28, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Main image for Dante

As some of you might now, Capcom released today a full shot of Dante (Devil May Cry) but in his DMC5 older persona. However, the article now reached the limit of four non-free images: one image for the infobox (DMC1), one about his change in every game, one of Ninja Theory's reboot and finally the one of DMC5. I thought about being bold, but do you guys think we should replace his infobox image with the DMC5 since his first appearance is shown twice? Cheers.Tintor2 (talk) 22:58, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Usually, the most recognizable rendition of the character should be shown in the infobox. Because of that, I think we should keep DMC1's there, and just put DMC5's in its respective article or just add to the one that shows his change per game. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:32, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

DeSmuME

The above article was deleted in February through AfD, but has been re-created. I see that the sourcing has been improved, but it's not a slam dunk for notability. Any thoughts? To Prod/nom for deletion or not? Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 15:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

A quick skim but I don't see WP:42. A ton of primary, a few listicles, two or three "how-to" guides without any critical commentary or original opinion. Only the Engadget ref seems to be okay, and even then it's barely half a dozen lines. Ben · Salvidrim!  16:00, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
I left my thoughts on the current refs on the talk page. Ben · Salvidrim!  17:55, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Emulators are a bit like porn. Everyone knows about them, but few people talk about them. Their underground nature tends to result in them being infrequently discussed in official sources. Compare emulators to official licsened games, which always get the preview-review-retrospective cycle, and thus tons of coverage from tons of sources. That can't be guaranteed for emulators.

I'm thinking if they would be covered in print, and defunct sites taht aren't readily available, but I'm thinking not really. Unless there's some books dedicated to emulation I'm not aware of. I think if we were to examine emulator pages, the vast majority of them would be deemed non-notable.

Since emulator sources are a bit rare, I think it would be worthwhile to collect a list of them, especially for defunct sites. This 2005 1up piece for example. Harizotoh9 (talk) 16:25, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I sent it to AfD. Woodroar (talk) 02:21, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Requesting editor(s) with Wikidata editing permissions

Maybe this isn't the ideal place to ask, but since I know a number of WP:VG editors are familiar with Wikidata, I thought I should ask here. Anyway, is it possible to fix this issue over at Wikidata? The spaces in the game ID formatting needs to use "%20" instead of "+", which brings up this rather than the intended link. It's been an issue for months. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 20:52, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Interestingly, the Q template formats it correctly. But if you go to Dota 2's item, it doesn't. -- ferret (talk) 20:59, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
The link is provided in Javascript, not the stored data. The reason the Q template is fine is because it doesn't assume that the space should be converted to a plus. This is a fairly typical URL encoding problem I've seen even here due to the 5 different modes {{URLENCODE}} has. --Izno (talk) 21:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
The link there is created on the backend and needs associated changes to the software. Please leave a note regarding the problem at d:Wikidata:Contact the development team. --Izno (talk) 21:11, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
It looks the problem was reported there earlier this month. Pigs came up with the wrong answer. d:WD:Contact the development team#Formatter URL is broken. --Izno (talk) 21:21, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
That said, I know Chrome will sometimes wrongly not include the character that is in the URL. If I copy-paste in Firefox, I get https://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Dota%202 . So actually, this is a data problem; Dota 2 should be Dota%202. --Izno (talk) 21:26, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
I mean. It's a bit silly that properties must be maintained with the editors handling URL encoding themselves. -- ferret (talk) 21:46, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Chrome shouldn't output garbage URLs when copy-pasting and editors really shouldn't treat properties which otherwise are a URL as if they were an external identifiers. :) (That Wikidata does for a large number of properties... *shrug*.) I guess you can push to see if the development team can do something about this for future cases, but I would still fix the particular invocation in this case. --Izno (talk) 21:56, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Request at Full Sail University

Hello again! Project members were helpful last time I posted above, so I wanted to return and ask for feedback about another request, which I've submitted here on behalf of Full Sail University. I've proposed a couple additions about the university's programs and facilities for the article's "Campus" section, but my request was immediately declined for being promotional. User:Lordtobi said they were inclined to update the article in some way, but so far no changes have been made. Are any other project members willing to take a look and offer feedback here or on the article's talk page? Thanks again! Inkian Jason (talk) 01:41, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Retro Gamer

Hi all,

I'm not usually one to scout out sources, as I believe you can usually source enough information from the sources available, with other editors with access to this media can add the additional information. However, when looking up information for the GBC version of Jimmy White's 2: Cueball; I found this on Mobygames: http://www.mobygames.com/game/gameboy-color/jimmy-whites-cueball/trivia. It's got a direct quote from Retro Gamer magazine (Issue 22) regarding the game's development. Does anyone know where I can see a copy? Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 07:48, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Did you check the reference library? The issues can be bought digitally if you can't find someone with the issue. TarkusABtalk 11:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Check your mails.   Lordtobi () 12:33, 29 August 2018‎ (UTC)
Lordtobi - I had a message on Wikipedia, saying I'd recieved a message, but got no message. I've recieved emails in the past though.... Weird. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:27, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski: Huh? Does your provider filter Imgur links? If so, check your spam box. If you still can't find it I'll post it to your talk page. Lordtobi () 14:32, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Lordtobi I'd suggest that it's very likely it would block Imgur links outright, as it doesn't appear in my spam (I'm not actually suprised it does this). Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 15:12, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

New Articles (August 17, 2018 to August 23, 2018)

Generated by v1.10 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 13:08, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

August 17, 2018

August 18, 2018

August 19, 2018

August 20, 2018

August 21, 2018

August 22, 2018

August 23, 2018

The WP1.0 bot picked up the 17th/18th from last week (and put it in the right days, which it didn't use to do), but then it broke again so I don't have the 24th-26th. So, next week for those I guess. --PresN 13:08, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Quick eSports question

So Manusiafaiz (talk · contribs) claims that since other sports pages include a list of former members of the roster (something I've never seen, can somebody give examples), that eSport pages should too (specifically OG (eSports). I think we should only include the current roster like the majority of sporting team articles, and would like to at least document this somewhere because it's common on eSport pages (which lack guidelines/a MOS as we recently discussed). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:57, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't have any particular opinion about the inclusion on eSports pages, but I have seen lists of former players for other sports, but mostly only with well defined and limited criteria for inclusion. For instance Dallas Cowboys#Pro Football Hall of Famers (former players in a hall of fame), List of Manchester United F.C. players (only players who made a given number of appearances for the team), Íþróttabandalag Vestmannaeyja#Notable players (players who played internationally). Lowercaserho (talk) 19:38, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
I strongly suggest that most sport pages must include the former players or etc, especially this high profile organization since it provide history as well as backbone. Being eSports shouldn't be an issue. The guideline for football (MUFC) in example is perfect itself, why not follow? Please undo your edit by the way. If disagree, atleast mention founding members & noticeable champions, Major and TI in this case. The storyline should be told.--Manusiafaiz (talk) 20:27, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
Notable former members are already mentioned in prose, having a table that would theoretically include every single member for as long as the team exists is not the ideal way to handle it. Those trivia notes are not needed either; we don't mark Super Bowl or World Series winners in current rosters of teams, and that "List of Manchester United F.C. players" page is specifically for all members of the team's history (who are almost always notable, unlike in eSports). We don't include the entire history of players on the main Manchester United or Dallas Cowboys article, which is the problem here. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:08, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
Seems like fancruft to me if the individual members aren't notable. As Dissident says, List of Manchester City F.C. players exists, but these types of list generally work as navigation. Having talked about esports a few times recently, there's been no concensus on if they should be treated as sports (and, if so, which sport), or not Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 22:54, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
And even if we did just decide to follow sport article guidelines for eSport teams, then the correct way to handle this would be to create a List of OG players page, which obviously would not have enough members to really warrant it, and does not even take in account of their (non)notability. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:43, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

And another related question, but should we include team-based results for individual players? An example is given here. Personally, I think we shouldn't because team-based results should only belong on the team's page and not players due to the fact it's a team-based effort and not something the individual did solely on their own. It's also redundant as all of this should just be mentioned in prose instead (and it is here). Thoughts? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 16:31, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that listing this data is a bad idea. This kind of information should be listed in prose, also because any relevant information regarding the player's part in the victory/loss can be described here. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 20:18, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Each player deserve their own Achievement list, mention with team name as well (see the best example here and here). As for tournament page, honestly I think it would be better if we mention the roster in all team. That way we know which player play for representative team. This is the better format. The other site do this, it's so convenient. Or team page should handle that, as such or this?— Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])
I'd argue that those players shouldn't have team-based results either, only individual ones (such as MVP awards and making an all-pro team). Making 4th place at a World Cup or whatever is not an individual accomplishment, so I have no idea why this is accepted on soccer player articles. And I'm not sure what you are arguing about about rosters, you want to include them in tournament pages? Wikipedia prefers encyclopedic info over convenience, which is why Liquidpedia exists in the first place (as an encompassing database for all eSports team-related info). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:55, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
[Player] It is a good format. Straightforward under a team-based result (team, tournament, year), easy for new reader. If you suggest to follow strictly like individual NBA, for example Michael Jordan, in this case Dota 2, list of The International champion is still relatively small. [Tournament] Yes, since most eSport is less that five players, tournament page should be able to handle list all players under the team, along with placement. All info are centralize. [Team] With that being said, team page can just handle their current and former player list, and championship won.--Manusiafaiz (talk) 23:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Soccer articles generally mention when players actually receive a medal for a particular championship (So, for instance, winners or runners up of the FA Cup. Certainly shouldn't be added for 4th place at the world cup (But, damn, I was excited for a bit, eh. Sir Harry Kane has a ring to it.) I'm not sure why you wouldn't list team accomplishments in the article, if Andy Murray wins the doubles at Wimbledon, is this now a team-accomplishment?
We certainly shouldn't be taking our style guide from liquidpedia, or any other website. The big issue with esports, is that none of the individual players (Or next to none) are notable. So, having lists of who plays for the team is irrelevent, and crufty. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 08:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm not following either why we shouldn't mention their accomplishment either individual or team on player page. Does Career statistics would fit everything (tournament name & year, won only)? Different name can be use (achievement, awards & honours). As for team page, can we do similiar style for won tournament?--Manusiafaiz (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Just thought I should let the admins here know, but @Manusiafaiz: is starting to become disruptive as he constantly reverts back to his preferred version on multiple eSport pages, despite the discussion here not supporting them. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 02:52, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Team name can't be on titled. Just bold team name under the titled, then * Tournament (year)? Oh by the way, I edited new page followed the guideline with establish page (minor edit), but he keep reverted it back every time? I wish other editor could help build this instead just remove randomly because personally disagree.--Manusiafaiz (talk) 13:05, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
No offense, but I can barely understand you. What "guideline with establish page" are you talking about? Other badly-written WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS articles? The edits you keep re-adding to the page is telling the same information that's already there, but in a more bloated and harder to read format. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:53, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
comment - I assume a bit of the above is regarding ana (Dota player)? With edits such as this? I can't see too much of an issue with listing it in this way, per se, as I doubt you'll find a single sports bio that flat out ignores team based accomplishments. Even Snooker players, which is a solo game lists these accomplishments (For example Stephen Hendry). There are other issues with the article that actually concern me more, such as the lede suggesting that ana won over $11 million personally for winning TI2018, which seems a little excessive to me, and the sources don't back this up. I also think the esports infobox is a little lacking. Usually you'd see information as to when the subject turned professional. It seems a bit redundent to have a "current team" and a "professional career" section as the bottom one is going to be the same. 13:19, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
OG won 11 million, which is then split by them for all members/sponsors of the organization, so the actual amount ana received is unknown. And my main issue with the edits is that we shouldn't be including them at all, they are team accomplishments, not individual awards and honors (as he has tried to renamed the section before), not to mention this info is already included in the above prose. And if we do decide to keep it in the article, then the format he is choosing is bloated and hard to read and shouldn't be formatted as such when a simple table would suffice instead. I'm getting sick of constantly edit warring with this guy, so could we come up with a final decision on all this? There are three options: omit it entirely (preferred), keep it under my format, or keep it under his format. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:53, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Omit 100%, they are team accomplishments. TarkusABtalk 18:21, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
The main reason is not because of title name (achievement, accomplish, award, honor, or etc), the fact that it's poorly format like (2016, with OG). Why can't we just stated team name below the main titled, bold, then proceed with tournament info? Example here (ideal), here and here. Which is the edit that I do on Ana, but keep reverted. Also, I reckon that we should mention year as well on tournament. Either we put the placement or just list won only. Summary:-
Achievements
Team name
  • 1st — Tournament (2018)
--Manusiafaiz (talk) 02:03, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
Calling him a champion is incorrect. It should be written in prose in his career. "Notail was a member of x team in 2018 which went on to won the y tournament." We don't list Tom Brady's achievements as "Super Bowl champion". TarkusABtalk 03:49, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
Because we already have prose that covers this info; having this in some weirdly formatted section does not benefit the article. And like I (and Tarkus) have said numerous times before, we should not be including team-based results as an individual "award and honor" like you keep trying to change the section's title to. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 05:06, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Image question

Is this technically a free image? It was uploaded as non-free but I think it might be PD since it appears to be just words and stars. JOEBRO64 12:17, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Probably Template:PD-logo. GMGtalk 12:19, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
I've just replaced it with a new version (has a transparent background) that I uploaded as PD. JOEBRO64 12:27, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
TheJoebro64 replaced it how? It doesn't look like the file has been overwritten. If it's identical, then this lower quality non-free version should probably be deleted WP:F8. GMGtalk 12:30, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
@GreenMeansGo, I uploaded it on Commons. I've PRODed the non-free version. JOEBRO64 12:40, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
It is NOT a PD image. The star background and specific speed lines back there are too much creativity to presume PD Text logo. --Masem (t) 14:01, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Alright. I've nominated it for deletion and removed it from the article. But how are simple lines and stars too creative? They're just shapes. JOEBRO64 14:21, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Wouldn't specific colors and placement give it enough reason to be copyrighted? I mean, something as simple as the McDonald's Golden Arches is like that. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:55, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
Not really. The main Sonic series logo is PD, as is the Super Mario logo. JOEBRO64 19:12, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
No, the golden arches are too simple for copyright. They're just a stylized "M". In fact, we have a whole category of them on Commons. Having said that, it is trademarked all to hell and back. So if you use one of these free images to open your own restaurant, you're very soon going to be getting a call from a lawyer...or ten. GMGtalk 14:20, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Also, I still think this is fine regarding c:COM:TOO, and have said as much on c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Sonic Runners logo.png. We already have tons of logos with stars, and they're just a simple geometric shape. When arranging simple geometric shapes, it has to be the arrangement itself that is complex enough for the arrangement itself to qualify for copyright. Plopping down two stars with some lines through them is not complex enough to exceed TOO. GMGtalk 14:29, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Gift (video game)

Gift (video game) was redirected in 2015 after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gift (video game) failed to turn up enough sources to keep the article, although the nominator found "a PC Zone review mentioned on GameRankings. But I can't even find the review due to not owning a copy." One respondent noted that "It had no meaningful hits in a video game reliable sources custom Google search (though this IGN article appears to be mocking it)."

However, the French version does have several sources. I restored the article and added a piece from the Eurogame review, but I think the rest are all in other languages; does anyone have the ability to translate any of these?


73.168.15.161 (talk) 13:32, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

  • @73.168.15.161: Try right-clicking on each page and clicking "Translate to English". The magazine scans will be harder to translate as they are images rather than searchable text, but you can use a "PDF to text" site like https://convertio.co/ocr/french/.--Coin945 (talk) 13:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Sweet, thank you! I will look into the translations later, and use the various English ones as much as I can right now. :) 73.168.15.161 (talk) 21:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Temple of Facts

I thought this bit from the Signpost might interest the rest of the project:

Michael Kinsley's "Department of Amplification: William Shawn and the temple of facts" (The New Republic, 1984 – and well worth a read in full) is a pitch-perfect sendup of The New Yorker as "a weekly monument to the proposition that journalism consists of the endless accretion of tiny details":

The June 18 New Yorker has an article about corn. It's the first in what appears to be a series, no less, discussing the major grains. What about corn? Who knows? Only The New Yorker would have the lofty disdain for its readers to expect them to plow through 22,000 words about corn (warning: only an estimate; the TNR fact checkers are still counting) without giving them the slightest hint why. Here is how it starts (after a short introductory poem):

When the New England farmer and botanist Edward Sturtevant retired, in 1887, as head of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, in Geneva, he left behind a bulky manuscript that was published in 1919, twenty-one years after his death, as "Sturtevant's Notes on Edible Plants." Dr. Sturtevant, who was also a graduate of the Harvard Medical School, but never practiced medicine, had scoured the worlds botanical literature for mentions of all the plants that human beings were known to have eaten (he did not count tree bark, which in times of famine was often one of them), and had come up with among more than three hundred thousand known plant species, two thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven edibles. (Latter-day scientists believe he may have missed as many more.) But, of all these, only a hundred and fifty or so have ever been widely enough consumed to figure in commerce, and of those a mere handful have been of any real consequence.

Now, there are some facts for you. No doubt every single one of them has been checked. You stand in awe as they tumble toward you, magnificently irrelevant, surrounded by mighty commas, mere numbers swollen into giant phrases ("two thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven"), all finally crashing over you with the bravura announcement that nothing you have just read is "of any real consequence." How true this is! From the end of the paragraph, you gaze back on the receding vistas of inconsequence, as far as the eye can see. Even supposing we would like a bit more information about corn, and even supposing we might be relieved to know how many other plants, edible and otherwise, are not going to be discussed in this article, why are we being told about a man whose count apparently was off by half? Even supposing we need to know about Dr. Sturtevants book, when it was published, and when the good doctor died, why do we need to know when he retired? Evenstretching itsupposing that we need to know that this gentleman "was also a graduate of the Harvard Medical School," why, oh why, do we have to learn that he "never practiced medicine"? As for the business about tree bark, that has just got to be conscious self-parody.

How many sections have I read (and some, written) that could receive this same criticism. I don't review articles as much as I once did, partially because repeating oneself is tiring and partially because it's often very hard to impart the message quoted above. We're an encyclopedia that writes for a general audience. The text/prose should give readers a general understanding of the topic, not account for every news release printed about a game, not include plot detail for games with no plot, not list reviewer opinions as a waterfall of quotes, not list every Virtual Console release date, not skip details about how the game works by assuming reader familiarity with extreme jargon. These issues aren't isolated to WP's video game space, but at the very least we should be doing a better job of minimizing the precedent for new editors. Anyway, hope the above excerpt resonates with some. czar 16:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate this section from The New Republic, but I think I interpreted it a bit differently than you did. This criticism seems to exist in two parts. For one, the quoted section seems to try to overwhelm the reader with interesting capital-F Facts, speaking in a grand way about a Man and his Work. I don't think people really write like that in plot and reception sections on Wikipedia. We don't write that Ocarina of Time sold "one million eight hundred thousand three" copies or something like that, and we don't give the life story of the journalists that have reviewed the games we describe (thank God).
The second and main criticism I am reading in this bit is that the New Yorker article simple went completely off-topic, talking about a man who seems to be completely unrelated to the subject matter in excruciating detail. I don't believe we ever do this.
This all being said, I am undermining an argument I completely agree with here. We should be mindful of what information is relevant to our audience and not go into too much plot detail or keep listing similar quotes. When we write a plot section, we should think about what is relevant to understand the work, and when we write a reception section, we should think about how different reviews fit together. I appreciate that you bring this up, as it cannot be repeated often enough. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:49, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Ninja Gaiden (Atari Lynx video game)

Whats with the multiple moves? Is there a load of ghost redirects now?? Also, it's clearly titled Atari Lynx before, why did the last editor change it to video game? Now it seems overly long! Govvy (talk) 22:01, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

We have standard naming conventions. A) The title of the platform is "Atari Lynx", not "atari lynx". B) Even this title is insufficient--it should really be Ninja Gaiden (1990 video game). --Izno (talk) 22:19, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
1990 would make it ambiguous with other games titled Ninja Gaiden with release dates in 1990. Ben · Salvidrim!  22:21, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
Those titles being indicated clearly by a red link? :) --Izno (talk) 22:23, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
The only other title in 1990 has a natural disambiguation. --Izno (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
There are like a dozen games titled "Ninja Gaiden" released in 1990. If anything the redlink should be a dabpage. Ben · Salvidrim!  22:40, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict)Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (video games)#Disambiguation by platform. This is the specific case that led to the broader discussion but I think the discussion should be centralized at WT:NCVG. The article was started at "Ninja Gaiden (atari lynx)" which was patently unacceptable, I fixed the capitalization, and then realized NVCGDAB was unclear on whether the dab should be platform+video game or just platform, hence the discussion. Ben · Salvidrim!  22:21, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Having various redirects to the same article that are all reasonable (like "Ninja Gaiden (Atari Lynx)") is completely fine, or even good. None of these redirects need to be deleted. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 07:45, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
Forgot I wrote this, k, I thought it a bit odd, but you peeps seem to think it's okay. Govvy (talk) 22:25, 1 September 2018 (UTC)
No problem. We have plenty of space on our website for an extra redirect or two, it's no big deal :) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

New Articles (August 24, 2018 to September 1, 2018)

 Generated by v1.10 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 12:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

August 24, 2018

August 25, 2018

August 26, 2018

August 27, 2018

August 28, 2018

August 29, 2018

August 30, 2018

August 31, 2018

September 1, 2018

Now Polygon will be dropping review scores

[2]

This is the third major site, after Eurogamer and Kotaku, to drop these, though they will leave a simple note if they would classify the game under their "Polygon Recommends" category (which as they describe, would be their list of nominees for what games would be then considered Essential. This is similar to EG's approach). That means some games they review but give no qualifier for (eg [3]) compared to those they do ([4]) Kotaku seems to have completely dropped any type of summary statement at this point as well.

I'm think that we should be looking at the review score template that for these sites (EG + Polygon at least), if they do include their special language or badge, that we should include that in the template. If they don't (as Polygon didn't for Madden 19) then we don't include that line in the review. --Masem (t) 15:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

  • I noticed this with their recent Dragon Quest XI review. It seems to be a more common trend the last few years, but it really only affects their inclusion in the reception template. Their summarized opinion should still belong in prose. However, should their "recommended" tag be added to the template for relevant games? I'm still not sure if we're supposed to add Eurogamer's "essential" either. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 15:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm think both "Recommended" and "Essential" should be included from both EG and Poly. The only issue with Poly is that they are saying up front that they will initially review and tag a game Recommended, and post-review, may come and remark that Essential - however, I'm not 100% sure how that works yet, if the review is updated or if they just list out the game in an article about their Essential games. (EG makes the distinction right up front). --Masem (t) 16:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
      • Thanks, I had always just assumed only values and (rating) stars belonged there, not worded "seals" of recommendation. The only issue with them is they would only apply for games that received them, meaning it would be omitted if they don't think highly of the game (unlike numbered reviews, which could be 5/10 or whatever). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Imaqtpie

Imaqtpie has had his article deleted twice due to notability. I am working on a new draft at Draft:Imaqtpie and have been putting a lot of effort into it. Please take a look at it to give suggestions on how it could be improved, I'd really like his article to survive this time. Derek M (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Top tip: Don't say "his article" It's not his article, it's (potentially) Wikipedia's article about him. He won't own it, control it or have any say in it's content - bar pointing out corrections and suggesting additions - as for the draft; it's got one Rolling Stone interview, everything else appears to be primary sources, or news announcements, I don't fancy it's chances. On a separate note to everyone else... {{Infobox Twitch streamer}} is a thing? Really?!- X201 (talk) 07:50, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Remove some of the wikis and primary sources that are currently used, and replace them with published sources from established news outlets. There's at least some stuff available: The Daily Dot about his wedding, The Daily Dot about the Echo Fox team, and The Rift Herald about the Echo Fox team. That being said, it's indeed pretty difficult to write an article using only reliable sources. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:03, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Maplestrip: I actually already had a citation on his wedding, but forgot to save it, so I apologize for that. As for the Echo Fox citation, that is the issue: it is easy to find sources on Imaqtpie joining Delta Fox because it is so recent (I just haven't gotten around to writing about that part of his career yet), finding sources for stuff earlier than that is hard. I agree that the wikis need to be removed, which is why I added "better source needed" to them. Team SoloMid cites the same wiki five times, but I am working on it, I've already replaced some of them with better sources. Derek M (talk) 11:41, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I have a habit of skirting the line of Wikipedia's notability guideline. I also have a habit of writing about topics I know very little about. What I tend to do is try to write an article using only information found in accepted reliable sources and completely ignore everything else as "non-notable". I know that it may be awkward to have an article about a person and almost completely ignore their early career, but I think that is what I would recommend. Articles with original research and information sourced to fanwikis will always get more negative attention from long-established editors with high standards. Either way, I commend your work! Worst case scenario, you just have to wait several more months for more sources to show up for this person before the article is accepted, I think. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Sometimes it's hard to create an article, that is in depth about the subject. Most of the time, take a look at the sources, and see if they meet the guidelines. If they do, use them to create a small article, (Or a stub), and expand with other information that can be sourced. I'm amazed that infobox exists, and certainly shouldn't have a "catchphrases" tab.
I'd also be careful to only refer to the subject as "Imaqtpie" in the lede, as this is a BLP, and should use the subject's real name in any career section. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 12:55, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
The MoS says to do what other articles do. Bjergsen refers to him pretty much exclusively by his nickname. Same with Dyrus. As for the bad citations, I've found replacements for all of them. Derek M (talk) 13:02, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Oh, this is looking pretty good! You're doing good work :) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:09, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Maplestrip: Thanks. While I am not new to Wikipedia, I have never created an article before so I'm a bit confused on the process. The draft was originally created as a joke and so they proposed it through AfC. I'm an auto-confirmed user though so can I just delete the proposal and move the draft to Imaqtpie? Derek M (talk) 16:50, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Despite having created tons of articles, I've never used the drafting process, so I don't know the mechanics of it. I hope someone else here can help? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 16:55, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Maplestrip: An administrator told me that technically I could make the article but they recommend I wait for the AfC to be approved. Unfortunately that will take a long time considering the size of the back log at the moment. Derek M (talk) 17:29, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I've recently been trying to go through a load of esport articles changing the last name thing. You don't see things like this in other such articles, so they should all meet BLP guidelines. We should refer to the person, rather than the identity (unless the identity is somehow held by lots of people). eSports articles are all in need of a dedicated MOS for exactly this. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 19:04, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: Okay, I will change it to match BLP. I agree an MOS for eSports articles would be useful. I was following suit from other eSports articles I had seen, and in the meantime of the MOS I will change those articles to match BLP as I notice them to hopefully prevent someone in the future from making the same mistake as me. Derek M (talk) 21:48, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Loltyler1

Hello, this is my first article creation, if anyone could assess it that would be great. Loltyler1. Thanks! Derek M (talk) 23:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

  • @Derek M: I personally think it is a great article. Quite impressive for your first-timer. Nice job! Sources are strong, complies with our Manual of Style, has no copyright violations, seems notable and comprehensive. I found this ESPN source here that you might find useful. MX () 04:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
@MX: Thanks! And thanks for that source. I actually knew about that event but left it out of the article because I couldn't find a source I was happy with -- this one is great! If you are interested, you may also take a look at my "other" first article, which was written concurrently with this one: Draft:Imaqtpie. Derek M (talk) 05:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
@Derek M: Fantastic. I added it to my Watchlist and will comment once it get reviewed by the AfC team.
BTW, I added a "Citation needed" tag at Tyler's page for a claim that I think deservers a seperate source. I'm thinking once that is taken care of, we should nominate the page to Did You Know. It's a great place to get more eyes on your work because articles nominated there are displayed on the main page (meaning thousands of views!), and you'll get more experience on what newly-created articles should look like. Cheers, MX () 05:22, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
@MX: Thank you for all your help. I agree with the citation needed. Also I agree that the Jensen ban was not very relevant as it was originally written, but I am going to reword it and move it out of the footnotes because it is important to the subject. As a League of Legends streamer, getting permanently banned was obviously bad for Tyler1's career. While ID bans are rare, the Jensen ban was the only time in history they'd ever been reverted. This gave Tyler1 the motivation to reform and indeed he later became unbanned as well, the second person in history to accomplish that. Derek M (talk) 05:33, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sonic Heroes/archive1

This has been open for a bit without a ton of commentary. Any comments would be appreciated, and I'd be willing to review anything for someone in exchange for a review of this. Thanks! JOEBRO64 22:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Improve dates to all video game articles.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


I would want to improve all video game articles to go back to being MDY instead of DMY. Permanently. I've tried visiting another wikia, but they blocked me for vandalism when I didn't do anything wrong. Zacharyalejandro (talk) 05:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)Zacharyalejandro

Dmy should be used on British video games and in some other cases. They don't all have to be mdy. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 06:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
@Zacharyalejandro: MOS:DATEFORMAT applies to video games just like it does to any other article. I suggest you read that section which explains that the date format should conform to the format commonly used in the country most associated with the subject. MDY (as stupid as that format is to non-Americans) makes sense for US games but not for European ones. Consistently changing date formats against guidelines might be considered disruptive editing here as well and might thus lead to a block. Regards SoWhy 07:38, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
If another wikia blocked you, that's on them. To have all dates changed MDY "permanently" goes against guidelines, so that's not improving articles at all. soetermans. ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 08:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Zachary has repeatedly had DATEFORMAT and DATERETAIN explained to him in the past, this is a continual request of his that all articles follow his personal preferences. -- ferret (talk) 12:46, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Do user date preferences actually work? I turned it off ages ago, when it was flaky. Perhaps pointing them towards that may work. - X201 (talk) 07:54, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
They might or might not, but what it boils down to is date preferences requires you to log in, leaving those IP/non-registered readers in the cold, so DATEFORMAT/DATERET are written assuming there are no user date preference tools. --Masem (t) 12:21, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Auto date formatting has been gone for close to a decade. The only other time related preferences of which I'm aware relate to interface things, like the times on the history, contributions, and watchlist pages. --Izno (talk) 12:48, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should GA reviewers be able to read the language used in a majority of references?

Due to VG GAN being backlogged again (oldest nom sits at two months now), I considered helping out a bit and noticed that a number of nominated articles use Japanese references for a majority of footnotes. Is it sufficient for GA reviewers to be able to GTranslate those links or should I leave such nominations to more experienced reviewers who also speak Japanese and thus can understand those references? Regards SoWhy 13:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

  • @SoWhy: I think that if an article relies mostly on foreign-language sources, it would be good practice to add a GA note saying "Most sources in this article are in Japanese", for example. If a reviewer who is not fluent in Japanese still wants to take on the article, I think he/she should be more than welcomed to. I'm more concerned with the reviewer's competence in reviewing than whether or not they can verify the text 100% (Google Translate is pretty good nowadays, right?). We can accept most of the info in good faith (especially if they are offline), but for contentious claims, we can always request a translation. I'm worried that leaving such nominations to reviewers who understand Japanese will end up increasing backlog overtime and/or scaring away potentially good reviewers from contributing here. MX () 14:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't verify claims in the sources in GARs unless I read something particularly odd or suspicious. I'll do spot checks on occasion especially if they are a new editor that hasn't established a pedigree. TarkusABtalk 14:29, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • GA reviews are regarding the work of the article. Foreign language or difficult to translate should be taken in WP:GOODFAITH, the same as what we do for print sources. If there is a particularly contentious claim, that might have to be taken a bit further; but those should be the exception, rather than the majority. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 13:03, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I would recommend GA reviewers do at least a cursory spot-check for referencing, both to make sure that cited sources match up with the text and to also double check for plagiarism. If the majority of references are in another language and Google translate can't assist, then flagging another person or bringing it to the project's attention might be a good idea if you have concerns. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 20:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:VG/MOS/esports

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Hi all,

I know this has been raised a lot of times (by me a few times), but as someone who doesn't know a great deal regarding esports, seeing articles created for this, but having no consistency is a little worrying. So, I've created a few guidelines, and I'd like your input regarding them. There are a few topics that need to be discussed in depth, and this is simply a first draft (The guidelines are based off WP:PW/MOS; which was simply the first one I looked at, and the style can be easily changed.

eSports MOS
Capitalization

Per MOS:TM, WP:CAPS, and MOS:CAPS

  • The word "esports" should be written as such. If the word is the start of a sentence, then it should be written as "Esports".
  • CamelCases are optional on Wikipedia, but in the interest of uniformity, esports gamer tags should be written as they are created, such as ACHES.
Headings

Per WP:HEAD

  • Limit heading titles to five words or less (not counting dates).
  • Do not refer to the subject of the article within the article's headers.
  • Headers should never be wiki-linked.
  • Capitalize the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest in lower case.
  • Headings should fit regular sports bios. These contain a "professional career", "accolades" and "personal life" sections.
  • Accolades should only contain sourced victories of tournaments; and any individual accolades (such as an MVP award).
Italicization

Per MOS:TITLE, WP:ITALICS, and MOS:MUSIC

  • Italics are only to be used when referencing an event such as in these scenarios:
    • "At the 2003 Electronic Sports World Cup"
    • Italics are to be used when referring to a brand, or company name, and not a persons name or gamertag.
    • Italics should be used for team names.


Terminology

Per WP:JARGON and WP:WORDS

  • Bios should be referred to as (video gamer) as the unique identifier. Common name still applies, so likely the gamertag will be the title of the article, unless the player is more well known for thier real name, or another pseudonym.
  • As gamertags can vary by platform, please avoid using the word in the article. Use Nickname, or Moniker instead.
General

Per WP:BLP

  • Articles should start with the player's names, followed by dates and places of birth, followed by their moniker. For instance: Gustav Magnusson (born April 1, 1992, Stockholm, Sweden), better known by his moniker s4, is a Swedish professional esports Dota 2 player who currently plays for Evil Geniuses.
  • Despite being the common name, use the subjects last name when referring to them inside an article. Don't write:

s4's career started playing Defense of the Ancients (dotA), instead Magnusson's career started playing Defense of the Ancients (dotA)

The big things for me, is getting the italicization consistent of esports (Whichever way we go), articles using real names in articles, rather than the gamertag (meeting all other WP:BLPs) and accolades only being confined to tournament wins (Or, potentially second places, as with other sports), and individual awards.

Any comments would be grateful. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 09:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

I think it might be better to discuss each of these proposed guidelines in a different space, as I can already see that you are suggesting a few guidelines that don't have consensus (such as typing "esports" as such and italicalizing event names, which I've never heard of before). Moreover, I don't think we need to repeat things that are already in the Manual of Style, as we should focus on the guidelines that are unique or different in the field of esports. Anyone have any idea where we can best discuss these proposed guidelines? ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:00, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the main issue, is that these things have been discussed ad nauseum, with no real driving force behind them. Having something in place with consensus (removing anything that is contentious) is the first step, and we can discuss things to add after that. This was simply a guideline for what we could include. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:12, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I think just creating the suggested page with a single line, like "The word 'eSports' is written as such", and just expanding from there as people add stuff and discuss stuff on its talk page, is probably the best way to go about it. I don't think we need to prepare for this guideline page at all, really. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
A few thoughts: 1. Headings by promotion is presumably copied over from the pro wrestling MoS and doesn't make sense here. Suggest that where subheadings are necessary we use by game, by team, or by year(s) (in that order of preference). 2. When listing accolades won as part of a team, do we also list the team they were won with? 3. Italics also for titles of video games, no? (Possibly comes under "brand", but worth making explicit.) 4. What about esport events? In particular, how do we refer to players in event articles? By their handle, or by their real name? 5. Better to say that gamertags vary by platform, rather than by console. Lowercaserho (talk) 11:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)1) indeed, removed. 2) I'd say so. Even if it read: World Call of Duty Championships (With ComPlexIty), 3) Yes, video games to be italicized, as per normal. 4) Events should be italicized IMO. Events should really use the handles, as they work similar to stage names. 5) Sure, platform is a better word. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 11:37, 5 September 2018 (UTC):
  • Before this discussion goes any further on this talk page, I have created a new page with barely any content: Wikipedia:VG/MOS/ESports. Please bring discussions to its talkpage, under individual headers. Feel free to improve the page itself boldly, seeing as I only created the barest possible page. Also, some editors with more experience creating these types of back-end pages may be interested in fixing some of the mistakes I made setting it up. Thank you all very much, and I hope we can develop a good, consistent, and useful manual of style. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:36, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • How about we discuss each of these separately? Some of these have a present consensus against, and some of them don't need to be "ruled on" in our context, some of them already exist as such exactly elsewhere in a video game context, and any or all of the interesting rules should go into WP:MOSVG instead of a separate page. So I would recommend having this converstaion at WT:MOSVG instead. --Izno (talk) 12:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Agree with Izno. A subpage should not be done. Anything pertinent should be worked into normal MOS. And any MOS discussions should occur at the MOS page, not the Project talk page. We lost that when the content guideline was promoted, it's not "ours" anymore and has to be discussed at it's own talk for the wider MOS community to see. -- ferret (talk) 12:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
      • Thirded. Sergecross73 msg me 12:52, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
        • So I guess I jumped the gun on moving all of these discussions to a different page? I've already started three discussions on it as well, and I can think of half a dozen more that would probably come up in the near future. Wouldn't it be useful to have a separate archive for esports related MOS-topics specifically? I feel like all the esports MOS decisions we make just kinda disappear in the ether thus far. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:30, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
          • A little. We can still make sure all of the discussion ends up in the right place. --Izno (talk) 13:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
    • @Izno: I agree that these guidelines should be in WP:MOSVG and not Wikipedia:VG/MOS/ESports. Due to the title "eSports," it seems exclusively for current and former professional eSports athletes, however most of the guidelines (such as a reminder to use the subject's real name in the article) can and should also apply to streamers (who are not eSports athletes). Derek M (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
      • I agree. This would also include eSport events and organizations by the way, which each have their own quirks compared to normal sporting events and clubs. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:15, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Not a problem to me whether this becomes part of the main MOS, or if specialized, provided we clear up some of the more confusing aspects. We currently have three main types of articles that are to be covered with any changes.

Is there anything else that would be effected by this? I understand I am not the best person to put forward changes, as I am not exactly familiar with esports, but it is large enough on Wikipedia to require conventions. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 07:44, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Besides the spelling of the name (eSports, esports, e-sports), those are the three primary categories which would be covered under this MOS. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
It may be obvious this falls under "events" but we should also consider the eSports leagues like Overwatch and NBA 2K, and their respective season articles, should also be considered. Also, by extension, this should also be advice for any video games that have a significant esports/streamer aspect (eg Fortnite Battle Royale and streamer Ninja.) --Masem (t) 01:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion of possible merge at Unity Technologies

Hi editors, I am looking for more voices to a question I posted at Talk:Unity Technologies. I started an informal discussion there to see if editors think it might be worth pursuing a possible merge of Unity Technologies and Unity (game engine). So far, I received one response, which was thoughtful and constructive, and I am hoping to hear from others. The full discussion is over at Talk:Unity_Technologies#Possible_merge?, and I hope WikiProject Video games editors will take a look. I want to disclose my conflict of interest: I am here as the representative of Unity Technologies on Wikipedia. --Matthewpruitt (talk) 17:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Article rename

The article Isometric computer graphics has been moved around under different names in the past few months. The latest move request is here. The article is about video games mostly, so the current name is maybe too general in scope. What do you think? ➧datumizer  ☎  21:42, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Credits in infoboxes

These are assumed to be sourced to the game itself and don't require sources, right? I just passed Sonic Shuffle's GAN but a user (@MX) is arguing that it should be sourced and added to prose as well, which both the nominator (@TarkusAB) and I disagree with. JOEBRO64 21:23, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Yes. If they can't be sourced to articles or a website or something, a self-citing video game template could always be used if technicalities require it. The same general guidelines apply to the game's plot too, which rarely has sources discussing it in detail. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:29, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Explicitly citing the game's credits or manual might be preferable to only implicitly doing so (like we usually do with plot summaries). I would also recommend that key staff are mentioned in the prose.--Alexandra IDVtalk 21:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • If the people are not mentioned in prose, then are they really significant enough to be mentioned in the infobox? After all, what are names without context? —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 22:18, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Per WP:INFOBOXCITE, infomation in the infobox has to be cited elsewhere in the body. This is different that plot summaries. MX () 05:01, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Technically, they should be. But I think going around and removing them if they aren't isn't beneficial and should not be done. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:13, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Begs the question of whether it's important to list and cite a game's staff in the infobox if the only sources are primary (no mentions of importance in secondary sources). For AAA and auteur games, ya, makes sense to list those bluelinks in infobox, but more often than not, no use adding names/facts to the infobox that are of minimal relevance to a general audience. czar 11:30, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Template:Video game reviews in multiplatform mode with reviews for multiple platforms

Hi there. I wanted to use Template:Video game reviews in the multiplatform mode for the first time for Dungeon Siege III but I'm confused with the usage. If a publication reviews the game for all platforms at once, are you supposed to use GEN = yes and Publication_GEN = Score to add a "General" tab? Wouldn't it be better if multi-platform reviews were displayed across all columns? Regards SoWhy 12:41, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

  • If I understand correctly, general consensus is not to use the multiplatform version of the template. It just looks ugly and takes up way too much space. The normal template should work fine. JOEBRO64 13:12, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
    Really? I've seen it used in other articles, including GAs/FAs iirc. If that is really consensus, shouldn't we deprecate it? Regards SoWhy 13:57, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
I've seen people say there is a consensus against using this template, but I've never seen the actual conversation. If it is consensus, the template should be removed (or make it invisible until it can be removed from articles). Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:10, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Weird, because these are FAs and these are GAs that use the template in this form, so those should all no exist then, no? Regards SoWhy 14:40, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
"It depends". Take Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U for example, a bit of a specialized case of a game released separately on two platforms, and EVERY row of the table is filled in for both systems. That's fine. The problem that usually comes up is someone uses it for a game on 5-7 systems, and like 2-3 random scattered reviews are in each column, often only one or two per row. Then there's a huge table with mostly empty cells. In that scenario, it's preferable to abandon the multi-system format and denote the few platform specific reviews the same way we normally do Metacritic. -- ferret (talk) 14:58, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Looked at Dungeon Siege III finally (later in my watchlist), and yeah, I would definitely abandon it on this article. -- ferret (talk) 15:20, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Okay, thanks, will do that. Maybe someone can come up with some guidance text to add to the template's description? Regards SoWhy 17:57, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Help needed.

Hello. Does anyone have any more old magazine reviews for the game Psycho Killer? This is due to the article currently up for deletion, for lacking significant coverage. And, some more old magazine reviews will prove further notability of the subject. Your help will be appreciated. Thank you. The Duke Talk page, please ping me anywhere else. 10:23, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

New Articles (September 2, 2018 to September 8, 2018)

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Gex sales figure dispute

Hi all. I'd like some input on how to display some information on the sales of the original Gex game. Discussion and explanation of the issue can be found here. Any input is welcome. Thanks! Sergecross73 msg me 15:44, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Naming of eSports RFC started

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Video games#RFC: Standardization of "eSports"/"esports"/"e-sports" for an RFC to try to establish what consensus is for how to name eSports for MOS:VG. --Masem (t) 21:02, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

More input needed regarding possible automatic updating of Template:WPVG announcements

Please see WP:BOTREQ#Update GA section of Template:WPVG announcements for more details. Basically, I thought the GAN updates (currently manual) could be done by bot but Kadane (correctly) asked why the rest shouldn't be handled by bot as well, so please participate if you are interested. Regards SoWhy 15:14, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

More discussion requested from eSports-inclined editors

Discussion is on the PSG.LGD talk page here. A user was previously banned there for being uncivil and making threats, and now we have two brand new editors whose created purpose has just been to discuss this (possibly brigading/banned account avoiding?) So, I'd like some discussion from more of the trusted eSports inclined editors here to give their opinion, although all are welcome. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:35, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

I'll come take a look when I get a chance. --Izno (talk) 19:23, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Dragon Awards

Are the Dragon Awards notable? I saw someone add it to Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, but I didn't think we added such fan-made polls. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 15:59, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Despite its notability (at least, for having a Wiki article on it), I'd say we shouldn't include them in articles because they seem to be fan-voted and we usually try and avoid those. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:37, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
    The awards seem to get coverage outside of the organization which created them, if I'm overviewing the sources right? I think it's reasonable to include these awards, but the dedicated tables, as always, make me quite sad. Especially, as in this case, there is only one award. --Izno (talk) 19:24, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
    If there's only one award, you can just write "It won a Dragon Award in the category "Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game" in 201X" and leave it at that, honestly. No need to create a separate section for it, let alone a table. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Leapfrog LeapTV educational game console goes in the 7th Generation or in the 8th Generation?

While researching, I found that Leapfrog made a cartridge based TV console called the LeapTV, as far as I'm aware it was released in October 2014 (Video of a review talking about the new product).

My problem arises from the fact that this relatively recent console does not have a page on Wikipedia, so I couldn't find a consensus as to what generation it might belong to.

On one hand, this seems like a 7th Gen. system, it's similar to the Wii in some ways, and the computing power isn't on par with the 8th Gen., but it would make it the last system released in this generation, 8 years after the PS3.

On the other, this system was released in 2014, the second year of the 8th Gen.

It has happened in the past that previous gen consoles have come out during the next (One example would be the Amstrad GX4000 (1990) from the 3th Gen. (1983-2003) that came out during the 4th gen.(1987-2004)).

So is the Leapfrog LeapTV 7th Generation or 8th Generation?

Talkkaris (talk) 14:01, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

...Probably neither. Reliable sources rarely consider educational toys like this to be part of the video game generations... Sergecross73 msg me 14:21, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
This console does not seem like a toy, it’s a console, albeit an educational one, it has interchangable media cartridges, a controller, a camera, and it hooks up to a tv, it is also similar to consoles like the Socrates and V.Smile by Vtech, even the View Master Interactive Vision, and all of those are organized into generations acording to the release date and technology.Talkkaris (talk) 15:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, we can see what others say, but I've never seen any reliable sources discuss it as part of either generation, and if sources don't include it in the generations, then neither should Wikipedia. Sergecross73 msg me 16:01, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Consoles are generally grouped into "generations" by reliable sources discussing them as competitors (SNES vs. Genesis vs. TG16 or PS4 vs. XBONE vs. Switch). I strongly doubt any reliable source has ever described LeapTV as a competitor to other consoles or included it in any "generation". Ben · Salvidrim!  12:14, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Admins, keep eyes on Toad...

Toad (Nintendo) may be coming under some issues today, due to this story related to Stormy Daniels and Trump (semi-NSFW) [5]. --Masem (t) 14:55, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Mushroom might be more in danger but I'll watchlist it pre-emptively. Thanks for the heads-up. Regards SoWhy 15:10, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
The story doesn't actually say "Toad", but two statements mention "mushroom character" and "Mario Kart" so everyone is going there. --Masem (t) 15:13, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Well this made it to Gizmodo. GamerPro64 17:45, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

That feeling when you get disruption on WP because something is in the news. But then the disruption on WP itself makes the news and you get more disruption because of the disruption making the news. GMGtalk 18:15, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
It's like back in the day when admins were rushing to defend any article Stephen Colbert mentioned on his show. Regards SoWhy 18:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I'd just like to show up in an RS one day that doesn't have something to do with Donald Trump. How come nobody at Buzzfeed or Gizmodo isn't really into late 19th century American history? GMGtalk 18:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Goddammit Stormy Daniels, thanks for ruining Mario Kart for me JOEBRO64 23:40, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
I know how ya feel JoeBro64 I actually somehow managed to avoid that until reading the article from Gizmodo from my phone's news feed. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 01:05, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Help with the list of home video game consoles.

I've been editing the article List of home video game consoles because it was severely lacking. Lots of pictures were missing, consoles were missing and had been removed from the list because they weren't "traditional", and other issues.

I'm still working on improving it, but I don't know everything, and I'd like help on fixing up the page. I've got a few isues to resolve;

  1. The list includes canceled and unreleased consoles, and like others, they appear in each respective generation even if they never went to market. I've been including some of those, but I'm not sure where to put the Atari Game Brain. It's more like a first gen system, like the Philips Tele-Spiel, where the cartridges are the main circuit, but it was supposed to launch alongside the Atari 2600 from the second gen. It was made to clear remaining inventory from Atari's dedicated consoles, but where does this console go generation wise?
  2. The Entex Adventure Vision is included in home consoles, but I'm not sure if it should. Sure, it has a built in screen, like the Vectrex, but it doesn't require being plugged into the wall to work, just batteries, but it could also use an AC adapter. If it counts as a home console, why shouldn't the Virtual Boy? It's pretty much the same.
  3. In the list for the First generation, some consoles were standalone products, like the , but others were Series of consoles (the Color TV-Game by Nintendo and the Coleco Telstar have several models). To simplify the list, only one model is mentioned, shouldn't there be a note in each series as to how many models are in the family?

Talkkaris (talk) 13:26, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Quick aside - I'm not convinced that we need the images denoted like they are in this article. This fails WP:NOTGALLERY in my opinion. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 13:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
This page lists every home video game console ever made, sort of like a catalog with some basic important info, and if someone desires to learn more about a certain console, they can go to its specific page. Having the images of the consoles helps with visual identification, alongside the table. It says that it's not acceptable "with no accompanying text", but this page does have the contents of the table, and due to the nature of the article, not much else is needed because it's just a list. It's a starting point for other articles, and it helps having a picture to aid researching. Talkkaris (talk) 14:13, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
When WP:NOTGALLERY talks about that type of text, it is referring to text discussing the object in the photo. Wikipedia is not the place for a featured gallery of images (That's Wikimedia.) I'd be very much against such a gallery. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:28, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I actually think the galleries are used great here. NOTGALLERY is more about "don't upload and put into galleries random pictures just to satisfy a desire to have more pictures on an article" (and a bit of "don't upload random pictures--Commons exists for that"), whereas Talkkaris's defense here is pretty reasonable--visual identification of each of the items. I might even ditch the tables and just move the manufacturers inline with the pictures if this is the next 'final' state, with any notes for prose about missing consoles ("other consoles not pictured include X, Y, and Z"). --Izno (talk) 14:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I too think keeping the images intact in some form is the right decision. The visual identification is, I think, important to the list. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:55, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Some lists will put the pictures in their own column, which is another reasonable approach here and more closely ties the tables to the pictures. The consequence of course is making the tables much larger both in width and in height, generally. --Izno (talk) 14:57, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Given the point of this list appears to help readers find the right generation article (and not so much the right console) that all the images are excess and do fail NOTGALLERY. You also have the problem with edge cases of what are consoles - eg should we include the NES Classic in 8th gen? That said, I think each section can include four images, showing the four highest-selling (or outside that, the subjectively most representative units with the largest image) that will help with the visual idea of what consoles of that generation looked like. --Masem (t) 15:00, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Personally, while it may not be possible due to the number of consoles, I'd recommend changing the format of the list to match List of handheld game consoles, where each console's image is directly next to the information about that console, rather than separate. I think that makes a much better case for the use of the images as it's more clearly for identification. --PresN 15:06, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
A console belongs in whichever generation reliable sources say it is in. Failing that, if reliable sources give clear and unambiguous inclusion criteria for a generation, then consoles can probably be included based on those criteria (and stating the inclusion criteria in the article). If there aren't any sources that make it obvious what generation a console belongs in, then we shouldn't be calling it an nth generation console, as that would be WP:OR. And if there are too many consoles that we can't source to being definitely a member of a specific generation (which is my suspicion), then I question whether the list is best sorted by generation in the first place, as opposed to simply by date. Lowercaserho (talk) 00:23, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

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What's that? I posted this on Thursday instead of Sunday night? You have no proof that I'm 4 days late, and I resent any such accusation. --PresN 03:26, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Still requesting opinions at PSG.LGD talk page

The situation hasn't resolved from the last post made on this over at the PSG.LGD talk page, so more opinions are welcome. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 05:26, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

A few pages to keep watch on

TTG has not formally affirmed that TWD: TFS is cancelled, though we have US Gamer and others saying sources they know say it will be. Until TTG confirms or denies, we need to make sure editors don't try to change that. --Masem (t) 02:02, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Just saw they cancelled the rest of the final season. Its all over now. GamerPro64 02:54, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Source? For posterity. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 03:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Re-reading the article again it mentions unnamed sources but it looks to be telling its cancelled. Source. GamerPro64 03:40, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
There is still yet a statement from TTG directly (not word of mouth) that TWD is cancelled. USGamer is usually not wrong, but I am sure clarity will come in the next day or week. --Masem (t) 12:40, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
  • This actually genuinely shocks me. I remember most Telltale Games titles (i.e. Walking Dead, Minecraft: Story Mode, Batman) being pretty popular. JOEBRO64 12:44, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
    Really sad day for adventure fans. Without TTG there wouldn't have been any more Monkey Island or Sam & Max... Regards SoWhy 14:06, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
We'll probably see former employees form their own small studios to make more adventure games. TTG after all was formed by former Lucas Arts people. 300 people was way too many for the games they were making in my opinion. TarkusABtalk 14:24, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, Ubisoft is already reaching out to laid off employees too. And yeah, I’m also shocked about the closure. I hadn’t played any of their games, but I thought they generally did well commercially and critically, and wasn’t aware of any duds that would have done them in. Perhaps some retrospectives will show some light on it (and it could be documented in their article.) Sergecross73 msg me 23:47, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

NPC meme

Is any of the content in this edit appropriate for the article? 76.231.73.99 (talk) 12:54, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

No, and I've reverted it. --Izno (talk) 13:23, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Review Thread No. 38: September is almost over!

We need another Review thread like we need more video game articles. And we have a lot of video game articles:

FAC
FLC and FPC
GAN
Peer Reviews

And as a reminder we still have the Request board up that is currently backed up all the way back in April 2016. If you are interested in making any article requested there it would be very much helpful. GamerPro64 14:33, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Closed one where the article was sent to AFD which result in 'merge'. (Editors may wish to consider helping with a merge.) --Izno (talk) 14:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I didn't want to be the one complaining about the lack of reviews currently, so thanks for accepting that responsibility.   I've been helping with reviews already but I don't feel experienced enough to tackle huge articles such as FF XIV or Xbox 360/PSP. So some experienced reviewers would be great.
Alternatively, I propose any article nominated for 2 month without review will automatically be promoted to GA status   (since that would net me another GA without having to work on it anymore). Regards SoWhy 07:34, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't think the review log is that backed up, other projects have much longer back logs.
Also I think the request board should be deleted. It actively encourages laziness and there is something to be said about a topic's notability when no one is willing to start the article on their own volition. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ TarkusABtalk 15:24, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
I would suggest making a separate thread about that idea. Closing down the request board would be a big deal. GamerPro64 16:15, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't think "other projects have it worse" is a convincing argument. Just because they are lazy is no reason for us not to show them how fast reviews can happen with the right people on the job  
As for the request board, I think it's a good thing to have. Sometimes you only find interesting games by reading project pages; for example, I created Lethe – Episode One from the request board a while back. Another example is Unavowed which is one of my current GA nominations but which two weeks ago was in danger of deletion at AFD because someone nominated it without following WP:BEFORE. Without a listing on the DELSORT page, I would never have bought and played through this really cool game in three days. Regards SoWhy 16:45, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
I wouldn't really care if the request board got deleted, but it needs to at least have a major cleanup as many of the suggested games don't have good sourcing (if going by the provided sources is anything). ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:17, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
Hey, back off, I got two noms in front of you! Those are much nicer than your bear game  
I got a better idea. How about we just pass any GA nom that is older than 3 months? That would really speed things along   Regards SoWhy 10:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Completely disagree with just promoting old GANs. Especially only 3 months old. There are GANs that are significantly older than this outside of the project. Perhaps a bot that starts a topic here notifying everyone when an article meets this level (or, say 2 months), without a review? We want to encourage the reviews, not simply promote anything that we haven't got time for. P.S. - If anyone wants to do review for review, I have an article nominated outside of this project for 2018 World Snooker Championship, but not too many people are interested in reviewing cue sport articles. I'll see if I can find some time to review some of these. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:32, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Agreed with Lee Vilenski. Also, sometimes our GANs are absolute crap JOEBRO64 11:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Category for time manipulation games

I'm working on an article for the Gardens Between which has a time manipulation mechanic. I recall we had a previous discussion on a category of "slow motion video games" ([6]) which we determined this wasn't really an appropriate category. But I would like to suggest that there is reason for a "Video games with time manipulation" (distinguished from "Time travel video games") where as part of the gameplay the player can slow, speed up, or reverse game time. So this would include the Max Payne series (for bullet time), as well as titles like Superhot, Life Is Strange, Braid, and I'm sure a bunch of others. This should be seen as distinct from time travel, eg the Chrono Trigger concept where you are actually bouncing between time periods. And this must be differentiated with real-time game that feature strategy pauses, like most RTS as well as FTL. As long as we make that distinction clear for the category, does anyone see an issue with this category? --Masem (t) 22:14, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Far more useful than the "Video game set in Random Location" categories. Go for it. -- ferret (talk) 22:19, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
It seems like something sources would generally mention when mentioning the game, and if that's the case, then a category for it is valid. Would this also exclude simulation games that can be sped up, such as RollerCoaster Tycoon? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:47, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
That seems counter to the conceit of the category; I guess because it's just a convenience feature rather than a core part of gameplay. --PresN 01:02, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Yeah. Simulation games with a speed up aren't really mechanics, it's just moving things along. Doesn't actually change anything about the flow or function of the gameplay. -- ferret (talk) 01:07, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea to me. You could add it to the Blinx games too, if I’m understanding things correctly. Sergecross73 msg me 01:27, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Blinx would definitely fit. --Masem (t) 01:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
A second question is what is the best title for a category? "Video game with time manipulation"? "Video games featuring time manipulation"? Other ideas? --Masem (t) 01:47, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, I think the title needs to be a bit more specific. Wouldn't a game like Shin Megami Tensei IV be a good example of a game about time manipulation (The game crosses several different time zones, and alternate worlds), but these are purely story related, and not manipulated by the player (outside of returning to an alternative timeline), as opposed to something like Max Payne, where the player actively uses bullet time to slow the gameworld down (Or, like Mafia 3.) Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 13:52, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
"Video games with time manipulation mechanics"...LOL TarkusABtalk 14:01, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Would you not then also have a Category:Video games featuring time travel, for games with story-specific time manipulation, such as Chrono Trigger Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:05, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Chrono Trigger already has the "Time travel video games" category. Maybe "Time manipulation video games" is the most concise solution here? Sergecross73 msg me 14:08, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
I made the cat as Category:Video games with time manipulation, which mirrors the bulk of other categories that describe a gameplay or game feature. I think the time travel one should be moved to "Video games with time travel" to be consistent. --Masem (t) 14:11, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm fine with whatever wording. Was just throwing it out there. Sergecross73 msg me 14:13, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

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  • @Talkkaris: You don't need to post articles to this list; the bot/my script picks it up automatically on the day that the talk page gets a {{WikiProject Video games}} banner (and thus is known to be under this project) - I've just added one for you, so it'll show up on next week's report on the 27th. --PresN 14:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Why MY ARTICLE unassessed?! Syncro26152XL (talk) 03:30, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Syncri26152XL - Looks like that article was deleted, and the article returned to draft status. Drafts are not assessed, outside of being drafts. I suspect the article was replaced into draft space due to it being declined at WP:AfC, and you promoting it manually. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:12, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Hello

Hi, I have a question, can somebody re-review the Drawception article? It has been being updated quite a bit by me and a few other users, but is it enough for the classification to be different? thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infolover45 (talkcontribs) 17:02, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Hoo boy. A heads up. You're probably not going to like the feedback you're going to get here. There is an awful lot of things that should be changed or deleted if we're really following the guidelines and policies here... Sergecross73 msg me 17:10, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
I've just removed almost all of the recent additions for a variety of WP:NOTHOWTO, WP:GAMECRUFT, unsourced, broken english, and other issues. Still a stub. -- ferret (talk) 17:16, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I know, I am embaressed by this, it is a great example though of how NOT to write an article on Wikipedia, the ones before the reverts, that is, with all of the trivial info, direct citing, and so much more of breaking Wikipedia guidelines.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Infolover45 (talkcontribs) 17:26, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

@Infolover45: I suggest taking some time to read MOS:VG. While it's long, it will cover a lot of our expectations for video game articles, how to organize them, what to include and what not to, etc. -- ferret (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Format the main Project Page.

When I visit the Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, in the Purpose and Goals section, there are several progress bars to indicate how the project is progressing, depending on how complete the articles are, which is nice to have, but my problem comes from the colored bar at the end of the section (the one with Purple, Red, Orange, Yellow, Light Green, Dark Green, and Blue). I had no idea what the colors in this graph meant, it's just a line with a bunch of colors with different sizes, I could try and guess what they mean by looking at the progress bars above, but that's just confusing.

If we go to the Template:Progression rainbow, we can see what the colors mean, but I didn't know what that bar was even called or that it was standard, and I had to open Edit source to see what it was. Making it more obvious at a first glance would benefit the page.

If we look at the High Quality Articles, in the  Featured content and  Good content sections, the bar is much easier to understand what the colors actually mean, being written on top of each section what the color represents, but not all sections are equal, and the text can overlap, so I'm suggesting, at least for the first progress bar, a formatting edit to make it clear what we're looking at.

I'm not well versed in Wikipedia codding yet, it's a bit hard to understand sometimes and I'm still learning, but here is my try at a solution;

Purpose and Goals

 List-Class   Stub-Class   Start-Class   C-Class   B-Class   GA-Class   A-Class   FA+FL-Class   Total 

  • 3.5% List-Class
  • 21.4% Stub-Class
  • 49.8% Start-Class
  • 15% C-Class
  • 4.2% B-Class
  • 5.1% GA-Class
  • 0.9% FA-Class
  • 0% remaining

 Featured content

 Articles (games)   Articles (other)   Lists (games)   Lists (other) 






 Good content

 Video games   Development   Characters   Music   Series   Other 





Since it's the main page, I wanted to ask first before I made any changes to it. If you know about something else to improve the look of what I made feel free to modify it into something better. Talkkaris (talk)<

  • Well, first off, sign your posts please :) but second, I love this. I'm the one who put in those bars (and wrote the templates in the first place), and I actually love it so much I'm going to change stacked bar to use your colored header line boxes by default and progression rainbow to use your colored header as an option. The reason progression rainbow doesn't have a header is that those colors were so associated with the classes that it could get away without being explicit about them, but I'm a) no longer convinced that's even true, even without the evidence of you and b) they just changed the colors for stub and FA/FL slightly so it would throw off even experienced editors now without a header. --PresN 14:01, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Okay, posting as I go: what do y'all think looks better, left-aligned or floating header boxes or original style (and yes, I know on small resolutions 'series' is being overlapped by 'other': --PresN 14:33, 27 September 2018 (UTC)


Video games
Development
Characters
Music
Series
Other





 Video games 
 Development 
 Characters 
 Music 
 Series 
 Other 





Video games
Development
Characters
Music
Series
Other




  • Of these three, the bottom is best. Labels are above their bars, no need to strain eyes with added background colors on labels, in my view. -- ferret (talk) 14:36, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • And an A/B test for progression rainbow- only no header/colored header options here; I can't float the headers because for the (most commonly-used) wikiproject variant there's no control that each bar will be wide enough to support a caption that floats over it without overlaps. --PresN 14:55, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • 6.5% List-Class
  • 6.5% Stub-Class
  • 32.3% Start-Class
  • 12.9% C-Class
  • 9.7% B-Class
  • 12.9% GA-Class
  • 3.2% A-Class
  • 12.9% FA-Class
  • 3.2% remaining


  • 6.5% List-Class
  • 6.5% Stub-Class
  • 32.3% Start-Class
  • 12.9% C-Class
  • 9.7% B-Class
  • 12.9% GA-Class
  • 3.2% A-Class
  • 12.9% FA-Class
  • 3.2% remaining
Sorry for not signing, also, I use wikipedia on mobie as well, and sometimes it can look a bit wonky: How it looks on mobile.Talkkaris (talk) 16:46, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Also, the example you made above would be better, because when putting them in the middle of each section, even with highlighting, they can mix or clip with each other if they're closer together, or if your screen doesn't have a high enough resolution (My laptop is close to 1080p but not there yet, doing ctrl- to zoom out on Google Chrome fixes it but normally it clips), putting it to the side in the order they appear and with each respective color seems to work best. Talkkaris (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

On non-notable game engines in infobox

I know the goal of not naming non-notable game engines in infoboxes is to prevent having players guessing or making up engine names (eg 2016 The Witness is a brand new engine so it doesn't need to be called out). However, there are a few game engines that have been used for multiple games, which can be defined in more detail on the article page about the developer that we should name and link (and redirect too). Clear examples would be Ubisoft's Dunia engine and Croteam's Serious Engine. No, these engines likely will not have standalone pages but these are not one-off engines or the like, and should be named and documented. --Masem (t) 05:42, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

IMO as long as the name can be sourced through reliable sources, it should be fine to include them. However, our template guidelines currently state that the engine needs its own article. Lordtobi () 06:10, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I thought this was for Navigation purposes. This potentially needs changing, as "non-notable" and not having an article are two separate definitions. An engine could be notable, and not have an article. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 09:20, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Right - I have been following the guidelines of only including an engine in the infobox if it has its own article, but I think that recurring, named engines like Yakuza's Dragon Engine are worth including. It is often mentioned in RSs when discussing the games, for the difference in visual quality (among other things) compared to pre-Dragon Engine games in the series.--Alexandra IDVtalk 10:39, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Please consider moving this discussion to Template talk:Infobox video game as it may have a different audience. --Izno (talk) 14:03, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Might be better to notify them than move it there, I'd hate to move it away from here, one of the most populated talk pages in existence. Here is the best bet for a consensus. Sergecross73 msg me 14:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I have found it difficult when I've gone looking to see why the template does something and that knowledge is on this page rather than the template talk page. (Similarly for the MOS as well as NCVG.) I have no issue with a note there at this time--I am just leaving a gentle reminder that we may have audiences which are not this page's audience, so we should attempt not to sort out certain particulars (such as this one) here rather than at their respective talk pages. --Izno (talk) 14:27, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Maybe we should consider loosening it so that "redirects" are acceptable - instances where maybe there isn't stand-alone article, but there is a sourced section or prose about the engine at a respective game or series article? I'd hate to go too loose and subjective on enforcing this, there really are a lot of passerby editors who put in these non-noteworthy (or fabricated) game engine names in articles that don't help things, or if left in, leads to edit wars. I don't want to enable them either... Sergecross73 msg me 14:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I'd be fine with suitable redirects that actually lead to information on the engine. In effect, having an engine listed in the infobox that is not a blue link that leads to actual indepth information is pointless. As long as we can land at appropriate sourced information, redirect or article makes no difference. For what it's worth, I don't ever remove redirects where this is the case. -- ferret (talk) 14:24, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely, we need a dedicated section on the dev's page. For example, Telltale Games#Telltale Tool should be sufficient to include that engine where it is used in the Infobox. the examples of the Serious/Dunia engines do not yet have that but clearly they can be added to CroTeam/Ubisoft's pages appropriately. (but they should still be reasonably sourced). We should be talking engines that have had significant reuse by the company or others, and not one-offs. --Masem (t) 14:37, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I would support explicitly loosening the criteria to a redirect as long it is a section in the target article about the said engine. It's already used like that in some cases. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 16:43, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Also support allowing them if they have at least sectional redirects. This is how it's currently done in practice anyway, so I think the current wording in the documentation is too harsh. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:25, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if anybody has seen or read about this but the engine used for Robinson's Requiem, according to former Silmarils employee Cyril Cogordan, is called "Alis". Here's the interview where Cyril mentions the name of the engine used for that game, though its in French: http://jaguar-64bit.pagesperso-orange.fr/FrenchTouch/frtouch/InterviewCyril.htm Do The Math (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

What about cases where there is a considerable amount of sourced information about the engine in the same article where the infobox is? I'm thinking of cases like Descent to Undermountain.--Martin IIIa (talk) 23:54, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
I'd remove it here. Linking to Descent (video game) definitely isn't quite... right. And a link to itself feels awkward as well, without a dedicated section to link to in either article. -- ferret (talk) 23:59, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

So for example, I just built out Ubisoft#Dunia engine, with Dunia Engine redirecting there. Yes, I could possibly argue a standalone on that much information, but I really don't think it needs it, but that's clearly sufficient to list "Dunia" in the various FC infoboxes. --Masem (t) 00:39, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

And also for Serious Engine within Croteam#Serious Engine --Masem (t) 01:05, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Source request

Anyone got access to issue 148 174 of Nintendo Power? I'm currently rewriting Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge and it's got a review of it, which would be useful for the reception section. JOEBRO64 14:21, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Are you sure it's issue 148? AFAIK that one was released in 2001; #174 should be the December 2003 issue. Lordtobi ()
Whoops, I meant that one. 148 is the page number. JOEBRO64 20:44, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Just reached out to Phillyman—will forward if I hear back czar 21:06, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

This is a proposal for a comprehensive FIVE CATEGORY classification schematic for VIDEO GAMES

I'd like to see something like this included in at least one future list of games, (or else I'll just slowly do it myself after some feedback if I have to).


The "AEPMI" System
(pronounced "Ape-My" - You got a better Acronym?)

Assembly
Environment
Perspective
Momentum
Identity



Assembly (cast of charters)

SP ⚫ Single-Player
2P ⚫ Two-Player
GP(2-13) ⚫ Group-Play (with minimum and maximum if applicable) [sometimes "MP" for Multiplayer]
+m ⚫ with Minion (or single static NPC)
om ⚫ Minion Optional (or optional single static NPC)
+cm ⚫ with Combat Minion (or single Combat/Interactive NPC)
ocm ⚫ Combat Minion Optional (or optional single Combat/Interactive NPC)
+npc ⚫ onpc ⚫ accompanied by any number of in game NPCs and/or Optional NPC entities
MM ⚫ Mega-world Multiplayer [Is the word “mega” or "massive" really necessary here?]


Environment (structure of gameplay habitat)

OW ⚫ Open-World
s-OW ⚫ Semi-Open-World
LW ⚫ Lineir World (this might also include “track” style racing games)
ST ⚫ Set Tracks and Courses [if this is separable from LINIER WORLD games] (includes golf and other such games)
La ⚫ Labyrinth [to avoid another "M"] (maze style & puzzle games)
EW ⚫ Enclosed World (like for Hokey or Chess and other such sports and board games)
FA ? Fighting Arena [or is this just another kind of Enclosed World Game?]
? Others [I’m sure I'm not exactly familiar with every possibility here]
[The use of the word “platform” in this category seems unadvisable]


Perspective (game-play frame of reference to environment)

FP ⚫ First-Person
TP ⚫ Third-Person
F-TP ⚫ First & Third Person Optional
GFP ⚫ Game Forced Perspective
SS ⚫ Side-Scroll (or "Side View")
TD ⚫ Top-Down


Momentum (Drive method for forward progress)

Qb ⚫ Open Quest/Mission Based
s-Qb ⚫ Semi-Open Quest/Mission Based
Lb ⚫ Strict Linear Adherence Quest/Mission Based
Rb ⚫ Reward & Collection Based [this might include from Pac Man to Skyrim]
ShFi ⚫ Conquest Based Combat (I think “shooters” & “fight your way through” are in this category)
St ⚫ Strategy and Stealth [or maybe these two need their own categories]
Ti ⚫ Time Sensitive (beat the clock)
sbs ⚫ Stage by Stage Component Leveling


Identity (Character Building & Goals)

Sc ⚫ Static Character - Auto-Leveling Fixed Character
Lc ⚫ Limited Character Construction Choices
Ec ⚫ Evolving Character Development in multiple possible directions
So ⚫ Singular Final Outcome
Mo ⚫ Multiple Possible Outcomes


Please feel free to add, subtract, rearrange, and otherwise recreate a comprehensive system for categorizing games into reasonable groupings of fundamentally important identifying characteristics.

Personally I can't believe I still have to goggle around for hours sometimes before I can buy a relatively unknown game with adequate enough information just in case it's a "first person only" game - which all make me nauseous and unbalanced - or has a liner world progression dynamic - which holds no interest for me whatsoever.

(I know why... It's probably because developers don't want people to stop and think about just how cheaply constructed some games really are, even as they excel in excellent visuals and sound affects. Some words like "Static" and "linear" probably sound like poison to a developer's promotional branch).


Kuyoti (talk) 18:04, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

It is not WP's place to create a new categorization (we inadvertently did that with the generation breakout before, we shouldn't do that again). --Masem (t) 18:10, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
It is the "place" of all human beings to improve upon that which we have discovered lacking, and to leave any category of data collection in better shape than it was before we found it. Kuyoti (talk) 18:47, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Same, plus WP:NOTCATALOG. We've spent considerable time already just debating whether to denote physical releases. This goes well beyond that. -- ferret (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
My proposed improvements for data collection in video games do not fall under any category in your provided link above. Perhaps you have misunderstood my intention here. Kuyoti (talk) 18:47, 23 September 2018 (UTC)


Not sure I understand... If I was listing a group of insects or road-signs I would categorize them in groupings and fill in their most important basic differences. "These ones have claws on their feet, and these ones are shaped like a triangle." In my opinion I am only trying to help improve the informational content of Lists already under construction. Kuyoti (talk) 18:24, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Think of Wikipedia more like a history book. We don’t make the news, we document it. It is outside of the scope of Wikipedia to create such a classification scheme like this. We could document such a system, were it created and used prominently in the video game industry. But not create it ourselves. Sergecross73 msg me 20:40, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Sergecross73 Think of my proposal like history being written. I don't make news, I document it. It is well within the scope of any encyclopedia to format the data collected on its pages into a comprehensive and logical system of easily identifiable language markers. The "category list" is not a new invention, and "creating one" - so to speak - is exactly the same thing as COLLECTING ONE TOGETHER from out of the collective consciousness, and does not indeed in any way constitute a breach of encyclopedic protocol. It is the intention of this post to generate feedback on what such a category list might look like, and if when peer-reviewed this list adheres to commonly used terminology already well established within the gaming community. Note that the language of commonly agreed terms in any human genre is not an industry driven phenomenon, nor is it reliant on any official dictionary of the time, it is a socially ever-evolving dynamic occurring organically within the specific community it is related to. That being said VIDEO GAMING HISTORY is unfolding right in front of us at this very moment in time, and in its fifty years with us it would be interesting to discover the scope and structure of just what the "taxonomy of video games", (or GAMONOMY, if you will), might actually look like. The attempt to FIND ONE, or to eek one out of the data available so far, is not the same thing as an attempt to recreate the world in my own image. [LOL] I hope this helps. --- Kuyoti (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
I have to agree with Sergecross73. Also, this system is ripe for abuse by disruptive users who'll flood the page with sub-categories for games which incorporate other genres under their main genre. I mean, imagine what Deus Ex would be like under this system. If I tried to read it without knowing what everything meant, I'd just think this was a poorly-managed Wiki page and not bother going on. It'll be too much for people to grasp, turn them off reading the article, and potentially damage this WikiProject and perhaps Wikipedia as a whole. --ProtoDrake (talk) 09:28, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
For your insects example, there is such a system, called taxonomy developed over centuries of understanding by numerous scientists. WP didn't invent that. We need the industry to decide to create such a system and then we could follow that, but we can't create it. --Masem (t) 20:42, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Masem I understand. Let's document this GAME-ONOMY for the fifty years of history we have now, shall we? Don't you think it's about time? Kuyoti (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
KuyotiThis isn't what Wikipedia is. (See WP:NOT). If reliable sources call a game a FPS, we document that. It's not our place to put definitions on things. The only time this is something we do, is when it's not regarding the actual articles, as we discuss how data should be managed, and suchlike.
Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) ----   Lee Vilenski That's EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE DOING NOW!!! Or isn't it? (In The link you provided I find no conflict with what is being attempted here. I think you do not understand what this is.) [shrug] Kuyoti (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2018 (UTC)  
Agree with everybody above. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:30, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Kuyoti - Please read Wikipedia's policy on Original Research, which is one of the many issues with the policy. I understand, as with everyone else, that you would like to create a new categorization protocol for video games. However, Wikipedia is the last place something like this should be implemented. Wikipedia catalogs what reliable sources say about a subject, we don't imput our own thoughts, research or categories on any subject.
Here's the thing, there is nothing inherently wrong with the convention above, but it's not what sources actually use. If say, IGN moved over to this model, it would likely be something Wikipedia might also follow. However, wikipedia simply follows what the world is doing, not create it. (Or, at least in theory. It does happen, but not on purpose.)

This seems to me to be the kind of thing that Wikidata would be good for. Whether these data categories are perfect, I don't know. I do know that they aren't particularly relevant for an encyclopedia, as I don't recommend using Momentum and Identity, as they are defined here, as keywords. Assembly, Environment, and Perspective we already kinda use in lead sections and infoboxes, though I would personally try to limit generic usage of these kinds of terms, as there will always be exceptions and weird outliers. Besides proposing this at Wikidata, another option is to create a new website to collect this kind of data, if you feel like Wikimedia isn't the best place for it. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input. I'm glad people have actually thought about this a little... [thumbs up]
This is exactly how a public encyclopaedia of human knowledge gets built.
So from what I've gathered so far, I wonder if it's safe to assume a few basic points...
--- No such concrete compilation of terms for the gaming world exists as YET. Is it possible that somehow we've collectively forgotten to document this aspect of gaming world reality?
--- If one does exist it is probably from a single-source, most likely a gaming distributor, and is also most likely not peer reviewed or unbiased in nature, (and woefully insufficient for the many sub-categories obviously requiring some attention).
--- There seems to be a misunderstanding between the act of pulling information together from a collective society versus the creation of new information not already available. Logic will clearly identify one from the other, we will not fail in the integrity of what we are doing here.
--- History is written by people. We are people. I'm sure many scientists of the past have had a ragtag team of official documenters telling them all about how they couldn't just go around "creating" their own categories for things, which to the others didn't seem to exist somehow, while through the logic of hindsight reality clearly showed time and time again how they were only listing identifiable traits they observed in the world around them, and attempting to compile them together into a cohesive functional structure of data available. My advice to anyone in this situation is to smile politely, and just carry on with organising information into structure, even if it seems to have no officially definable structure so far. "Officially" IS WHAT WE SAY IT IS - nothing more and nothing less.
--- I hope this discussion inspires people to either take on the challenge presented here, or else accept the deficiencies of the data as they are with at least some mention to their possible improvement, and not let public history look like it was documented by wretchedly uninformed amateurs.
Kuyoti (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Please stop. No one should take on this project on Wikipedia, as it would be a ton of work, and be deleted instantly. It fundamentally breaks our policies. If you want to do this, fine, but you need to find a different website to do it on. Go find a video game wikia or something. Sergecross73 msg me 23:09, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

How about a list of video games by GAME-PLAY CONTENT?

I'm sure some young editor out there might be inspired by the obviously missing data hole in video game encyclopedia listings so far. We need some people of logic on this one. [wink]
Kuyoti (talk) 18:59, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

We do this through categories, not lists, predominately. For example, Category:First-person video games. -- ferret (talk) 20:12, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. A list of First-person video games, or RPG Video games would be ridiculous in scope. Every new article would have to be added to the list. Categories already exist and work for this purpose. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 09:21, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
If there is some specific gameplay component that is both uncommon (or well-listable) and frequently discussed by reliable sources, then that could be a reasonable list. Any genre or genre modifier (be it List of visual novels or List of first-person video games) would just be impossible to keep track of. Something like a List of second-person video games, as weird and unusual as such a concept is, may be possible. Only if there are sources for it, though! ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:24, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Related, but we still have these types of articles (that I thought were deleted in the past...): List of role-playing video games: 2012 to 2013. Anybody want to go ahead and take them to AfD? If not, I will. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:40, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Go ahead Dissident93 - I do like the references section simply saying "no where", however. [7] Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:18, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you all. I pretty much came to the same sorts of conclusions. Kuyoti (talk) 23:10, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Actually I was really only hoping to inspire someone else to take this on. Personally I feel I don't have the discipline necessary to meticulously list a credible source for every entry. Where would one even find multiple sources of the like? There's the manufacturer, the developer, and perhaps the employees of these types of places - but aren't they all going to give their own version of what they think that looks like?
I'm imagining a panel of gamers now... A sage council of elder gamers presiding over the classification of games one by one as they come out, slotting each game into their multiple many layered categories. It sounds funny, but that's exactly how humans do things like this. We get a band of "experts" together, and then TRUST THEM to organize the information they have in their care into whatever way is most comprehensive and logical. And thus a new category structure is born.
We need trusted gamers I guess, and enough of them to form a body of peers who can then vote on issues of this nature, creating a Standard Mark to have everything else in that specific branch of data to live up to. Is anyone out there in an organization creating minded way listening to this? Are the seeds of an idea forming in someone's mind out there in the greater world? I wonder...
Kuyoti (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, they're free to do it somewhere else. On Wikipedia that would constitute original research, which isn't allowed. -- ferret (talk) 23:16, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't even see how forcing categories and other arbitrary terms onto games is even beneficial. But if this ~ Dissident93 (talk) 01:10, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

New Articles (September 23 to September 28)

 Generated by v1.10 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 17:12, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
- Is there really enough articles to warrant the {{UNDERTALE}} template, and should it be re-written to simply {{Undertale}} if so? Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Technically, there's enough, though it's so sparse and feels kinda pointless. The "name" of a template really isn't very important, though moving it to "Undertale" is fine. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:18, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

September 23

September 24

September 25

September 26

September 27

September 28

Bot missed yesterday, so it'll be added onto next week --PresN 17:12, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Computer Gaming World Museum is shut down

I have bad news. Today I went to the CGW Museum, and I found out that the domain name has expired. It might have been because "the IP address has changed", "there is a server misconfiguration", and "the site may have moved to a different server". What a bummer. At least we can use the archived versions of it at the Internet Archive, huh? Here's a link to the downed website. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 02:29, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

It still works to me; apparently, the website probably went back up. George Ho (talk) 20:33, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Images at Monster Strike

The user 彭嘉傑 replaced the long-standing File:MonSt.jpg with File:Monster Strike.GIF, which the user uploaded. I'm concerned about potential copyright issues with the GIF file as it's motioned, while the JPEG one is a screenshot or a capture frame and possibly less risky. Also, what about File:Monster Strike.ogv, which was added a short while back as part of "Anime" section? George Ho (talk) 20:29, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

The edit adding it to the page should be reverted and the gif should be CSD/FFDd for blatantly failing our non-free policy. --Izno (talk) 20:37, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
The GIF and OGV files are PROD-ded. George Ho (talk) 20:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
A gif of the loading screen, and not a gif of gameplay (in which would actually help more?) that's a first. --Masem (t) 20:54, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

I was just wondering if the music track list should be collapsable or not? Govvy (talk) 20:58, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

It shouldn't be there at all. I've removed it per WP:VGSCOPE. JOEBRO64 21:52, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Xenoblade (series)

Hello everyone! Please forgive any grammatical errors as English isn't my first language.

I have been working on an article for the Xenoblade series. It is far from perfect and there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but I think I got the basics done. A few years ago, I attempted to bring the article to the mainspace, but the community at the time thought it was unnecessary due to the series not having enough games to warrant an article. With the series having grown over the last few years, it now has four games under its belt (Xenoblade Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna – The Golden Country) as well as several re-releases and cameo/appearances in other series such as the Super Smash Bros. and Project X Zone series.

It is my belief that the series is big enough to have its own article separate (but not removed) from the Xeno (series) article. Between the four games, it has an identity of its own with certain traits that aren't present in other Xeno games, such as the large focus on exploration, action RPG combat system, recurring themes such as the Nopon race, etc. Nintendo has legal rights to the Xenoblade series, so I believe that's something noteworthy. Another thing to consider is that the Xenosaga series, another subseries of the Xeno games, has its own article.

Before I bring the article to the mainspace, I'd like to get a consensus from the community on whether the series should or shouldn't get an article of its own. Thank you for reading! --MomoQca (talk) 01:35, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  • I’m neutral, as long as the Xeno (series) article is retained, as it’s been heavily developed by myself and ProtoDrake. Sergecross73 msg me 19:06, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I don't see a problem with it, as Xenoblade is often discussed separately from the Xeno series as a whole. JOEBRO64 22:20, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
  • It looks like an article with promise, and since Xenosaga has its own article, I don't see why Xenoblade shouldn't now it's got a descent number of games and press attention there. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:28, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
  • As far as I'm concerned, once a series (even a subseries) reached 3 games, it's entitled to it's own article (Provided it meets GNG, of course!) Something like Persona, which is a subseries of Shin Megami Tensei is a good example. This article could be promoted now, if you wanted. It does need some more work on the reception section, however. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:23, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Since it seems like there are no objections, I will create the article shortly. I will continually update it, which will include beefing up the reception section as suggested by Lee Vilenski. Thanks everyone for your time! --MomoQca (talk) 00:47, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle

It's a stub for now, but perhaps someone with more knowledge of this game can help expand it.—Mythdon (talkcontribs) 04:44, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Amazon Game Studios article

Thoughts are needed on the following matter: Talk:Amazon Game Studios#"Founded in" and "Games" material. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:32, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Palmtex PVS/Super Micro help.

In the past few days, I've been busy at creating a wiki page for the Palmtex Portable Videogame System, it didn't have one, and I found this mysterious console history interesting, so I decided to dig a little deeper to try and understand what happened with it.

The original name wasn't the Super Micro, it seems to have been released in January 1984, not 1983 like the copyright sticker indicates, and Palmtex was actually involved with Nintendo of all people, in distributing the Game & Watch series in 1982, however I'm not sure if the deal ever went through.

I'm not sure if Palmtex reached out to Home Computer Software to help distribute it, or if Palmtex went bankrupt before/after the release and HCS just bought the remaining stock and put "Super Micro" stickers over the PVS name (which they absolutely did, so I'm not even sure if the ones branded PVS just lost the sticker).

It's all very confusing, there's a lot of possible release dates and introduction prices. I have no Idea how many were made, the serial number is located under the battery compartment, and I could only find one code; 3L005366, so I'd imagine there were at least 5366 made???

I've been scavenging every bit of info I can about this thing, mostly from the Internet Archive, if anyone has any more information besides the references I used in the article and talk page, or can interpret them better than me, please tell me, or edit the page, something happened to Palmtex and I'd like to get to the bottom of this before it gets lost, I even made a sort of timeline to help with understanding. Talkkaris (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

So this might count as Wikipedia:OR and you might not want any of it, but I found a user on NeoGaf that has one PVS, and so I asked him on Twitter what the serial number on his was; 4A037157. So the serial number might mean something else, otherwise there were at least 37157 consoles made, probably most are broken trash by now.Talkkaris (talk) 07:12, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Automatic updates of Template:WPVG announcements regarding GA nominees

Hi there. Pppery has added some Lua code to Template:WPVG announcements/sandbox that automatically updates the GA nominees in the currently used format based on the list at WP:GAN, making manual updates unnecessary. Does anyone object to updating the template with this code? Regards SoWhy 07:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

  • If it automates a process without being worse or more liable to break, I don't see who would oppose it. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:14, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Well it looks like I will be out of the job real soon. GamerPro64 22:26, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
    Automation is the future. Time to update your resume. TarkusABtalk 22:53, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
    Not actually, the FACs, FLCs, and peer reviews will still need to be manually updated. Until I decide that this task warrants a special Lua module ... {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 02:26, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
    @Pppery, if you want, feel free to edit directly into Template:WPVG announcements/shell where all the rest of the default formatting rests. We would only need |good_article_nominees= in the editor-facing Template:WPVG announcements if we're planning to list other GANs manually. czar 17:52, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
    The nature of the coding in Template:WPVG announcements/shell prevents that from being feasible: I would have to include my code in there twice, once for the |mode=GAN_only case and once for the regular case. (Sidenote: Does anyone actually use the XXX-only modes? Would it be a good idea to convert them to use WP:LST?) {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:36, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Since no one seems to be opposing this, I've gone ahead and added the code to Template:WPVG announcements (not Template:WPVG announcements/shell as that would lead to code duplication as I mentioned above. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 14:12, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

@Pppery, don't believe I've seen the _only modes in use. I included those when converting from the MILHIST template, though they had more complicated use cases than us. Only place |mode=GAN_only could be useful might be at WP:VG/GC, which I believe PresN (talk · contribs) prefers to maintain manually anyway. I'd be in favor of removing those modes and hardcoding your addendum into the shell template. czar 21:13, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
@Czar: So should I just do that now? {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
@Pppery, sure and if anyone objects, they can revert/discuss czar 23:24, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
@Czar: BRD doesn't exactly apply when one is editing a template-protected template (which I have the rights to do, but that doesn't mean anyone who disagrees does).
Sidenote: it doesn't make much sense for Template:WPVG announcements/shell to have a different protection level than Template:WPVG announcements. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:08, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Looking at WP:VG/GC, using |mode=GAN_only wouldn't actually work, since it has them in a slightly different format. If I were automating that page, I would probably parse GAN from scratch independently of the parsing done here. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 01:11, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, in addition to preferring to maintain VG/GC manually (since I can then easily track when to add an article to the GA list even if the closer forgets to add it to WP:GA/VG, a surprisingly common occurrence), you can't just template out the VG GAN section there- I mean, you could, but every so often someone nominates a VG-related music/film/etc article in a different section at GAN. Not always, of course, but often enough that if you were going to automate it then it would need to be a bot or something pulling from all articles that have the WPVG talk page tag as well as the GAN tag to get 100% coverage- doable, but not the same thing as is being discussed here, unless I'm misunderstanding. --PresN 02:24, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
I believe the task "find all GANs of articles with a WPVG banner, regardless of category" could theoretically be done in Lua, but that's a bit more complex code than I think is reasonable to write. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:21, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I've gone and did what Czar suggested earlier: removing XXX_only modes and moving the code I added to the shell template. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 17:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

The Video games WikiProject now has thirty Featured Pictures under its belt

With the recent promotion of File:Nintendo-Switch-Console-Docked-wJoyConRB.jpg to Featured Picture status, our project now has thirty images at that pristine status. A majority of these images do came from the User Evan-Amos and he deserves a lot of thanks for his effort. And if anyone knows any images that they think meet the Featured Pictures criteria, I suggest nominate them. GamerPro64 18:01, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I nominated this at the start of the year, and was unanimously supported but fell short by one vote. Not sure whether renomination is allowed, but I still think it's capable of being a VG featured picture. Anarchyte (work | talk) 08:21, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
I believe renominations are allowed and it can probably make it through its second nom. GamerPro64 18:18, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
I would nominate this one. ➧datumizer  ☎  18:32, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
Not that I understand the FP criteria, you should probably nominate the Tooth and Tail image. It didn't miss out by much, and I can't see any way it should fail, other than lack of votes (BTW, that seems like a poor way to manage that system. These sorts of votes completely ignore consensus.) Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:20, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Done. Anarchyte (work | talk) 12:41, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I'm surprised how much opposition the nom is getting, especially considering the fact it had a decent amount of support at the last one JOEBRO64 22:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
Im starting to wonder what the standards are for Featured Pictures these days. GamerPro64 23:38, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
I responded to the opposition, but I don't want to look like I'm badgering anyone who doesn't agree, so I'll probably end up leaving and future comments alone. Perhaps it's because people don't see screenshots at FP often, so they're not accustomed to what they should look for in terms of quality. Anarchyte (talk | work) 04:00, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
My nomination of another picture of the Nintendo Switch is getting a lot of opposition too, which is mainly due to this user's elitism and anti-video game stance. Feel free to vote in that discussion. 344917661X (talk) 14:46, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

- The arguments are on the border between pedantic, trolling and disruptive editing in my eyes. Although, they clearly have an opinion, which is to be encouraged. To fight so hard against these pictures is beyond me. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 15:05, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand why they are fighting so hard against these pictures either. If the people voting oppose are not into video games, then why are they even voting at all? They clearly wouldn't be able to relate to video games or video game consoles, so they wouldn't understand the images and would not be interested in what's in them. Like you said in your comment above, I'm fine with people stating their own opinions in discussions, but to base a vote in a discussion solely on your tastes violates WP:IDONTLIKEIT. 344917661X (talk) 19:59, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
I think honestly before nominating any other images at this point would be in vain I think we should wait a month or two before nominating any more. Participating in these discussions recently reminds me why I avoid this area of Wikipedia. ♪♫Alucard 16♫♪ 06:18, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams

Anyone got any thoughts on this article - 100 Sleeping Princes and the Kingdom of Dreams, I've been adding some covers using Evad's new cover userscript, and come across a couple non-notable articles. However, this one seems to be in limbo. There is some coverage from the anime news network, but this seems like a classic case of WP:INHERITed notability from the anime, and is not notable on it's own. Any thoughts? Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 09:53, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I would toss this over to WP:ANIMANGA to see if they think it's got notability as an anime. As a video game, it seemingly does not. --Izno (talk) 11:53, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Tekken images

See Talk:Tekken#Jin Kazama image. I started a discussion regarding whether or not we should use the image of a certain Tekken protagonist. Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 20:54, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Clone reviews

This is something I've been meaning to ask about... Anyone have any thoughts on how to present a game review which reuses most of its text from a review in a different publication, when one or both reviews lack a byline (and therefore can't be confirmed to be the work of the same writer)? Thus far I've just been citing them as normal, distinct reviews, though I usually add a brief statement that the reviews have mostly the same text and, when applicable, that the two publications are from the same publisher. My reasoning is that even though one review adds little that the other doesn't say, the fact that they appeared in two different publications means that opinion reached a wider audience than it otherwise would have. I also think it makes sense to assume that these are not instances of plagiarism; even supposing the reviews come from different critics, if they were working for the same publisher, one critic might allow a colleague running behind on a deadline to use his work. But I am far from confident that I know what I'm doing here, so advice would be welcome.

Also, while on the subject of reviews, can someone tell me what the term "dial-a-combo" means? I've seen it in dozens of reviews, and the meaning is never clear from the context.--Martin IIIa (talk) 21:10, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Google says that dial a combos have to do with the way combos are put in to certain fighting games. --Izno (talk) 21:55, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

New Articles (September 29 to October 4)

 Generated by v1.10 of the RecentVGArticles script and posted by PresN. Bug reports and feature requests are appreciated. --PresN 18:36, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

September 29

September 30

October 1

October 2

October 3

October 4

Once again, the 1.0 bot is flaking out halfway through runs, so I don't have anything past the 4th yet. --PresN 18:36, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Unless I am missing something Alien (Atari 2600) should be Alien (1982 video game).--76.65.40.44 (talk) 20:24, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, moved. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 07:46, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Help uploading an image from a magazine.

I'm looking to add an IMAGE of a prototype illustration on the History section of the Palmtex Portable Videogame System, however, I have no idea what rights this image would have, or if I could even upload it at all. I'm also unsure if it would be better to crop just the image or the article from the page. If anyone could point me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated. Talkkaris (talk) 20:24, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

The image is copyrighted, but can be used under fair use. It may be impossible to find out who exactly the artist of this image is, but that is technically not an issue for fair use. As far as I know, you can just input the publication date and publication name as normal as you go through Wikipedia's upload wizard. Be sure to write a proper fair use rationale, of course. I recommend cropping the image as much as possible per the "minimal usage" recommendation. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:10, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
You could take just the image as fair use. Not the whole article because that would be copyright infringement. But use what's written there as a source for the article. TarkusABtalk 14:42, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Semi-automating cover upload?

Considering the perpetual backload of Category:Video game articles requesting identifying art, I wonder if it were possible to create a userscript that you can invoke on a given article and which then prompts you to upload a file. The file would then be resized if needed, uploaded, automatically tagged with the NFUR-infobox and license tags based on the article you invoked it from and added to the infobox. That way, all you had to do is find a cover but wouldn't have to do all the other steps which are, admittingly, standardized. Does this sound like a good idea (i.e. should I try to find someone to create such a script)? Regards SoWhy 14:09, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I would 100% be behind this. As much as the Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard helps to upload images, in the case of say, a screenshot, or a game cover, the information is 95% always the same, regardless of the image, and article. Anything that could allow images to be uploaded quicker to improve articles in this way would be positive. I can't really see it being abused, as the information would be the same as if it were uploaded manually.
I'd be all for reducing any backlog like this. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 15:38, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
When would this come up, when viewing an article, when editing an article, or some other way? Would this be on all articles in the category, or just selected ones? BOZ (talk) 16:47, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
I'd envision another tab or a link in the toolbox when viewing the article (similar to the DYK Script maybe?). The tool could appear on all articles,regardless of category, since not all articles are tagged accordingly on the talk page. In my vision, the tool would simply refuse to work if no video game infobox is present, thereby preventing misuse on other articles. Maybe limit the use to EC users. Depends also on who is willing to write such a script and what they think is better. This needs some serious skills imho since it requires file uploads and edits to three different pages (file page, article and talk page), plus maybe prompts to enter data. Regards SoWhy 17:34, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
Sounds good to me then! BOZ (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Doesn't sound too bad. Do The Math (talk) 14:31, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
I asked Evad37 to look into making such a script and they agreed to try.   Regards SoWhy 14:39, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
This is great news. I get fed up of looking at huge backlogs that we have no feasible way of dealing with. Things like photos for articles are hard enough to get suitible ones for articles, without having to upload, and copy in the information into the current wizard. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:34, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski, KGRAMR, Evad37, BOZ, and SoWhy: (any anyone else I missed) So I was pointed to this thread by User:Czar... I actually already have a script that does exactly this. I'm currently using it for book covers but can absolutely re-target it to work for Video games if that would be helpful? --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:11, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
I actually just used it to upload an image for Apache 3. Basically the script just takes a CSV file that has 2 params. The name of the page and the URL for the image, then it does its magic. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:32, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
@Zackmann08: Nice one. However, it does not seem to reduce the size of the image. Can you add an option to do it? Otherwise, a bot has to resize them all again. Also, it would be cool if you could just enter the information in a popup instead of a csv file. Plus, could your script handle WikiProject tagging as well, since file talk pages need a WPVG template. I posted a wishlist of other features to Evad37's talk page. Last but not least, you probably should include the fact that the upload and addition is done by script in the edit summary like with all (semi-)automated tools. That said, I'd be happy to help test such a script for video game covers. Regards SoWhy 18:53, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@SoWhy: all of that is already handled except for the image resizing. That is something I would have to look into... Certainly happy to work on it though! For now, go ahead and start adding entries to User:Zackmann08/video games. As they get added, I will run the script. Just for clarity, this script does 4 things at the moment...

  1. Upload the image
  2. Tag the image talk page as being part of the project
  3. Add the image to the article
  4. Update the article talk page to remove the request for a cover

It does not yet reduce the size of the image, but since there is already a bot that does that, I'm not too worried about. Looking into it right now though! --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:01, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: Thanks for the update. I asked about the talk page because the cover for Apache 3 did not have a talk page (I just added it). So it's not a userscript but something you run local, meaning it requires you to be active? Regards SoWhy 19:06, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: yea when I wrote version 2 for video games (converting my old version from book covers) I missed that part. Just fixed it! And yes, it is not a user script. This isn't something I think you can do with javascript... This is something I need to run locally since I'm actually downloading a file. I also need to be active because it is NOT a bot. I have to manually check each edit. That being said, this takes a process that used to take 3-5 per page and makes it a 5-10 second process. The longest part is just finding the images! Once that URL has been located, the script is pretty trivial to run. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:09, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, Evad37 indicated they can possibly do it as a userscript which would probably be better, your great work on that front notwithstanding. After all, maybe the script can then also be used for book covers? I'm happy to use your script for the time being but having a userscript that does not need you to be active (and thus allowing you to take a break once in a while ;-)) would probably be helpful. no? Regards SoWhy 19:22, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: I'm not saying that it can't be done... but there are a few issues with doing this as a userscript. For one, I don't know how well Javascript works with downloading an image from a url. Second, you are looking at making edits to 4 pages: Article, Article talk, File and File talk. User scripts generally only update the text of the current page you are editing. Finally, my understanding of WP:BOTs is that unless you are going to manually scrutinize each edit, your script must go through the full WP:BRFA process. This really isn't something that you can fully automate and just let run. You have to make sure that the image you are getting actually matches the article, etc. As for me taking a break... Don't worry about me. I don't have a life! :-p If someone else comes up with a better solution then I will certainly yield to them, but for now, feel free to start dumping things on that page and I will run it periodically. To give you a sense of timing, if you add 100 entries to User:Zackmann08/video games, it will take me about 5 minutes to run it and scrutinize the edits (there are some automated checks I run to make sure it hasn't broken). Anyway, let me know! I'll be watching that page and if stuff starts appearing, I'll start running it. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:20, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, Evad37's XFDCloser also makes edits to a lot of pages semi-automatically when closing XFDs (unlinking and suchlike) and I don't think it needed BRFA. Regards SoWhy 20:36, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Hi all, I have actually been working on a script. It's not quite ready yet, but probably will be in a day or two. I've managed to work out resizing and uploading images automatically with a script, as you can see from my upload of File:Image page sandbox 1000x596.png. And I've got I've got it working with images from a url too. However, it will require a reasonably modern browser (Edge 14+, Firefox 39+, Chrome 42+, Safari 10+, Opera 29+, no IE support). As for BRFAs for scripts, that is only required by editors who want to use a script in a high-volume bot-like manner (I asked about this previously [8]), which wouldn't be the case with this script since you would have to go to each article individually to activate it. - Evad37 [talk] 02:18, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
  Done, see User:Evad37/Covery for instructions. Any feedback or problems can be reported at User talk:Evad37/Covery.js. Cheers, Evad37 [talk] 15:23, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Wow, nice work! Regards SoWhy 18:01, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Evad37 - I just attempted to use this on an article that was using the {{infobox video game}} box, rather than {{Infobox video game}}, and it threw up an error. I'm sure that this is probably quite a common mis-spelling of the infobox. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 13:07, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Zackmann, if I understood what you were asking for correctly, I added Doctor Hauzer and Kether (video game) to your test page. BOZ (talk) 03:11, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

User:Zackmann08, I tried to fix those up, if you are looking for more I will take a look tomorrow and see what I can do. :) BOZ (talk) 05:23, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
@BOZ: that worked! One thing, two of them were links to the main page, not to the raw image. Make sure the link you post is the actual image, not the page containing the image. So instead of [9] you need to put [10]. Keep it up and I'll run that script any time! --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 06:12, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
OK, great! With Crush, Crumble and Chomp! there has been a magazine ad in place of where the cover should be, so I will move that if you will try it again. For some reason I could not find the link to the image on Mobygames. BOZ (talk) 12:13, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I am very much looking forward to trying this out. Will be great to reduce some of this backlog. I feel someone may need to put down some information about it for the project once it's been tested.
Is there a theoretical possibility for a similar scheme for gameplay screenshots/artwork? I see a lot of articles as being tagged for a screenshot, or additional artwork, but it's never solved. I understand it's different from the cover, as it's not going to be uploaded specifically for the infobox, but would it be possible? Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 09:23, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
I am pinging @Bertaut: to make them aware of this conversation, as they always add platforms to licensing templates on newly uploaded game cover art. TarkusABtalk 17:29, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the ping TarkusAB. I wasn't aware of this discussion, although, obviously, I had noticed people using a new script to upload images. Yeah, I tend to add platforms to the license template when I've a bit of free time. I did have the Category:Video game covers cleared completely, and was planning to move onto Category:Screenshots of video games, whereas now there's a sizable number of new images. But it's no big deal, when I first started adding platforms, there were over 400 images in the category, so I'm not pushed about the new additions, I'll work my way through them over time. Bertaut (talk) 20:51, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
@Bertaut: If you describe to Evad37 in detail what needs to be included over at User talk:Evad37/Covery.js, I'm sure they can expand the script to include platform information (at least optionally). Regards SoWhy 07:47, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
That's a good idea SoWhy. I wouldn't have thought of that. I'll give them a shout later on. Thanks. Bertaut (talk) 20:57, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

VG cover backlog elimination drive

I want to propose an elimination drive of the backlog at Category:Video game articles requesting identifying art. Thanks to the great work by Evad37, there is now a script (User:Evad37/Covery) that automates most of the process (see #Semi-automating cover upload? above). Interested editors only need to provide an image and maybe fill in some fields and the script does the rest. Adding a cover now only takes a minute and most of the time is spent looking for the cover on Google.

Alternatively, Zackmann08 has offered to run an offline script that does the same thing; for this, editors need to add covers to User:Zackmann08/video games as described on that page. Note, that this method does not allow uploads or offers resizing.

Editors can choose which way they prefer to use and feel more comfortable with. With 2,600+ pages in the category, this means each editor can clear a few dozen pages by donating a few minutes of their time each day (to avoid conflicts, I suggest everyone chooses a letter they want to work on). Would you guys and gals be interested in doing that? Regards SoWhy 07:46, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Also, I requested a bot to clean up the category by removing entries where covers already exist. Regards SoWhy 08:49, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I did around 20 yesterday. I'm all for this. It's a great tool. Only issues I've come across is when an article doesn't have the correct infobox, or no infobox at all. The script also reads .png files, but can't upload them. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:43, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Lee Vilenski it worked for me but I had to use a filename ending in .png Ben · Salvidrim!  18:01, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I'd also suggest we should start in different sections alphabetically, otherwise we may meet each other in the middle. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:44, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Remember to report bugs to User talk:Evad37/Covery.js. Evad37 is usually pretty fast in addressing them. Regards SoWhy 11:14, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
I'll start with V (because I got to start somewhere). Regards SoWhy 11:58, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Happy to help anywhere I can! One thought, instead of relying on the talk page to tag pages that need cover art, why not do the same thing that book covers does? If the image param is blank in the infobox, then the page is added to the category. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 16:41, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
Partially because unlike books, there are alternate options (screenshots of the title screen, etc.) that editors sometimes have used as placeholders but a cover art image is still desired. I think that we should do both, actually- if there's no image in the infobox, or if the talk page param is set. --PresN 18:27, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
While there's nothing wrong with the idea, there are snags to it. Compiling the list yesterday I came across a couple of articles that had an entry against image = , but no image was showing, on checking, the articles had full external URLs instead of an internal WP image name. So you're correct, we need to check for blanks, but we also can't assume that the non-blanks are good either. After I've cleared the list mentioned below I'll do a scan for the contents of image = - X201 (talk) 07:50, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
X201 helped me check for false positives in the category by compiling a list of infoboxes that have images but are tagged with cover=yes. I'm sure they can also generate a list which does the opposite. That said, I think clearing the 2,500+ pages currently in the category will keep us busy for a while anyway. Regards SoWhy 18:56, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Update: I cleared most of V yesterday, with the exception of those that are not games (but organizations or similar) or where I couldn't find a cover or logo online. I'll be doing W next. Regards SoWhy 07:58, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
I'll clear the false positives in those first then. - X201 (talk) 08:05, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
@SoWhy: All false positives cleared - X201 (talk) 07:31, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I've done the numerical and As, I've created a section below #VG Cover Art Cleanup - Requesting Cover Arts, for any that I couldn't find suitible images for. I'd suggest this be done for any that others cannot find. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 10:38, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
    I just left those I couldn't handle in the category. After all, that's why we have it, no? Regards SoWhy 13:50, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
    • I also left them in the category. However, if they can be added, we should do a thorough job. If we document which ones are difficult, it's more likely someone will know somewhere else to source these images. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 14:12, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Just a reminder to everyone, we also have the |needs-photo=yes tag for hardware and other things that wouldn't necessarily have a cover. - X201 (talk) 07:20, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Sega - Is it too long?

Hi all, I'm working on Sega in my available time with the intention of taking it to FAC once it's in perfect shape. My biggest concern, though, needs some input from experienced VG editors. Is the article now too long? The history of Sega is massive and well-documented, and I've been making attempts to try and hit the bases without going into too much detail, but I worry about not fully covering everything that needs to be complete. I would prefer not to have to do a spinout article on the history alone and then sorting out what needs to go in the main article from that, but it's getting to the point that the Visual Editor is moving at a snail's pace on me. What do you guys think? Is the scope right or is it too big? Thank you. Red Phoenix talk 23:16, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Red Phoenix - Perhaps the History should be split off into History of Sega, similar to History of the WWE is set. Then, a briefer overview of the company is for the main article. Lee Vilenski (talkcontribs) 07:50, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
This is similar to the existence of History of Nintendo, another gaming company that has developed various hardware and software for over 30 years. It's a totally reasonable summary-style split. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:41, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Also support a History of Sega page if it gets too long. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 18:18, 11 October 2018 (UTC)