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To-do list for Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Video games: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2014-05-29

Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks
AfDs Merge discussions Other discussions No major discussions Featured content candidates Good article nominations DYK nominations Reviews and reassessments
Articles that need...
Archive
WPCVG Talk Archives

Archives: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17

List of archive topics by section

Luigi page moved.

A user has recently moved the Luigi page to Luigi (Mario) without any discussion whatsoever. What's more, none of the links were changed. Even on the disambiguation page that was created in the process. I brought the subject up at WikiProject Nintendo, but I feel that it should be mentioned here too. -SaturnYoshi 02:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't care particularly about the move, although I wouldn't have made it myself. If people are OK with this, then you need to do a {{db-move}} at Luigi and then move the disambiguation page in its place. - Hahnchen 03:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I think this completes the trifecta of major Mario naming disputes (Mario, Bowser, and now, finally, Luigi, although Peach also had a somewhat less controversial article name change). Nifboy 05:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but the Mario paged was never moved. -SaturnYoshi 02:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Some random AFDs and prods

I came across this AFD for a mod I know nothing about and someone spouted the useless keep vote of "But there's loads of nn-mods on Misplaced Pages. Look at these!" Well now, these nn-mods have all been prodded or AFDed. I've removed prods on some that I know to be more notable than the article suggests, but the nominations have been on the whole incredibly lazy. I've removed prods on Science and Industry, Hostile Intent and voted on Dystopia (computer game), Firearms (computer game) and the stupidly notable Rocket Arena. - Hahnchen 04:06, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm very annoyed that someone tagged Dystopia as AfD mere hours after I marked up as a CVG article. Was this guy just waiting for anything to come along that he could afd? I hadn't even had a chance to insert all the awards and links that irrefutably prove it's notability. It won Game of the Year at the Independant Game Festival for crying out loud! The Kinslayer 11:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I think one or two people are being extremely over-zealous in marking stuff for deletion. The reasoning seems to be 'The article isn't finished, and I'VE never heard of it, so it should be deleted.' The Kinslayer 11:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The second pointer in nominating an AfD clearly states: Consider adding a tag such as {cleanup} or {disputed} instead; this may be preferable if the article has some useful content. In the case of at least two of the above AfDs, this hadn't been done, not even giving people a chance to fix the 'offending' problems. The Kinslayer 12:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Wicketthewok seems to be the main culprit for the lazy AfDs. He certainly seems to have stirred up a couple of hornets nests with AfDs recently! He is very over-zealous with deleting new articles within a couple of hours creation, citing non-notability and lack of sources as the reasons, even though he usually deletes the articles before the person had a chance to add the links! Just letting you all know to be careful when your creating new articles, as this guy will probably delete it! He's also fond of quoting wiki policies chapter and verse, but seems to conveniently forget ones that provide arguements against deletion, such as the one I quoted further up the page.The Kinslayer 10:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Lazy though those AfDs may have been, there is no need to attack Wickethewok. Seriously, how about you take the time to explain why his actions were incorrect, and what should be done to correct them? If you have already done so, there should be no need to continue the thread here. Remember, NPA. Daveydweeb (/patch) 09:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, Wickethewok was completely in the right to nominate any article that does not have meet Misplaced Pages:Verifiability or similar policy / concern. WP:V says "The obligation to provide a reputable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not on those seeking to remove it." -- Ned Scott 09:47, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The issues been resolved, and I wasn't attacking him (as I stated on his talk page.) I was just expressing concern over his nominations. But since it's been resolved, lets all just move on now. The Kinslayer 10:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Per request, nav boxes

see Misplaced Pages:Navigational boxes →AzaToth 12:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, please explain what you're talking about. It's a proposed guidline for nav boxes. "Per request, nav boxes" doesn't tell me what you're looking for here. --PresN 13:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Cover art to use for simultaneously released cross-platform games (take two)

The following is an edited duplication of Template talk:Infobox CVG#Cover arts to use, which is created following a suggestion to bring the discussion to this page:

For some cross-platform games like Need for Speed: Most Wanted, there are multiple versions released simultaneously for each platform (PC, PS2, Xbox, GameCube and the Xbox 360, for example), and thus has multiple cover art labels. Would a PS2 cover art, for example, be preferable if the port is notable in any aspect (i.e. special edition, launch title)? ╫ ２５ 15:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC) ╫

If it's multi-format, I usually go for the PC box because they don't include a Xbox/PS2 banner advert at the top of the box and you get slightly more of the art. See for example Image:Psychonautsbox.jpg and Image:Tomb Raider Legend Boxart.jpg where I've uploaded PC covers over the originals. The NFS box however, even has a banner for the PC edition, so it doesn't matter as much. But in general, I stick to the generic most common box cover over the special edition ones. For example, I could have uploaded a box shot for the special edition of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC), but decided against it, being that the special edition was a different colour to all other box art. - Hahnchen 15:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
And now the Psychonauts box has no source. I'm starting to get frustrated at this. Please provide sources, people. Thunderbrand 16:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for input; the importance of using a plain box art over a special edition or more notable port in the infobox is also noted. However, taking your approach into consideration, the present PC cover art of Need for Speed: Most Wanted would still be unsuitable because it includes an extra PC CD-ROM tag, while the top banner is just about the same size as those on the PS2 and Xbox; as such, I took the liberty of submitting a PC DVD version which has minimal obstructions. ╫ ２５ 19:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC) ╫
Can someone please clarify the need for sources in fair-use scenarios where the source has absolutely nothing to do with the copyright holder? I thought the source was needed to confirm that it was indeed fair-use, what use is a link to a random hungarian game site or a link to amazon? At Image:Half screen004.jpg, I replaced a sourced watermarked image with an unwatermarked unsourced version. That image was a widely distributed promotional screenshot, the source is Valve Software if needed, should I have a handy link to gamespot there? - Hahnchen 20:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, as soon as you click on Special:Upload, it says to provide a rationale and source. Thunderbrand 23:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

After a discussion with ZS, I'd rather conclude that:

1. Since Misplaced Pages is widely viewed using the PC, all games should have the PC box art rather than the console box art, unless the game lacks a PC version.
2. If the game under discussion is MOST notable in its console version, whichever that may be, the box art for that console should be used. (eg. Halo and Halo 2)

What are my fellow Wikipedians' views on this?

P.S.: I've taken the liberty to replace some of the games' console box art with their PC counterparts (vis-a-vis Hitman: Blood Money, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, NFS: MW, NFS: U2 etc.)

Here's an easy order, based on how pointless style disputes are handled in other areas:

  1. The version most strongly associated with the game (in English-speaking territories, if there's a conflict).
  2. The first English-language release.
  3. The first publishing in the creators' territory or native language.
  4. Whatever was uploaded first.

This is based on the way stupid grammar issues (color vs. colour) and original-language vs. English-language issues are handled, and assumes we don't have a free/unfree situation (use the free version no matter what) or an image quality situation.

This specifically ignores ZS's suggestion to favor PC game boxes. The PC versions of games which are not initially released on the PC are often afterthoughts; it would be silly to represent many of EA's latter-day games with the PC versions. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

List of best-selling computer and video games

List of best-selling computer and video games is currently suffering an edit war that has lasted around 2 weeks already. WhiteMinority believes VGCharts should be used to reference sales information in the article, while A Link to the Past believes it is not a reliable source. I would appreciate some members from this WikiProject to drop by and give an opinion here to try to settle the matter, as I don't want to call for a mediation. Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 18:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

What extensive options do we have besides VGCharts? --Tristam 03:51, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
For every game, we should find an article in a reliable source stating the game has passed the 1m mark in the european, american, japanese or worldwide market. -- ReyBrujo 04:00, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Which is not easy. -- Steel 10:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
True, but put it this way, are shipping figures the same as retail sales figures? No. Therefore shipping figures should not be used to get numbers for the best selling computer and video games. WhiteMinority seems more concerned with trying to provoke Link by reverting his edits and accusing him of vandalism than he is with the quality of the article. The Kinslayer 10:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
There must be someone on Misplaced Pages with access to the NPD Funworld sales data. Just like we're using the magazines project to collect information on which users have access to which reviews, we should as a project try to find people who have access to this data. Some other portential sources: , , , japan. It sucks that all this stuff is not just open and out there, but at least if we know who has access we can start using this data to properly source our articles. jaco♫plane 11:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Not someone on Misplaced Pages, as that would be original research and no reliable source. For japanese titles, it is easy to track which titles are best selling, as there are three independant trackers Dengeki, Famitsu and Media Create. For others, we need to rely on press releases and sites like GameSpot and IGN. The important thing is getting a reliable source stating the game sold over a million copies. No need to get exact numbers, just knowing 1m copies have been sold should be enough for us. -- ReyBrujo 16:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Computer and video games lists issue

Why are the lists slightly different in format? All are a list in alphabetical order, but that's about the only thing that is the same with them. On the Xbox 360 list: List of Xbox 360 games, there is *'s and FP by games meaning certain things, along with release dates for games that aren't out. At List of GameCube games, there is a list of cancelled and Europe games at the bottom. Other game lists have small differences as well. Shouldn't all lists be in the same format and have the same exact things? I think all should be the same, since they are the same type of list: a list of games for a certain console. RobJ1981 22:26, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Good question. The subject was brought up before, but the subject drifted towards the non-platform lists, and no clear consensus was reached on how to format the lists based on platforms/consoles. Personally, I would suggest including only the title and the regions the game is released in, probably in a list format rather than a table. Adding alternate titles given for games in the list would seem like a good idea too. I'm not sure if publisher/developer information is significant enough to add in these rather large lists, and perhaps release dates should only be shown on a chronological order version of the list, as exists for the GameCube. Not that I care much either way, but I do agree they need to look the same. --ADeveria 23:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
A partial attempt at making List of Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis games more useful (like List of SNES games) was deemed far too time-consuming to be practical. Nifboy 02:39, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

External Links for Video Game Articles

I do not believe it's necessary to have links to generic, popular websites such as MobyGames. They are popular, so a lot of people know about them and they are easy to find, so it is kind of a waste to link to them in every single game article. If people want those links, they can easily do a search and find them within seconds. Most of these websites do not actually have that much information on games, anyways. They usually just have general stuff that you can find basically anywhere, and, more importantly, on the Misplaced Pages article. So why bother linking to them? I believe they should be removed. -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 20:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I, on the other hand, believe that they should be included, because they are easy sources for the articles and generally used. This is regarding an edit war over the external links on Riviera: The Promised Land, by the way. Another link that was being repeatedly removed was a link to an external review. --tjstrf 20:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Why does this keep coming up? MobyGames is an extensive database of video games (a term, which I maintain, encompasses computer games as well). It has much more content than we generally have for Misplaced Pages articles, including game credits and many, many more screenshots than we have for games. Plus, MobyGames has most information in a relational database, so information and context for games can easily be retreived. Because it is a popular game resource is exactly why we should include links to it, just as we link to BoardGameGeek for board games. — Frecklefoot | Talk 20:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Frecklefoot. Moby should be included simply because of those reasons. But I also feel the courtesy should be extended to other major archives/resources as well like KLOV and http://www.arcadeflyers.net/. --Marty Goldberg 20:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The MobyGames page DOESN'T have game credits for Riviera, though. Besides, "Everything in MobyGames is contributable by users." So I might as well link to the GameFAQs information pages about Riviera. The credits are incomplete due to GFAQs rules, but I ripped them from the game myself and I know they're accurate at least.
Also, the MobyGames page doesn't even list RiviPSP. --Raijinili 00:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the KLOV should be included for all arcade games, but not arcadeflyers.net, whose content is of dubious value, at best. But I don't see the inclusion of links to these sites as a "courtesy" to the web site operators, just to our readers. But I digress... — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that KLOV should certainly be used as an external link; the information on the site usually expands upon the information of articles. arcadeflyers.net, on the other hand, doesn't. That said, I'd love to see some Project-backed encouragement to use it as a source when documenting a game's history (which is something where it could be extremely useful). EVula 22:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Regarding arcadflyers.net, I'd say the view of dubious value" is certainly not the case among industry historians. Its been a pretty standard reference since long before wikipedia was created and has a large significance when discussing and informing about arcade platform games. These flyers (which were distributed to vendors and operators only) represent the commercial viewpoint of the manufacturer and its vision for the game (which is a commercial product). This includes relevant vendor and operator info (if you're not familiar with the coin-op terms, vendor is the distributor or "middle man" and operator is the end location - i.e. the arcade owner), specifications (including design advancements, settings, available formats such as standup, cocktail, cabaret, etc.), artwork, designer info and more. This is also why these types of materials are frequently referenced and presented in books, articles, and references on the subject. While there is some overlap with KLOV from a purely database facts and figures context, KLOV does not address the facets of vendor and operator promotion and explination. --Marty Goldberg 22:25, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I understand that, which is why I think arcadeflyers.net should be used as a source, not an external link. EVula 22:38, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you are all missing my main point. If people want information from those sites, they will go and find it themselves. It is not difficult in the slightest to find them. I mean, it's like saying every gaming website should have a link to Misplaced Pages, just because it's well-known. Fansites are different because they generally focus specifically on that game, and are usually not so easy to find. Am I seriously one of the only people who think this? -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 22:56, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, yes, you are. We link to those sites because they contain useful information, both to us at times as writers and to the readers. It doesn't hurt anything having them there, they meet WP:EL, and they make it a whole lot more convenient for the reader. We're a reference source, providing links to other useful (non-competing) reference sources is only sensible. --tjstrf 23:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I know they meet WP:EL. Did you think I came here just to whine for the sake of whining? No. I came here in hopes that others would agree with me and eventually stop adding links to these websites. And I'm sorry, I thought this was an encyclopedia. Apparently I was wrong. -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 00:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I challenge that they fit EL. The usefulness of the Riviera page is the Chinese name (which I have doubts about), the screenshots (which are found on the Atlus page), the links to buying the game (oh, so now we should link to an Amazon search of Riviera:TPL?), and the ranks/ratings, which a link to GameRatings.com can do better. Everything else you can find on the page belongs in the wikipage, instead of linking to it. IMDB at least has things like trivia pages and quotes, while the Moby page for RTPL has... non-trivial information which is already included. --Raijinili 00:20, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Mobygames again?! Linking to Mobygames is generally seen as alright, although I definitely wouldn't want it being an infobox item like imdb is. If you've used mobygames for research, then it's nice to link to them and they might provide further information. But sometimes Mobygames articles are crap, just as some Misplaced Pages articles are, I don't think we should link to them when the only information offered is places to buy the game. Another dubious activity is that of User:Ravimakkar who was warned by a non-CVG editor for spamming mobygames, being that every single edit he made, right from the start was just to add links to Mobygames. I know we have WP:AGF and all, but do you really think he was trying to improve Misplaced Pages, or just to direct more hits towards MobyGames? - Hahnchen 23:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Your rationale doesn't seem to make sense. Technically you can find websites (including fansites) on any topic quickly through Google or other search engines, so why is being "easy to find" an issue? Also, fansites are generally not as reliable or verified as more notable and popular websites such as Gamespot, IGN, or Mobygames.--TBCΦtalk? 23:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I suppose the easy-to-find part really depends on the situation. Less popular games will have harder-to-find fansites, and popular ones will probably have a ton that are easily discovered. And you are correct about fansites usually not being very reliable/verified, so maybe we should not include links to fansites that have false information frequently. However, IGN is really not reliable at all. I've seen tons of false information there. -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 00:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
"Easy to find/difficult to find" is a horrible qualifier for an external link. The official website for Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is easy enough to find with Google; does that mean we shouldn't have a link to it? We're not a link deposit; often an obscure website is obscure because its crap and has nothing on it worth checking out. Such a website has no place being linked to on Misplaced Pages, as the entire point of external links is to provide the reader additional useful information that is highly relevant to the topic at hand (and a shitty website just plain doesn't qualify). EVula 03:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
No, you should have a link to it. Why? Because it actually focuses specifically on that game, and likely contains significant information on it as well. And I wasn't saying that every single hard-to-find website should be linked to. I don't even know how you came to the conclusion that I even implied such a thing. But don't worry, I have an idea. We should put links to Google searches in each article! It's well-known, will probably lead you to a ton of information on the subject, and best of all, almost everyone who uses the internet knows about it so it will just be a waste of time and space. -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 03:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

" I thought this was an encyclopedia." We are. That's why we should link to Mobygames if we got information from them, because it's part of our journalistic integrity that we source our information. At any rate, I hope you've realized why I kept reverting your link removals. --tjstrf 04:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Then do not state that it is something other than an encyclopedia. And keep in mind that I only removed the links once before I turned to discussing it. -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 03:15, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
You're talking about in-general. You're not talking about Riviera's page at all, since we DIDN'T take information from that MobyGames page. Your reverts have nothing to do with sourcing.
Also, your reverts after the first one were UNJUSTIFIED. The editor in question gave a valid reason for his/her edit, and the issue was brought into question. From there, the discussion should have IMMEDIATELY gone to the talk page. You also violated the three-edit rule, and insulted the editor in question by calling him/her a vandal without proper justification. A registered user should know the rules better than an anonymous or new user.
So no, I don't understand why you kept reverting the link removals and the "overweight" comment. Also, I responded to two other people above. --Raijinili 02:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I never broke WP:3RR, don't throw around false accusations. My closest together reverts were 2 within 24 hours. --tjstrf 18:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I actually think in the case of Riviera: The Promised Land that the mobygames link or the Netjak review weren't that important. The mobygames entry was pretty incomplete and didn't include the dev-team which I think is the most important mobygame asset, but still there was some information there. Why not just link to Metacritic or Gamerankings instead? I know they're both part of the CNET global empire, but the Metacritic link looks quite promising. - Hahnchen 00:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I do not believe it's necessary to have links to generic, popular websites such as MobyGames. They are popular, so a lot of people know about them and they are easy to find, so it is kind of a waste to link to them in every single game article. - strongly disagree - by that rationale we should remove links to IMDB for each film article too! We might know all about MobyGames, as hard-nosed gamer types, but the casual user doesn't necessarily. --Oscarthecat 04:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I do think we should remove links to IMDB, as well. Regardless, people still seem to be misunderstanding me. Maybe I'll just go find a free thesaurus that anyone can edit, instead. Maybe they will be more open to improvement. -Yggdra Juril Altwaltz 23:10, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me try to validate the links to MobyGames with a list. I don't think any of us want anyone leaving in a huff:
  1. MobyGames lists a great deal of purely statistical information that we may not want to include in the article (entire dev team, for example).
  2. MobyGames often has large galleries of screenshots of games in play, which we usually do not. Even if we did have the same volume as MobyGames, we usually don't have an elegent way of working them into an article (a few is great, dozens is too many).
  3. MobyGames is not commercial. Yes, they have banner ads, but they don't have the bane of the Internet, pop-up ads. And I'm sure the revenue generated from the banner ads do little more than pay their hosting and bandwidth costs (if that). Yes, they now sell some "MobyGear" (mugs, t-shirts, other stuff), but use of their site—including membership—is completely free.
  4. MobyGames information increases over time. Like Misplaced Pages, information in MobyGames is not static, information for entries is being added all the time. For this reason alone, MobyGame links should be added to articles, even if at the time of the writing of articles, the MobyGames entry is "crap."
Now, if MobyGames only had stuff like reviews, I'd contest their inclusion. But with all the pros above, I think we should link to MobyGames in all articles, even if they really don't augment the information in the Misplaced Pages article when it is originally written (I know I am probably in the minority here).
That being said, I think links to IGN, GameSpot, <insert your favorite online magazine here> can justifiably be included, when they have NPOV information on the game. This doesn't include reviews, unless it is citing, e.g., a major bug (this doesn't include stuff like "I found the gameplay extremely uninspiring"). These game sites also include news and industry info, which MobyGames doesn't, which can augment an article's content. Just cite them as the source for the information. — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
  1. Except when it doesn't. GameFAQs DOES have the dev list, though incomplete due to their rules about "real names" and such. I can edit in the COMPLETE dev list, but to get it on MobyGames, I would have to make an account.
  2. The screenshots in the case of Riviera are easily accessible from the Atlus website. In fact, I believe RPGamer has a lot more screenshots than MobyGames does, as well as news, an interview, the movies (which are ALSO accessible from the Sting website, if not the Atlus one), the character art, and pre-release screens.
  3. That's not reason to put it on every page. That's barely justification for ALLOWING it on every page.
  4. It's been over a year. They have the bare-bones. It makes Misplaced Pages look bad for linking to a site that has almost nothing, even after a whole year. No one links to a blank Misplaced Pages page as a source for information except Misplaced Pages, and only because Misplaced Pages wants to encourage people to edit those pages.
Also, I looked at the Netjak review on Metacritic. It was the lowest score on that site. I believe now that the person who originally added it was a vandal. --Raijinili 18:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I doubt the Netjak review was added by a vandal. Netjak scores hard, and we had a fan spamming Netjak links a while back. Probably just linkspam. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that's what it looks like --Raijinili 22:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Acceptable genres

Is there a list of genres that should be used for new game articles?
If I asked this in the wrong place, please rudely shout at me and don't give me a link to where I should ask it.
--Dinoguy1000 18:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, why would anyone shout at you, it's perfectly fine to ask your question here. For the genres, see: Category:Computer and video game genres. Hope that helps. jaco♫plane 18:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
It was meant to be a joke, you know, the whole self-deprecation thing... Regardless of the unintentional confusion, thanks for the link! --Dinoguy1000 06:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Request for mediation on EDGE magazine article

I've been involved with some edits of EDGE magazine's article. Another contributor very strongly disagrees with my opinion that the article is POV and makes uncited claims, with regard to the foreign language editions of the magazine, see the talk page. I'd be grateful if others in the CVG project could get involved with reviewing the article's contents, rather than me getting into an edit war. --Oscarthecat 20:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Game name

Anonymous user engaged in reversions regarding these name differencies. I think this need more experiences WP:CVG member to clarify. --Ragnarok Addict 21:49, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I would vastly prefer a year attached (a la Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 game)), and bar a name change that's where it should ultimately end up, but since we don't have even that, I'd go with the console. Nifboy 00:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

If there's no Ninja Garden 2 in the first place, why are we even adding a parenthesis disambiguation? That's only needed if we have multiple versions, such as Mission: Impossible, whose game franchise has all featured the same title. Anyway, "(Next-Generation)" is very vague, so (Xbox 360) would be much more preferrable Hbdragon88 22:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I always seem to mix up Gaiden and Garden. I concur with Nifboy in stating a year rather than the time-subjective "Next-Generation" and this will change when PS3 comes out - next-gen would be the eighth generation. Hbdragon88 00:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

CVG WikiProject mascot?

I was thinking it would be cool to have a mascot for the WikiProject. Perhaps someone could create an image of Misplaced Pages:Wikipe-tan playing video games? This is the character that is the mascot for the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Anime and manga and the Misplaced Pages:Counter-Vandalism Unit. I know, it's very esoteric. Perhaps we could organise a contest? Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Computer and video games/Mascott contest ?? We could take submissions and then finally vote. Or is this a stupid idea? jaco♫plane 04:54, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I say no to that idea. A mascot isn't needed, and would just distract from people editing. RobJ1981 04:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
How would it distract people from editing? I think that it might actually improve the project by community building. It would be good for marketing the project to newcomers I think. jaco♫plane 05:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
People should want to help the project, not be attracted in by the mascot. The whole contest thing is the distraction. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, not a place to do random contests to create a mascot for a project. RobJ1981 05:19, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
However, if someone were to create Wikipe-tan in a video game setting of appropriate quality, I don't see why we wouldn't use her. But a contest is simply out of the question. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 06:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Someone already has. ···日本穣 09:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
The only way a mascot would distract editors is if it were a Lara Croft lookalike. Still, not sure if it's a good idea. I don't think there can be a good avatar for a category as broad as CVG. -- Solberg 07:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)Solberg
Who would be distracted by a Lara Croft look-alike?? -SaturnYoshi 07:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Straight up, no. I don't see anyone coming up with a mascot which doesn't involve stupid cutesy japano-characters. - Hahnchen 00:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
If not Wikipe-tan playing a video game, who else? Would the caterpillar or the Gnu (also seen here) look better playing video games? Wikipe-tan is better than the alternative, methinks. Besides, Wikipe-tan doesn't have to be in "cutesy" pose, just look at her logo for Counter-Vandalism Unit. What's cute about that? --DavidHOzAu 01:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
The fact that Wikipe-tan is a cutesy japano-character breaks your argument. - Hahnchen 00:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I dunno, I'd be highly amused by a picture of Wikipede playing a four-player match of SSBM against himself. That said, we've devoted entirely too much time to this inane discussion, and I really, really don't think we need to follow WP:CVU as an example for anything. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:07, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, you should ask Kagura to draw a mascot for you. Ashibaka tock 19:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, have two versions of Wikipetan (as seen in this image) playing against each other seem to be nice.L-Zwei 05:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
If it can add to the discussion, the joypad we use as a logo doesn't really appeal to me, and probably doesn't even mean anything to the young generation, who never saw a white joypad, let alone with two buttons. I thing a mascot is a cool thing to have, as wiki, and the projects, are comunity-driven efforts, and not result-driven kolkhoz. Maybe Duke Nukem would be good, as it's not too "cutesy japano-character". Oh, and the term is "Moe".--SidiLemine 11:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
"The young generation"? How old are you, Sidi? Because that's clearly a six button Super Nintendo controller, and the snes was popular into the late 90s... -- Bailey 20:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually I think it's a Gravis PC GamePad. jaco♫plane 20:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I stand corrected. I always thought it was sort of a non-literal intertretation of the SNES gamepad, but it does more strongly resemble the Gravis controller. I guess that explains what happened to start and select. :-) -- Bailey 20:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Image Galleries

I seem to remember there was a discussion here about cover galleries in articles not really being fair use, anyway, I have come across a few articles that contain them, for example NBA Live series. I know this article is about a series, but is it really necessary to have every single cover of every game there? It even has four different covers for NBA live '06! Surely this violates fair use in a big way. Timkovski 22:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that gallery should go ASAP. I'd do it myself, but I can't be bothered to go through and tag all those images as orphans right now... -- Steel 22:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Please Adopt and Audit Panzer General

Hello. Could someone please "adopt" Panzer General and neutrally review the edits for vandalism, spam, and NPOV. Thank you.Wikist 00:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Lakitu

Lakitu is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy 02:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Unusual request

Moved from Misplaced Pages talk:Gaming Collaboration of the week

Sorry if this request is off-topic or otherwise unsuitable for this section, please redirect me accordingly. Over at talk for the article for Motorhead a dispute has erupted. Basically we had for some time the article for Motorhead, a videogame, which had a For-template link to Motörhead, a heavy metal band. The heavy metal enthusiasts argued that the roles should be reversed, I argued against. After an AfD nomination (in itself a rather dirty "trick"), User:Freakofnurture performed the move "Motorhead" -> "Motorhead (video game)" and created a dab page at Motorhead (after he first populated it with a #redirect to Motörhead). What happened next was that there has been kind of a revert war going on between the dab and the redirect. Apparently, the heavy metal people have joined forces, so before I go any further (or not), I'd like to hear what the rest of the CVG community feels about this. --Frodet 21:48, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

You would get a better response at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Computer and video games. Thunderbrand 01:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

As someone from the CVG camp my two peneth is: Redirect to band, link to game on band article - X201 08:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Motorhead should redirect to Motörhead, which should have a dab notice at the top of the page to Motorhead (video game). Common usage VASTLY favors the band. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm fine with the move. I can't believe that some users who were pathetically trying to compromise to save their own petty decision actually thought a disambig page would be the best idea, where the disambig was the worst possible solution in each case. Go go compromise groupthink. - Hahnchen 16:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Could you please elaborate since, in my head, there really shouldn't be an issue with dab at all, ref. eg. Ardal vs. Årdal.... --Frodet 16:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I personally don't care too much about the page move, but the suggestion and implementation of a disambiguation page at Motorhead was totally ridiculous. You're forcing everyone at the Motorhead article to waste another page load and click again, it was a pathetic attempt to try and keep the video game article visible and baseless cries of undue weight, when having a link at the top of the Motörhead article was enough. As I said, I don't care about the page move, what I do care about are when people decide to go for the worst possible solution in some compromise scenario like a disambig page, one of the worst examples of this can be seen at be bold. To Liftarn and the others who proposed a disambig page, do you really think Ralph Macchio should be a disambig? What about Ken Watanabe? - Hahnchen 16:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree - the dab page is not the best solution - I did not implement it, though. Yes, I was enforcing it based on the what was set up by the mover. What I reacted to was the "sneaky" way this was done, without any real consensus or a call at Misplaced Pages:Requested moves. I consider myself neutral as I have never played neither Motorhead nor Motörhead, hence why I ask here. But why a redirect and not (a move of) the Motorhead (video game) article to Motorhead? --Frodet 16:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Emulators

There are a lot of emulators with articles on Misplaced Pages. see List of Emulators. Recently, there have been proposals for deletion of a few of the Nintendo Console emulators(see for example iNes, FCE Ultra), but given the large number of emulators with articles (Not to mention the Redlinks), I felt it would be important to open up a discussion on where to draw the line as regards emulation software. Certain examples (like Bleem! should clearly be kept, although they could clearly be improved, but others might not qualify. So I'm here seeking some thoughts on where to draw the line, so forth. So share what you feel. Mister.Manticore 22:16, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:SOFTWARE seems good, although software included with a Linux distro is a lame standard we really shouldn't use with peripheral software like emulators. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:20, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I can agree with applying WP:Software as emulators really don't receive that much published attention. How much though, do you think is the absolute minimum necessary? Mister.Manticore 22:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
I can safely say that just because an emulator exists isn't reason enough to have an article on it. Existence and availability are totally different from notability. Surely there are reviews of emulators that can be cited to prove notability? As WP:Notability states: 'a subject needs to be of sufficient importance that there are multiple reliable secondary sources, independent of the subject, on which we can base a verifiably neutral article without straying into original research.' Nearly all these emulator articles utterly fail this, as well as other Wiki guidelines and policies. The Kinslayer 08:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
First, citing rules like that is not convincing to me, for reasons I've already mentioned. It troubles me a lot. But instead of getting into that, I'll just say that for the vast majority of emulators, I must say, I'm completely unaware of any reviews more significant than "here's this cool emulator here" or a release on some website that is nothing more than the changelog. This is particularly true of console emulators, which is something of a less formal environment than most. It really doesn't get the kind of formal attention that say, automobiles do. Does this mean Misplaced Pages should have no information whatsoever on them? I can't say that appeals to me. I can't imagine how that improves Misplaced Pages at all. Mister.Manticore 14:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The rules are there for a reason. You can't apply the rules to only the bits you want, and I don't really care if you have a problem with the rules, because I don't, and I intend to use them to highlight my point, which is, those ARE the rules (regardless of whether you like it or not), so how can we fit emulators into that frame? Obviously it can't be done in the most conventional sense, because as you say, emulator communties are too informal. So we have to to adapt. I stand by my conviction that just being listed for download on a couple of meta-emulation sites is not sufficient notability in itself. The Kinslayer 14:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there are reviews at sites like Zophar's Domain and ClassicGaming.Com, which have been standard emulator resource sites since 1996 and 1997 respectively. Zophar even goes so far as to categorize by "Best", "Good", "Promising" and "Not Worth The Download". --Marty Goldberg 14:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, there we go then, that's two places we can use. The problem here is that it can easily turn into a 'if it's not mentioned on them, it shouldn't be here' which may not be the best situation. But a least we've got a starting point. The Kinslayer 15:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Sigh, yes, the rules exist for a reason, but reasoning and discussion exist for a reason as well. Why? Because the rules simply aren't appropriate in every situation. Your own statement covers that, and I agree, the conventional standards don't work for emulators, particularly console ones. And BTW, every emulator I saw you nominate is mentioned on Zophar's(and at least one is also on Classicgaming.com). Mister.Manticore 15:34, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to say that most of my noms for speedy deletes were upheld today, and I feel that most of these pages have been set up as either ads, vanity pages or, in a couple cases, set up to compare the emulator unfavourably to another emulator specifically. I agreed with Mister Manticore that we'd take the discussion here and try to reach a group consensus on what standards we should be setting for emulators (how do we define notability etc etc) The Kinslayer 22:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

In the case of FCEUXD reveals that it was created in April last year, and counting a couple of people randomly correcting some spelling, has received 7 edits up to this point. This article seems strongly not worth keeping. (I know this isn't an AfD discussion, I'm just providing it as an example of the pages I've been nomination for deletion.) The Kinslayer 22:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

  • BTW does anyone else think that console emulator needs a bit of work? It lacks sources, and some sections (like the bit on Nesticle ) probably receive too much attention. Mister.Manticore 22:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree it skips right through all the various consoles in the first paragraph, then seems to dwell on the NES and SNES for most of the next 3 paragraphs. The Kinslayer 22:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Any suggestions on how to tag it? I'm not sure whether to go with unverified or simple cleanup.
        • Actually I just removed the entire first paragraph in question because it was completely incorrect. None of those used any sort of emulation. Provided references on the talk page. Marty Goldberg 15:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and another resource is Category:Emulation software stubs that might help show off the problem. Mister.Manticore 23:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Ok, so I'm still going through some thoughts in my head, but in general, I'm going to say this about console emulators. (Note by console I'm also including handheld devices).
  1. There's a lot of console emulators out there. Most are freeware, and most are never going to be reviewed or studied by anyone reputable. This doesn't mean they aren't widely used(for an emulator), or important. It just means that this particular area doesn't attract the same kind of scholarly attention as much popular subjects. Yes, there are exceptions that make the news, or get a commercial release. Or are produced by a major company. But that's not true of the vast majority.
  2. It doesn't do Misplaced Pages any good to not have information on them, as this is still a reasonably important subject. Misplaced Pages not having information is not a good thing. Sure, it'd be a bad idea to get into any comparisons between emulators (as some of the articles tread upon now), but there's a difference between simply reporting that this is Emulator X, and this is Emulator Y, and Emulator Z and saying Emulator X is the ROKS! while Y and Z are deh SuX! .
  3. There's a lot of articles on them, some of which will probably never be expanded. See the stub-Category I already mentioned. So for many cases, perhaps a better way to do things would be to merge and redirect to an informational list. See List of esoteric programming languages . This would also help as it would allow us to determine whether or not what's being emulated is important, which may be somewhat easier. Obviously, there are exceptions that merit their own articles, but that can be determined after the fact.

Anyway, that's what I'm thinking right now. Does anybody else have any other input that isn't just repeating some Wikipolicy or another? I'm sorry, but I just don't find that quoting WP:Software or WP:NOT or whatever very stimulating thoughtwise. They actually tend to preclude discussion IMHO. Mister.Manticore 14:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The best compromise I can think is the one Manticore suggested (I think) on one of the AfDs, which was rather than having 70-odd (random number) articles with three sentences about them, compile them into lists of emulators by system. We could then have articles about the TRULY notable emulators. The Kinslayer 15:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, this seems to have stalled now, so can we either have some fresh input from other people, or reach a decision on how to handle emulators? The Kinslayer 19:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid three or four people contributing on a subject that covers at least 90-odd articles isn't enough for me to think we've got enough people to have reached a decision. Especially since some of the people have only chimed in once to cite some already established policy, without replying to comments on why that policy might not be quite fair. I'm just not sure how to get some real discussion going. Considering the PITA that was resulted in over a dozen undeletions from those cookie articles the other day though(or the earlier Esoteric programming languages thing), I'm inclined to advocate patience and thought rather than act improvidently. Mister.Manticore 03:08, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Good point. I do like the idea of a list though. Because emulator use is in most cases illegal, is it not ? Sure, if you have a legitimate bios to make them run, you are kinda ok for personal use. But that's just a technicality IMHO. The risk exists that Misplaced Pages might get some copyvio complaints. I hate the idea of having Misplaced Pages lack information but in case of illegal software... The less we have the better. A list with links to other sites would be informative and not too risky IMHO. Renmiri 04:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Nope, besides the fact that reporting on something criminal is rather different from actually doing the thing, emulation is NOT illegal in and of itself. I don't know of any emulator being found criminal at all, though I suppose it could happen. In any case, relatively few emulators require an actual BIOS to run, and even then, those haven't been the subject of any of the discussion here, or anywhere that I know about, solely because they might require a copyrighted bios. Now if there is a wikipedia page that talks about getting copyrighted ROMs, proposing that for deletion is another matter. But it's not like we go around deleting pages like Abandonware or The Pirate Bay just because they might be "risky" in some vague sense that they could be misused. As arguments go, this is relatively weak. Mister.Manticore 05:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
An emulator itself is certainly not illegal. For emulators that require a bios image (and there are some, but they're more commonly computer emulators), it is the bios itself that would be illegal to have and not the emulator. Even then, there are some bios's that have been released to the PD, and others that have been reversed engineered and provided in PD format. Such is the case with the Vectrex for example, where the owner has released all roms (including the bios) in to the PD. Nintendo is the only one that I'm aware of that took an "emulators are illegal" stance, but has since corrected it since they couldn't prosecute anyone. They even tried prosecuting hardware based "famiclones" (NES's on a chip) but couldn't win that because they were produced with reverse engineering and couldn't prove otherwise. (I believe it was against someone selling them locally to NOA in Washington in fact just a few years ago). Their official stance on emulation is still very negative, i.e. "emulation promotes piracy therefore it is bad". --Marty Goldberg 14:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
          • I think we're moving away from the point here. The issue is how we are going to deal with all the emulator pages currently in existence. Most of them have no further information to expand them, and some seem like adverts. I think the way forward would be to delete articles and compile them into 'List of Emulators.] But also, I do think it would be good to include something about the legality of emulators in the general overview article, and I think the whole Nintendo situation is especially worth noting. The Kinslayer 12:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Consistency for MobyGames in External Links

Does anyone here besides Frecklefoot and tjstrf think that MobyGames should be linked to on EVERY video game page? Because tjstrf is adding it to Riviera: The Promised Land citing "consistency". --Raijinili 01:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Mobygames should be linked to when it is used. Consistency is not a valid reason for external links. There are almost 10000 tagged cvg articles- they don't all need a mobygames link. --PresN 13:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Personally I think MobyGames should be added to every article. MobyGames provides screenshots and information that is not appropriate for Misplaced Pages. jaco♫plane 15:04, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
If the MobyGames article covers information that exceeds the scope of the Misplaced Pages article, it should be linked to. If it has just the same info, it shouldn't be. EVula 15:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Jaco, in the case of certain pages, such as Riviera: The Promised Land, Atlus already provides screenshots. Just about the only other things that the MobyGames page offers are where to buy the game, some reviews (which Metacritic does better, in my opinion), and a Chinese name for a Chinese release I've never heard of. Do you think that it should be added to Riviera? --Raijinili 00:34, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I'll ammend my previous comment and say that it doesn't have to be linked in every article. If you want to wait for the information and other data to be updated first, before you link to it, fine. But I've always been partial to only doing work once. If I'm working on a game article, I'll link to MobyGames because I know the information there is generally useful and expands on what Misplaced Pages will have. Linking to MobyGames isn't—and shouldn't be—a requirement. However, it is one of my personal standard practices. — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Same stupid edit war, different day... I think that it's important to have a standard system for linking and that there is no reason whatsoever to remove a link that is normally included on other similar pages. --tjstrf 15:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I would typically agree that a link should be provided if it is used as research or if there is additional information not part of the pedia. In the case of Riviera: The Promised Land MG has detailed cover art, detailed release info Example the Japanese release was developed and published by Sting whereas the US release was published by Atlus and developed by Sting. The wonderswan version was published by Bandai. Some people go crazy for these details. Obviously screenshots. I think I may of put the link there in the first place ... but hey whatever you folks decide. --Flipkin 16:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the MobyGames entry had no more information than the Misplaced Pages article. Now I see it has a great deal more than our article. The screenshots alone merit its inclusion. But since the comment at the top of this thread excludes my opinion, I'll keep it to myself. >:( — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Well MG and the CVP are like sister projects. Both user contributed. There are some philosophical and technical differences but I think both goals are the game. Video games are culturally and historically important. Document everything. Offer that information free to the public. I think both benefit from the association. Obviously the policy should be by concensus, but my opinion is that the MG are OK. --Flipkin 18:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I didn't say that it had no more info than the Misplaced Pages article. Pay attention. I said that the other links already covered most of what MobyGames had. If you want me to respect your opinions, then I expect you to actually read what I say so that I don't have to keep saying it. --Raijinili 00:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
And one more link, to finish it off. --Raijinili 00:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
It seems you are just bent on ignoring the reasons people do give to you, which are more than sufficient for the rest of us. This discussion has gone on long enough and it's obvious which way consensus goes: link acceptable or imperative, argument over removal WP:LAME. I'm readding the link. --tjstrf 00:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
What reasons did I ignore? Back it up. You're saying that "we should support MobyGames" is a valid reason?
People said that MobyGames provided information. I responded time and again that the other links provide just as much information and more. Redundancy isn't a valid reason for exclusion now?
"Consistency" for external links is NOT Misplaced Pages policy and you can't cite that for a reason unless it's decided by consensus that it is a valid reason, because then it leads to stupid edit wars.
People then brought up that MobyGames had screenshots and release info. I replied that I already talked about how the other external links covered those screenshots and release info, and did it better. What exactly did I miss? --Raijinili 01:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
You have just made false accusations for the second time in this same debate. Lovely. I have not made personal attacks, nor have I broken the 3RR rule, I have explained my actions, and I have attempted to negotiate here. There is nothing more to say in this debate if you refuse to acknowledge that an acceptable link according to policy may be included in the article. Even the original IP opposer to inclusion acknowledged that the Mobygames link met WP:EL, and Yggdra's opposition was due to a misunderstanding of policy to begin with (he believed that External Links should be to obscure sites that were not widely known, misunderstanding that the site must be mainstream in its field to even qualify for inclusion). --tjstrf 01:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Might I suggest that everyone take a breather for a couple of days? This debate is becoming absurdly heated, and I think everyone would be better off if we let it cool down. EVula 02:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me. I really didn't care what happened with the specific links to begin with, just about correcting Yggdra's misconceptions of the purpose of External Links. I've only continued this argument after he left because Raijinili's false accusations ticked me off. I won't interfere with the links anymore if Raijinili promises the same. --tjstrf 02:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't "cool down". I forget.
I admit that I misinterpreted 3RR, ignoring the time restriction.
You accused me of ignoring valid reasoning. I personally find that offensive and take it as a personal attack. It's certainly not backed up and has no relevance to the debate (both of which would have been solved had you provided some examples).
The original IP opposer doesn't understand Misplaced Pages policy. I challenged that it met WP:EL, which everyone seemed to ignore, because it didn't contain much information outside of what the other links covered (under "useful"). --Raijinili 04:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Even the original IP opposer to inclusion acknowledged that the Mobygames link met WP:EL Consenting to it being allowed is not the same as consenting to its inclusion. Learn to read; I said that the WP:EL allows it, but that it shouldn't be included because it provides absolutely no new information. DrSturm 18:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
So this may a bit overly nuanced, but ... In terms of screenshots MG and VGMuseum screenshots are actual grabs of images of gameplay that the user/player would see in their native resolution. The publisher / developer and sites like Gamespot, IGN use promotional material. Often there are subtle but important differences. The publisher/developer grabs screen from their dev environment or using a debug kit. This means that the screen is in a resolution not possible during gameplay and sometimes elements such as nav, hud and info boxes, prespective are missing or incorrect.
That does not apply to the situation of Riviera, which is what started this whole thing. Atlus has many more shots than MB and in a more accurately displayed resolution. DrSturm 18:32, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Low importance / no importance article assessments

I think we should merge no importance with low importance. Then we would have low/mid/high/top, which I think is plenty. I find it very difficult to say an article has "no" importance whatsoever. Also, other projects like WPBiography don't have this "no importance" category. Another reason is that the AWB plugin I've been using to rate/prioritise articles doesn't have support for "no importance". Anyone disagree? jaco♫plane 08:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, if an article truly has no importance, shouldn't it just be deleted? jaco♫plane 08:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not certain, but I think to actually merge the two, you need to take it up wiht the Version 1.0 project, who made the rating system to start with. Personally, I agree that I don't like slapping on a "no importance" tag. I prefer to not use that tag, basically treating not having a tag as the same thing as no importance. I propose rather than merging no and low, we just don't use no, getting us the same result. --PresN 13:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Nice edit summary :) Anyway, I actually think we're the only project that has a "no importance" category, see: Category:Articles by importance. No "no importance" there. So I think that we don't really need to take it up with the Version 1.0 project since they're not using this anyway. jaco♫plane 13:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I support their merger. I agree that an actual "no importance" article would equal a deleted article (in which case, there'd be no talk page for the tag to be on...). EVula 18:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

On a historical note, No-importance was created especially for the Essential Articles list, which is meant to list only essential articles and rate their importance appropriately; for example, the EA list has only 9 top-level, whereas 22 are currently top-level on the bot's list. No-importance articles had to be justified or removed. Nifboy 00:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the statement that "no importance" implies that the article should not even exist on the wikipedia. But that's an issue of semantics. If the 1.0 editorial team has use for it, then we shouldn't worry about it too much. Like other editors have mentioned, I've just been ignoring the difference between "low" and "no". Effectively they are synonomous; almost all things in the "low" category are such minor topics(e.g. various minor video game characters, or minor games that have made no impact in their genre) they will never see inclusion in version 1.0. —Mitaphane talk 00:29, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
To further the argument, Mathbot would, I assume, classify articles of No-Importance as not ranked for importance - Misplaced Pages:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Computer and video game articles by quality statistics. I'll change the template so that articles marked as No- are put in Low-Importance. Pagrashtak 01:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I've updated the template, but only with respect to the category. The template will still display No-Importance, but will be categorized as Low. It would be possible to force the template to display Low when No is used, but I don't think it would be worth muddying up the code for that at this point. For now, I suggest leaving the display and switching No to Low if you run across it and feel like updating it. Or, someone could request a bot to update it if he feels it's important. Pagrashtak 01:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It actually should be "priority" and not importance as explained by Morphh. Some games and systems just have no priority whatsoever to be included in Misplaced Pages 1.0 Hbdragon88 00:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Importance -> priority change implemented. Should we rename the associated categories? --tjstrf 06:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. We should aso run a bot to change all the cvgproj headers from "importance" to "priority" as well. Hbdragon88 21:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/The Trenches

Could a couple of people please come and give their opinions in this? At the moment it's just two or three of us debating back and forth, and I think some fresh opinions are badly needed. The Kinslayer 17:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Additionaly, the AfD has now been mentioned on The Trenches forum, so I'm expecting some major sock puppetry any time now. The Kinslayer 18:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This page's history

I've known about this for a bit, but it's really eating me up lately. This page's history only goes back to July 29, when the page was moved to archive old discussion. The rest of the history is here, at Archive 13. Is it too late to fix it? I know, I'm an admin and I could probably fix it, but I'm one of the lazy admins. Also, I tend to mess up fixing cut and paste moves sometimes, and don't want to make it worse. Comments? Thunderbrand 14:31, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

What eats me up more is having the history all on one page. Really, why can't we must move pages over instad of cut-and-paste archiving? If I'm looking up an old discussion, I hate having to look through 5-6 archives. I'd much rather try to hunt through my own contribus to find which archive page I put the discussion on. Hbdragon88 22:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
It's just that we should probably keep it consistant, as per Misplaced Pages:How_to_archive_a_talk_page#Controversy. From archive 1-12, they were cut and pasted, and 13 was moved, and the rest are also cut and paste. Thunderbrand 23:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

various stubs up for deletion

I am just notifying you that I am putting a few cvg-related stubs up for deletion since their categories are empty or nearly empty. Please voice your opinion on the SFD page here.

~ Amalas rawr 17:33, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject Tycoon Computer Games

Yes, it's still alive! I took a wikibreak, and it seemed to have deteriorated--but I'm back! I was thinking of removing the inactive notice, reply if you have an objection. Primate 01:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I mildly object- one person does not a wikiproject make, and you're the only person who's active in the project. That said, go ahead if you wish, it doesn't really bother me. --PresN 14:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

need some help with CVG by year again

I've got some work to be done on the CVG by year categories.

  1. remove interwiki links. Most or all of them are automatically covered in {{cvg year interwiki}}, if not, please add them to it.
  2. add it to the parent year in software category (don't worry if it doesn't exist yet, I'm making them).

See Category:2000 computer and video games for an example. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 02:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:Unassessed computer and video game articles - Donald Duck

Donald Duck has appeared in the category today. The actual article merely lists video games he has been in. Should it really be part of cvgproj? My opinion is not. Yes he is a game character but it was secondary to why he exists, if you have any comment please add them to the talk page - X201 12:48, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, just in case anyone cares, the Unassessed catagory now only has articles from F through U, which still encompanses around 3700 articles. So, drop on by, assess some articles! Link is in the to do box on the main project page. --PresN 14:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
No, Donald Duck doesn't belong in the CVG project. His games do, that's it. Articles that just mention video games briefly, certainly aren't a part of this project. RobJ1981 17:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

BZFlag removed as FA

BZflag has been removed as a Featured Article, due to...well, being a B class article that no one cares to fix. This means that the only CVG related article currently at Featured Article Review is Link (Legend of Zelda), though it looks like it's going to pass. This has been your daily Featured Article News Update. --PresN 17:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Doom clone deleted

Apparently the article Doom clone has been killed. This is completely absurd; it was a fine article on an important subject, and tons of pages link to it (there are now a lot of dead links instead). Any administrator who can figure out why it was deleted, or better yet, would be willing to simply restore it? Fredrik Johansson 21:05, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, if someone had bothered to remove the WP:PROD tag that wouldn't have happened. Just ask an admin to restore it. --tjstrf 21:09, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

VGCharts

Well, seems that there's controversy over removing the website run by a GAFer (who is not a professional estimater, and it does not have any actual sales figures). Well, see, we are asking for sales figures, VGCharts does not provide sales figures, so it cannot be a source for sales figures, the end whee! - A Link to the Past (talk) 03:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that's an awesome job of explaining what you're doing and both sides of the discussion. Please don't remove VGCharts links until you've explained better, please. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:47, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Not sure what this is about, but isn't it the job of the editor who wishes to include information to provide reliable sources, and not the one seeking to remove it? -- Ned Scott 03:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
ALTTP has been removing links to VGCharts from a number of articles, many of them long-stable and some featured. If there was some evidence that ALTTP had considered the arguments to keep these links, or even considered why they were added, then removed them for a second, more-compelling set of reasons, it'd be fine, but he's pretty much refused to do anything but point to a rather useless argument between him and some anons on a fairly-obscure talk page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Ah, I see. I agree then, more discussion is needed before a mass removal of such citations and links. -- Ned Scott 03:58, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Right. I have no great stake in this, but I'm unhappy to see references being removed unilaterally from multiple articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I would no more consider this link appropriate for Misplaced Pages as I would a dead link. The link has zero legitimacy - why am I the one arguing against this? Can anyone show me evidence that his numbers are sales figures or that he can be considered as professional as the hair on NPD's pinky knuckle? - A Link to the Past (talk) 04:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
And, there is no other side. The only one arguing for VGCharts are those who don't want content to be removed, and users who appear to have come to Misplaced Pages for the reason of inserting this link. - A Link to the Past (talk) 04:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
No worries, we're just trying to get all on the same page here. -- Ned Scott 12:22, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Well, this is an interesting issue. I had heard ALttP explain it, and had agreed to a certain point with him. We need to determine if VGCharts is a reliable site or not. VGCharts started as everythingandnothing.co.uk or something like that, and somehow became part of Advanced Media Network. Per www.vgcharts.org/welcome.php

VG Charts uses a proprietary system

As I said, this site began as a site founded by Generic Bob, where he picked the data from trackers, calculated an average, and rounded up (in example). No different from me uploading my estimates at a Geocities page.

Since VG Charts does not collect or assemble the raw data itself, we recommend that anybody wishing to use officially sourced data for formal reports and so on should really contact the tracking services above

So, does Misplaced Pages need to use officially sourced data, or are these estimates enough?

When analysing the sales of a particular title, or comparing present data to historic data, we strongly recommend the use of VG Charts in your analysis

Well, a site without advertisment would not be able to grow.
So, is VGCharts a reliable site? Someone should sit down and check that out. I am off to sleep. -- ReyBrujo 04:55, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I'm misreading what you're saying, but Misplaced Pages is not for advertising. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Based on what I've read here, I'd have to give a gritty in-your-face 'No' to including this as a reliable source. The quotes above imply thatL
A) They work it out themselves, based on what they find (this sounds awfully like off-site original research)
B)There is absolutely nothing official about it, and the links seem to be added purely for advertising reasons.
C)They even say themselves 'Don't use our data, go straight to our sources.'
D) Why has this even come up for discussion again? I thought we settled this last time in the debate over sales figures. The Kinslayer 12:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Additionally, ALTTP is right, he's arguing on the basis that site is not relaible enough to be a wikisource, while everyone is arguing over the fact he was bold and removed spam. The Kinslayer 12:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
However, and here comes the tricky part, according to this, May have taken their own look at the available primary sources and used their own judgment in evaluating them. which is basically what VGCharts are doing. And according to this, Reliable sources also are ones which differentiate within their own information stream between assertions which are backed by observation, those that are theoretical but highly likely, and those which are speculative, conjectural and rumor. which they do, however, they may fail the following point, as Reliable sources have reproducible or verifiable means of gathering information. A fact which could be checked, even if it has not been, is generally more reliable than one which cannot be checked. which we can't as they use a proprietary system to get the final numbers. As I said, someone must sit down, verify every point in WP:RS, and inform whether VGCharts is a reliable source or not. -- ReyBrujo 12:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this is pretty much a green light to continue the removal of these references, now that we are all on the same page. -- Ned Scott 12:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think we should put it to a vote, just to make sure. The Kinslayer 12:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
m:Don't vote on everything, and it's pretty clear that VGCharts don't qualify as reliable sources. -- Ned Scott 12:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Also, m:Polls are evil (a better link) -- Ned Scott 12:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Then I stand corrected! I just wanted to avoid potential editwars, since VGcharts has cause trouble recently already. The Kinslayer 12:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Note the Misplaced Pages:Voting is not evil essay. Although I agree that polls are often evil, they should not be discouraged on sight. -- ReyBrujo 12:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Just when they are unneeded. I've made polls on Misplaced Pages before, I don't always find them evil. -- Ned Scott 09:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
Just as an aside, anyone looking for Square Enix game data should consult their website's fincial reporting page. They have a 2003 IR Roadshow document I've used for the Chrono series that lists figures for games sellin over one million copies (and there are a bunch, let me tell you...) --Zeality 19:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Magazines Project - (Blowing our own trumpet)

Just a piece of blatant project publicity about the fact that The Magazines Project now has over 200 individual magazines listed, and the size of the list is increasing (almost) daily. It now covers the last 12 years of video gaming and has articles available on everything from trade shows to French computer games. - X201 22:10, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Computer Gaming World archives available for download

I'm cross-posting this at the CVG Magazine Archive, but thought the wider WPCVG community might benefit from it.

Now that Computer Gaming World is changing their name, the entire back catalogue of first 100 issues' worth of CGW articles has been posted for free download at FileFront, here. It's a pretty huge collection of free content, and provides both interesting historical information and an accessible source of facts for articles that touch on its subject matter. Personal computer game will be received some new citations from this source, and I hope it helps improve some other articles as well.

Unfortunately, these are extremely large PDF files - Issue 1 alone is fourteen megabytes. I'm downloading them all now, though, and would be happy to start a torrent if necessary. Daveydweeb (/patch) 06:25, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Talk page template stuff

Since before there was discussion about how to clean up the large amount of WikiProject templates on talk pages, I thought you guys would be interested in the proposal at Misplaced Pages:Mini Talkpage Template for the additional templates (like featured article, good article, peer review, etc). -- Ned Scott 09:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Too much trivia on several video game articles

Here are just some: various King of Fighters characters, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, various Mega Man articles and much more. If you want a more complete list, see Category:Articles with large trivia sections. RobJ1981 21:12, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

it's an ongoing problem - arm yourself with an anti-chuff cannon and set about it :) --Charlesknight 21:14, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll see your Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and raise you FIFA Street 2 - X201 21:47, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

What a mess. I've seen articles bad like that before though. For some shooter games, there is huge lists of every single weapon. People fill articles with way too much cruft. RobJ1981 21:52, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
You like trivia? Check List of King of Fighters: Maximum Impact characters. 52 trivia items in 10 trivia sections. -- ReyBrujo 01:36, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Get your mouse button ready and commence trivia whacking. Hbdragon88 07:27, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Also take a look at pretty much everything linked from {{RE series}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought I should probably bring to mind the Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross articles here. Both of them not only have "plot" sections that are massively long, but for some reason an enormous amount of in-game character quotations have "cross references" going down to where, ordinarily, external link references would go. Given the huge plot text, this results in the references section being way, way too large. I'm going to go through and get rid of those cross references (we don't REALLY need an entire section devoted to ingame quotes like "What's going on Lucca? WHERE IS SHE?"), but the plot text itself will still need some extensive paring. It looks like several other articles like Final Fantasy IV also have this inane plotlinking. Seriously, if someone REALLY wants to read each and every quote that a character makes during the course of a game, can't they just play the game itself? It seems to be of limited value to fill up entire article sections with this stuff. Ex-Nintendo Employee 11:53, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
See, the difference between what we're talking about here and CC and CT is that FIFA Street 2 was half-filled with a list of all 100+ soccer players in the game (before I whacked it), while CT and CC are featured articles, and held up as examples of what all cvg articles should look like. Also, what are you talking about? There isn't a section in CT about quotes. Please do not go about hacking apart featured articles, you will be reverted. --PresN 13:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you meant. You meant that every ref that was to the game itself should be removed. Ironically, the editors at FAC felt that not referencing the plot meant that it was OR. Since you deleted 20ish references, I've reverted you. Please do not do massive edits to a featured article like that without at least discussing it first. --PresN 13:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
PresN is correct. DO NOT REMOVE those cross references. Those were put there in response to citation needed tags during the FA and GA process. The cross-reference section is not a quotes section and is indeed part of what makes the CT and CC articles worthy of being Featured Articles. Renmiri 13:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
" No, PresN is not correct. There is absolutely, positively no reason for each and every single plot-related dialogue quote to be referenced within the article itself. Someone who wants such a deep focus on the plot can read a guide (which Misplaced Pages is not). If you don't feel that the cross-reference section is a "quotes" section, then simply don't fill it with quotes. Imagine how disturbingly large every single game plot section would be if we did that to them all. A short summary of the plot is all that is neccesary, no matter how well-liked the game is- a massive, guidelike list of events and quotations, on the other hand, is not. Come on, do we seriously NEED to reference things like "Look, Crono! Your cat's running away because you haven't been feeding it!" I don't know how something like that got to Featured status, but there's no reason we can't pare down the un-needed pieces to make it better. Ex-Nintendo Employee 16:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, lets see why it passed FAC, shall we? It was only the beginning of August. Here's a scattering of quotes from the nomination- "The Story section needs to be more comprehensive, and shouldn't be rushing itself quite as hard as it is" "I know you're probably concerned with length, but being comprehensive is more important than length. Don't try molding the article to fit some imaginary standard of length. The only standard of length is that it cover everything important and do it with clarity without going into the territory of detail that only fans would look for." "'Do you mean for the story? I can dig up some script references'.....'Some for the story would be good, yeah'" "You don't come to an encyclopedia if you don't want comprehensive overviews." I respect that you feel that the plot section is too in depth, and that there are too many game references. I do not respect the fact that instead of starting a discussion, you went and removed all of the references to the game. Yes, anyone can edit wikipedia, but for FA class articles it's usually a good idea to tell people about major changes to the article before you do them. --PresN 16:38, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
And yet, despite your lovely quotes, references to people's cats still remain. Oh well. Honestly, if you want to turn Chrono Trigger into a vast repository of random facts and quotations about Chrono's pets, be my guest. I have parakeets to feed. Ex-Nintendo Employee 16:48, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Ex, you are missing the point and blowing it out of proportion. The quotes are presented to solidify that the synopsis is not original researach; it also deters OR drops. This has been an accepted procedure in numerous featured articles; I believe you are only the second person to have a real distaste for them. Furthermore, these plot sections do not cover all minor subarcs; however, they are comprehensive in all areas of the games (yes, including the plot) in a succinct manner to satisfy both criteria as much as possible. Plus, the cat reference is key to the conclusion of the plot section; it's not about the cat, it's about the situation, and the quote provides evidence that such a situation described in the plot synopsis is not OR. — Deckiller 16:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Ex-N Missing TWO points actually: No matter how he feels about the citations section, it was pretty rude to just erase half of it without discussion, on an FA class page. Had he bothered to ask we would have explained the difference between citations and random quotes. For anyone not familiar with how to survive a peer review, Good Page Award review and FA review they might look unsightly but Deck and Ryu can confirm what I tell you, no page makes into FA without citations. Renmiri 21:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Just got back from visiting my birds, and look at that! A slew of new replies. Hey Renmiri, I'm not missing ANY "points" here- I just happen to disagree with you. You'll notice that I've stopped bothering with the CT article- I know that the little group that's huddled around it would immediately jump to its "defense", no matter what unencyclopedic minor content one attempts to pare down. It doesn't matter that quotes about a cat, random dialogue about the gate Keys and other fudd aren't really "citations", they're just fluff- fluff that puffs up an article's size and makes it interminable to wade through. Despite all the self-congratulatory back-patting going on here, the fact remains that you're sitting on an article filled to the brim with minor, unencyclopedic quotations. Remember, just because someone disagrees with your point of view (as I do) doesn't make them either stupid, nor does it mean they're "missing any points". And for the record, I haven't seen any evidence that the dialogue about Chrono's cat food helps give the article any level of succinctness. That's my two cents, and I'll go away now and leave your group to ponder over what next to do with your gargantuan puffy article. I'm sure more back-patting will occur, and a few rounds of "Oh, that darn Ex-Nintendo Employee." Have fun! Ex-Nintendo Employee 21:30, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, what you said toward the end proves that you missed my point. Also, the term "missing the point" was not in response to disagreement; it was in response to the fact that you did not (and still have not) addressed the issue of why the references are being used (which would therefore be the point). I stated that the reference with the cat in the dialogue provides evidence that the scenerios mentioned at the end of the plot synopsis actually occured, and were not just OR statements. That has nothing to do with succinctness, nor is it a quote section — again, they are direct references to the text to prove that the synopsis is not speculation or false. — Deckiller 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

XNE has a couple of good points, albeit somewhat harshly stated. Regarding the length of plot summaries, remember, not every plot point or event needs to be described in a plot summary, despite the recent trend (I'm finding which is largely led by WP:WPFF, since they've done the bulk of the CVG FAs lately) to write very detailed plot summaries. When you are writing a plot summary, strongly consider omitting points which are not necessary to the understanding of the rest of the article. (Chrono's cat food is a good example.) We're not here to retell the story in less-compelling form.

As for the citations to the text, this is better than not citing anything, but is less than ideal. Whenever possible, try to use secondary analysis of the story, rather than relating it yourself based on primary observation, as part of the foundation of this encyclopedia is to synthesize commentary in secondary sources. I realize that such secondary sources are often scarce, but we should not have a five-page-long plot summary of Chrono Trigger when no other source has ever felt the need to go into that much detail.

I realize these aren't popular points, but they're important ones, and I think the current trend needs to be reversed. Comprehensiveness does not require that we retell the story in less-compelling form. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

To give an example we should follow, The Lord of the Rings, a featured article on an exceedingly plot-dense trilogy of lengthy books, currently has a shorter plot summary than Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy IV. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
As we both know, secondary source plot analysis are often published by self-published sources, which are currently even more discouraged than primary source citations. :) Also, I checked, and the only time the word "cat" is used is in the citation that happens to have the subject of the cat in it, despite the reference being used for a more general reason. — Deckiller 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The recent trend follows a series of featured article reviews, which claimed that the articles were not comprehensive because they lacked detailed plot summary. Said reviews were placed by fairly experienced outside editors (such as User:Silence), who don't normally edit RPG articles (making it more important to follow). Thus, it is not necessarily our wish to provide such detail (which is NOT fancruft), but not doing it can very well result in getting hit from another (and potentially more brutal, since the FA voters are usually outside editors). So, it's not as simple as it's made out to be here. You know me; heck, I had my four paragraph plot summary of Final Fantasy IV (and my three paragraph summary of Final Fantasy IX) completely rewritten (partially by myself) to be more "comprehensive" as these users wished. And since the articles managed to pass FAC without much resistance to it, the trend was set to be how we'd handle things. Ultimately, it boils down to what is best for the reader, not what's best for editor politics. That is, unfortunately, the achilles' heel of Misplaced Pages (especially since we're debating featured articles). In all honesty, I'd rather do without the lengthy plot summaries as well (but keep the citations, as this is an encyclopedia), but we must also remember that the current versions are actually a compromise between the opinions on peer reviews and FAs, so they ideally represent what is acceptable to editors on the outside. — Deckiller 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
    My point (and I think XNE's point) is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, and that the example of FFVII, a 90K monster, is being used to make ridiculously long plot summaries for games that are not nearly so plot heavy (Chrono Trigger, for example). The next time someone complains that a four-paragraph summary isn't comprehensive, feel free to let me know so I can make the opposite case. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:50, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
    My issue is that if said pendulum overswings in the other way, it would be even more of a problem. You know me, I always like to strike a balance and a compromise; all I did with the Chrono articles was copyedit them, so I can't really defend the length of those articles' synopses (I can, however, say very firmly that the synopses of FF6, FF8, FF10/X-2, and soon FF9 are compromises considering how plot-heavy they are). In the end, though, it's more of a superficial issue; these articles passed FA, so outside editors don't see it as much of a problem (or they have given up; Ryu and myself were pretty hard on all the inclusionists and deletionists who poppsed up to say that the articles were too short/too long).
    I can offer to cut down 20-30 percent of the summaries for CT and FF4, if I can be certain that there will be no more lingering problems about "length". We are here to educate the masses; so, as editors, we must balance all of our organizational ideas to a common point (which had certainly been done with FF6, FF8, and FF10/10-2). If we cut back, we MUST not overcompensate. — Deckiller 03:03, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
    Well, I'd argue that overly detailed plot summaries do the reader a disservice, to the point where little is lost even when the plot summary is short of "comprehensive". You're ruining the work for readers who haven't already read/played the work in question, while boring those who have. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
    Whereas the arguement for a brief summary is that it doesn't cover the topic on the whole, and readers who wish to gain a grasp of the story in conjunction with the article are often docked major events (and people who have played it will not be able to get an adequete summary as a whole, or make more significant edits). That's why I'm an advocate for finding a balance between informing and overinforming — I believe the plot summary of Final Fantasy 8 is a perfect balance thereof. If we can mold articles around that style, I think it can be a fitting compromise. The key is to inform, but not cut so much to let ignorant wikipoliticians get their way, and not include so much that your arguement comes into play (which I really only think is an issue with the summaries of Chrono Trigger and maybe Final Fantasy 7)— Deckiller 03:34, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
    This isn't going to have any bearing on the argument, but as a former lurker (ages ago), I always appreciated it when an encyclopedia had more than two or three paragraphs of plot summary. A lot of film entries basically echo the plot outline given in the press kit and do not reveal the resolution, major arcs, characters, etc. These seem like things that must be included an an encyclopedic article on a fictional work. Not arguing for expansive blowouts here, but perhaps we could set out some guidelines? Like, CVG articles should cover major plot arcs, major character development, and major events in the game? And perhaps we could note that editors should exclude sidequests or plot jokes? --Zeality 16:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I have had to add the {{toomuchtrivia}} template to virtually every Sonic game article going. According to WP:AVTRIV the guidelines are not about the trivia in articles, it is to do with trivia being in articles at all (or as I informally call it, the War on Trivia). The guidelines suggest that trivia sections should be avoided and be merged into the article or deleted off the page (or better yet, of the idea of a project like Wikitrivia gets off the ground, moved there). Too much trivia on a page according to WP:AVTRIV is regardless of how much trivia there is on a page, it should all be merged or removed. I love reading trivia on games, but I think the time is now where it should be moved to another project (a la Wikitrivia?). --tgheretford (talk) 21:54, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

A project for trivia? I certainly hope that doesn't exist on Misplaced Pages ever. Trivia is a problem on Misplaced Pages now, and a project for it wouldn't help matters. The only useful trivia project is one that is used for cleaning the sections, not helping promote it. People need to realize Misplaced Pages is for encyclopedia content, not every little trivia note that they think is useful. In my opinion, trivia sections should be completely banned from Misplaced Pages altogether. They seem to be just sections for random things that don't fit anywhere else. If it's useful: add to the article itself. If it's not useful: don't add it to the article ever. Misplaced Pages isn't a fan's guide for every little detail. RobJ1981 23:51, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I think you may have misunderstood my point, I was refering to the idea being coined where trivia would move to a project completely separate from Misplaced Pages in all regards, like Wikiquote is for quotes for example, or gaming guides to one of the separate gaming Wikis for example (technically if all trivia should be banished from Misplaced Pages - wouldn't the Department of Fun's Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense sections all be ripe for MfD? I'd hope not! ) --tgheretford (talk) 00:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, I see two fabulous ideas here: First, the WikiProject: Trivia integration, whose sole aim would be to hunt down trivia sections, integrate what they can in the article, and sort the interesting, relevant, sourceable facts from the basic fancruft. Second, the Wikitrivia. That could be a great place for all the fanboys and fangirls to breathe a little, and rave about the subject of their passion in very tiny, but oh-so-amazing detail. Any support to these two? Does anyone know where I can post the idea for the wikiproject?--SidiLemine 11:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, you go here. Note you have to create a new account for the Meta Wiki site, from what I gather. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:10, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Chronology of PlayStation 2 games is in need of help

After cleaning up some redundant information, I noticed the page needs help. It just seems like a cluttered list of North America and Japan releases. I think a split should be made, or the list should be in a table of some sort by year to make it look neater. RobJ1981 21:34, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

F-Zero GX GA?

Is it appropriate for this title to be considered a good article? FullMetal Falcon 22:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Too many bulleted lists, and not enough references. It's a very good B-class though, wouldn't take it too much to get to GA. Also, we don't decide if it's GA class, WP:GAC does. Though I and other CVG editors review articles on there sometimes. (I try to avoid CVG articles, I'd feel biased.) --PresN 00:46, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Tron ni Kobun

Can someone figure out what this is and what should be done with it? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

My eyes! It should be deleted, as Tron ni Kobun is the japanese name for The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, a much better article. --PresN 00:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The name PCP

Hi! I am TrackerTV from subproject WP:PCP. In the past 2 months, we have received 2 inquiries concerning a name change. The first came from me with no consensus. The second came from User:Atomic-Super-Suit, which mentioned PCP is a drug (as an abbreviation). Would you, our parent, support a name change for three Projects:

  • Pokémon Collaborative Project (WP:PCP) to WikiProject Pokémon (WP:POKE, WP:WPP as dab link at top, WP:PKMN dab link at top)
  • WikiProject Digimon Systems Update to simply WikiProject Digimon (no shortcut change)
  • WikiProject Legend of Zelda series to just WikiProject Legend of Zelda

I think all Projects should be held by a standard name, and should meet naming conventions so they are not mistaken for a guideline page or anything else in the Misplaced Pages namespace.

Shin'ou's TTV (Futaba|Masago|Kotobuki) 05:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT a bureaucracy, last I checked, and, really, who cares? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Two people appearantly. -SaturnYoshi 06:52, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Call yourself PCP, it dosen't matter that it's the same as something else. If it really worries you prefix it with CVG-PCP - X201 08:07, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be at anime and manga? We've got more manga and anime articles than video games articles. Highway 09:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
No, no it shouldn't. You have approximately 440 Pokemon articles under CVG, far less than that which would fall under WP:MANGA. I believe the name change unnecessary, btw. --tjstrf 16:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Em, the Pokémon appear in -

  • the games

which covers your portion, they also appear in -

  • the anime
  • the 10 mangas
  • the trading card game

So how do they get grouped "under" CVG? Highway 11:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Because WP:MANGA primarily defines its involvement in an area by the original media. We cover things which were originally Japanese manga, Japanese anime, and Japanese light novels, and their derived works. This means we don't cover Pokemon, because while Pokemon overlaps with our "jurisdiction" in content, but it is not based on a light novel, manga, or anime series. Similarly, we don't cover Battle Royale because (despite its manga adaptation) it was originally a normal Japanese book, not a graphic novel or anime. --tjstrf 23:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
How bureaucratic. Why not just cover the subjects to which your tools are well-suited? We could really use the help with the largely anime-based articles at WP:PCP. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
If you look at the most recent discussion the project had on the subject here, you'll notice that I don't exactly agree with the current standards. Personally, I believe the scope should be expanded to include subjects such as Manhwa and published manga based on other licensed properties for the sake of standardization, but I got shot down. --tjstrf 07:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I personally like the collaborative part, as it indicates that it's a collboration. I don't mind either way (though I haven't been contributing to Pokemon articles for awhile). Hbdragon88 03:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Macrons in Japanese names.

Hi all. I am currently working on renaming a whole bunch of Japanese history articles to their more proper spellings, using macrons. One of the more common examples of this coming up in video games (as many of you are probably aware, and many of you may not be) is in any name that involves "ryū", meaning "dragon." Technically speaking, "ryū", representing "ryuu", is a different spelling and hence a different word from "ryu". What I am getting at is to ask your opinions and policies towards the renaming of such characters as Ryu from Street Fighter and Strider Hiryu. Let me know. Thanks. LordAmeth 13:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

From WP:MOS-JA: Article titles should use macrons except in cases where the macronless spelling is in common usage in English-speaking countries. In other words, the vast majority of CVG articles won't have macrons (including aforementioned examples), because I don't know of any English translations that keeps the macrons. Nifboy 16:08, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, so it's called a macron. I did not know that. Utterly off topic, anyone played Ōkami? ;) Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Subject dates?

I've been trying to use the Manual of Style (Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)) to dictate my work on infoboxes in the CVG project, however I've been receiving a lot of annoyed users about this (well not really, but several reverts). I have my date display preferences set for dates in the dd MMMM yyyy format (e.g. 16 October 2006). When users put release dates of games with a subject year (1998 in video gaming for example), it screws up my date display. Is there an official guideline I should follow regarding this? I don't want to get on other user's nerves regarding this. Alex 23:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought we all settled on what is at the main page. Thunderbrand 00:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry bout that. Misread the page. Alex 05:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Flags in infobox

While I'm thinking about it - what's the justification for not using flagicons for the release dates instead of the ISO TLDs for country designations - is it accessibility? I'm just curious - don't wanna screw up any actual policy when I'm so passionate about this project. :) Alex 05:41, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there was ever really a discussion. I just use the TLDs because little images are annoying. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:55, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

A previous discussion (now archived) did cite accessibility. There's also issues with multi releases - Canada might be different from the US release, and there might be a few release dates in Europe, etc. Hbdragon88 07:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The previous discussion was archived here. jaco♫plane 11:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Regarding information considered game guide-ish

I have been adamant in removing information is feel is bordering on being a game guide from Classes in World of Warcraft. Could anyone help me define what is to be kept and not? Do we allow information about how many % in armor a spell gives and things like that? I have tried to keep the article as clean as possible, but it's an impossible task. Any help much appreciated. Thank you. Havok (T/C/c) 10:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

See the main page of the project. Item statistics and lists of minutiae are not encyclopedic. Andre (talk) 01:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Then could someone help me clean it up, seeing as I get flamed and reverted when trying to remove information like this. Havok (T/C/c) 11:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

In-game advertising - Expand and Improve

I once nominated this for the GCOTW, but it lost out to some crap like Dead Rising or some minor Final Fantasy character. It then got lumped together with the advergaming article, although the concepts are fundamentally different. Still, better late then never, I've made a bit of a start with the article, and would like others to help expand it. I've left empty section headings as a guidline although you don't have to follow those, it'd also be appropriate to move some of the history of in-game advertising (static ads, such as sponsorship in sports games or crazy taxi) into the lead, and move some of the lead into the section on dynamic ads. I've also written nothing on concepts such as the virtual advertising islands you get in overrated chatrooms such as second life. I don't normally announce new articles here, but this is a big concept in advertising and gaming, and rates pretty highly in terms of importance I believe. It's been a misplaced redirect for so long, I hope we can finally sort it out. - Hahnchen 04:13, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Video game subtitles in article titles

I've noticed that the titles of video game articles are very inconsistent, many have game subtitles in the article titles and many do not. Which one is preferred? Local discussions have taken place in a variety of places, with various outcomes, but there should be a site-wide standard. Personally, I think that all video games that can only be told apart by subtitles should use subtitles (such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask) and others that can be disambiguated by number (where the number is the primary distinction, such as Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse) should not include the subtitle. Opinions? —Mets501 (talk) 01:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see this as an issue. Yes, we could change the Xenosaga articles to just the numbers and not the German subtitles, but why? The subtitles are right there on the game's box. Thunderbrand 14:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the standard is to use what the box identifies itself as. People are going to have different conventions regarding the use of subtitles, sequel numbers, etc. To keep it simple, we might as well use what the game calls itself and call it a day. —Mitaphane talk 15:06, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Super Mario 64 review

For some reason, Super Mario 64 is up for featured article review again. It's already come through a previous FAR and a removal candidacy, but for some reason it's not very well-liked. It was one of the CVG project's first featured articles and I think it's still a great article, but I guess everyone might not agree with me. Please weigh in on the FAR page. Andre (talk) 01:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Nintendo franchises

Template:Nintendo franchises has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Andre (talk) 06:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Navboxes yet again

We need to do something about navboxes. We're getting inexplicable glitches in the hide/show functions of certain templates, and that was pretty much the only thing keeping increasingly-bloated templates from taking over articles.

Thus, I propose these as the new guidelines for CVG bottom-of-the-page navboxes.

  1. 80% width, class toccolours, color #CCCCFF;, cellpadding=2
  2. Favor centered text over left-aligned
  3. As little meta-commentary as possible.
  4. Avoid breaking the template up into sections whenever possible
  5. Link lists of things (characters, places, items, etc.) over the individuals even when the individuals have their own articles. Individual fictional people/places/things are almost never a good idea for a series template.
  6. Exclude unreleased games and games never released in English unless the series as a whole was never released in English. If space is at a premium, also exclude unreleased, upcoming games. If an unreleased game is particularly noteworthy (noteworthy as in Duke Nukem Forever noteworthy, not Foo-Raider-4-is-the-much-anticipated-next-game-in-the-Foo-Raider-series noteworthy), make sure to include it.
  7. A template doesn't have to be exhaustive; include only articles which are likely to be useful links from all or most of the articles linked
  8. Use nonbreaking spaces to make sure names don't split on linebreaks
  9. Separate • names • with • bullets
  10. Omit the name of the series, in the game names, when space is at a premium. In the case of "Foo Raider" and its sequels "Foo Raider 2" and "Foo Raider 3: The Barring", refer to the first game by the full name, then abbreviate the later ones "2", "3", and so on. In the case of the "Quux the Wombat" or "Kwazy Quuz" series, it may be appropriate to instead refer to them as "Quux 2" and "Quux 3". In a series of games differentiated by subtitles, using the subtitle alone is acceptable. DO NOT USE ACRONYMS (save when the game's name is itself an acronym).
  11. The title should be styled like so: '''] ]'''
    If there's no umbrella article for the series, leave the title unlinked
  12. Italicize game names. Don't italicize things that aren't game names.
  13. Make sure to pipe link any name with a space in it, then replace spaces with non-breaking spaces (&nbsp;)
  14. Don't link redlinks or article sections. If we don't have an article for Kwazy Quux Gaiden: Densetsu no Quux yet, it doesn't aid navigation to link an article that doesn't exist.

If someone wants to write this as a proper guideline or put it in a MOS or something, feel free. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

{{Pokémon games}} is a good example of what the final product will look like. (This is what it looked like before.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:23, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yikes, AMIB, you really took a meat axe to that template, didn't you? (I was involved in a minor edit war in February over what should be added and how much divsion should occur). Anyway, I think 80% gives too much whitespace and would prefer 60%. We also need to decide on inter-template linking - I modeled {{Mario series}} after the {{EnderBooks}} template - which linked three templates together under one heading. However, with so many spinoffs - Mario Party, Mario RPG, Game & Watch, Dr. Mario, Mario Kart, Mario remakes, and so forth - it's gotten out of control as well. Hbdragon88 09:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I picked 80% because it's common and is readable on any size screen.
As for {{Mario series}}, yeah. It's out of control. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
You should see the ones for the Sonic articles. One Sonic related article could have up to three large templates! {{Sonic}}, {{sonicGames}} and {{SonicFeatures}}. Take the Sonic the Hedgehog series as a prime example of this (which actually has four!). --tgheretford (talk) 10:52, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to start doing this to game series navboxes first, then move onto other game navboxes. This will not be popular, so I'd appreciate the support of anyone who is sympathetic. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm here. -- Steel 10:55, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Not only does this enforce stylistic consistency across the project, but it's also a good method of eliminating cruft, general inconsistencies and odd arrangements in the process. You have my support. Combination 01:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I like it too. I converted some templates, too. Thunderbrand 01:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I changed enough of them that anyone who watches templates will know. The white whales (that I know of) are the bloated Mega Man templates (although most of that cruft needs to be merged), the Halo template, and the Legend of Zelda template. Either this new idea will be hated and reverted on sight (although from the reception from the CVG regulars, this doesn't seem to be the case) or there will be enough interest to get a redesign to stick on the cruftiest templates. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 12:11, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll clean up {{Halo}}. Since there's no all-encompassing list of ancillary media to link to (novels, etc.), I'll create that. — TKD::Talk 01:38, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Done. — TKD::Talk 02:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

In general good thoughts, but I don't like the concept of having a list that looks like this: "Foo Raider 2 3" which to me is an obnoxious and unprofessional abbreviating convention. I'd rather just spell out the title and the number. Andre (talk) 02:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, consider the case of {{Metal Slug series}}, which I believe is an example of what you're talking about. Adding "Metal Slug" to each would easily treble the size of the template, and using "MS" looks unprofessional. What do you suggest as an alternative? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:15, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I just switched it to show you what I think would be good, but feel free to change it back if you don't agree. The template is larger, yes, but well within the boundaries of the template's outline. I agree that using MS would be bad, although I think abbreviations are OK in some situations (PS2, for example) and I think there's a guideline about that on the main project page. Andre (talk) 03:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I think you're probably right about writing the full name out when there's space available. I'll note that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow, the level of support for this move is unprecedented. Doing my part: I've simplified Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Dr. Mario, and Panel de Pon. I'm afraid to try to tackle {{Yoshi series}} or {{Mario series}}. Hbdragon88 03:10, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

They'll get done. This has been a long time coming, it seems. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, whoa, looking at all the changes you guys have done to the game navboxes, and I have to say, it looks bad. They looked good and professional before, and actually justified themselves. They met with Misplaced Pages standards, like the Simpsons characters and the various comicnav templates, like the X-Men and Avengers. Now they are basically nothing but a small list, and might as well be removed and turned into list pages. JQF 14:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Now I understand what you guys are trying to do, and most of the time I agree with stuff like this, but things like what happened to {{halo}} are... well.. what's the point in even having it anymore? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind nuking it altogether, but as it is now it's not useful. There's too big and then there's big because there's a lot of articles that are directly related to that topic. Maybe the real issue in some of these cases is not the nav template, but that there are that many articles to navigate to. -- Ned Scott 19:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The old templates were so large that they weren't useful. Everything but the kitchen sink was crammed into them, obscuring the important entries and often including or even encouraging overspecific articles to fill in "gaps" in the coverage. The Legend of Zelda template, for example, had cancelled games, fangames, and even the games only available through a cancelled game download service in Japan.

Navboxes shouldn't replace lists or categories; they should, when used, link a set of highly related articles, such as the games in a single tightly-linked series (so not every game Mario has ever appeared in). When you've got a lot of scattered related articles, use categories or lists, then link them from the template. {{Sonic games}} is a paragon of this philosophy; the platformers designed by Sonic Team are in the template, then a link to a list of all the unreleased, upcomic, spin-off, and cameo games are in an exhaustive list linked from the template.

I'm not sure {{Halo}}'s redesign was perfect, but it links the noteworthy games, then links a set of umbrella articles to cover everything. If you want to learn about Halo, that navbox is a good start. If you're looking for a specific narrow article, we have a number of more-specific tools, including lists, categories, and search. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I suppose that the new {{Halo series}} is, at the risk of a bad pun, a bit spartan, but that entitre category needs a good reworking anyway. Maybe once you're in an article about a specific character, we could include some navbox for other characters (instead of the general series navbox), but the old one was far too inclusive. I've learned in software development is that you have to make the common case clearly accessible and that it's fine to put "advanced" controls in a separate click if that unclutters the UI. Pragmatically speaking, If we were to add, say, Master Chief in the navbox, then other people start adding the Arbiter, then 343 Guilty Spark, and so on. Rhat's where the creep starts. There was a recent query as to whether Halo.Bungie.Org, a fan site, should go in. By establishing a clear boundary, that eliminates this issue. — TKD::Talk 11:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine I'll (reluctantly) discuss it here, one, why does each template have to be the same, two, I hate the new design and am not alone, three, it would be a whole lot easier just to fix the ones with problems rather than all of them, four, the "E.Whatever.V" thing in the corner is causing me problems, if I click "E" it says no such page exists and if i'd like to create one, and that's annoying, five, I is far harder for a non accustomed audience to navigate the pages mow (e.g. 2 instead of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake), six, ties in with three, if you make a permanent change ot one you have to change all of them. I could go on further but I just can't be bothered, i'll be back in a couple hours to make my third rever to the Metal Gear series one †he Bread 03:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

They need to look the same because many articles have multiples, and having a motley assortment of dissimilar templates looks awful. (Look at Wario, which still has several unchanged templates.) Do you have any constructive comments on improving the design? "I hate it" with nothing else tends to get ignored.
Now, a couple of your points need dealing with. If the edit link isn't working, that's a glitch, and I'll try and figure out what's causing it. As for the abbreviating, that's still an open issue; do you have any specific ideas on what would be better? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay they can all look the same, but why do they have to look as they are, to me it's all over the place difficult to navigate (these • are distracting)? I'm not good with all that syntax stuff but i'd prefer something to seperate non-canon from canon includes more things and does a better job of dealing with the ones that it has included, I'm short of time just now, i'll be back soon †he Bread 04:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
What do you suggest as a separator?
As for canon and non-canon, that's the sort of metadata that belongs in series articles and game lists. Navboxes shouldn't have all sorts of extra info crammed into them; they become distracting and bloated. Instead, they should guide readers to the introductory and umbrella articles whichdo have this core information. Taking {{Metal Gear series}} as an example, the main, Kojima-directed games are up top, and the main series article is linked prominently.
This principle about meta-data is important; there's no way to give a new reader enough info in a navbox, just enough info to confuse them. We need to guide readers to the main articles, while tying together strongly-related articles. Weakly-related articles are just clutter, and linking them isn't useful because they'll already be linked inthe articles they're strongly related to. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

In order for the "V-D-E" functionality to work as intended you have to substitute {{pagename}} with a hardcoded reference to the template in question, it will otherwise pull the article name instead of the template. I think I've sorted them all but there may be a few left. Combination 04:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll double-check any articles where I used it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Issues and ideas

I've numbered the rules above; I'm going to write this into a proper project guideline, but I wanted to see if anyone had any extra ideas or suggestions or replacements or complaints.

So, make any suggestions or suggest and ideas or complain (constructively!) or whatever. Each rule is numbered for easy reference. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I’m going to have to register my complaint with point 7 (every thing else I either support or do not care about. Apart from 6 in certain circumstances) in my opinion, the big advantage of templates is that they can store a vast amount of information on a particular subject. And they should include all the bits of information that is relevant to the subject while still having a practical use.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favour of including “Everything but the kitchen sink” and I support the gist of what you’re trying to do (trying to unclog the templates), but the changes you’ve made to some templates make many of then redundant. What is the point of a template if it doesn’t inform the reader about the subject? The template {{Sonic games}} is now without point at is neglects almost every signal game in the sonic series. The extra link you add, List of games featuring Sonic the Hedgehog also fails to address this concern as games are lumped together by platform and thus it is imposable to distinguish noteworthy game from one another, whereas the previous template (although it suffered from a number of problems) was capable of doing this. El cid the hero 14:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
This seems to be a quibble with the specific case. What games were omitted that are so important to the series as a whole that they be linked from every single article? The links omitted (see the old version here) were derivative and largely inferior handheld games released by third parties, various party and racing games of little long-term impact or popularity outside of hardcore Sonic fans, compilation titles of little long-term importance, and some just-plain-inexplicable inclusions like Flicky and Mean Bean Machine. That template was a study in how too many links can greatly obscure the links of greater importance. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 14:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, most of the templates were like the old Sonic template, and it is a case of an all or nothing situation. You can't just clam to have "notable" or "important" games, as then you have to define notable and important, which opens a whole other can of worms. I believe I've already pointed out some templates from other sections that are like the earlier templates which nobody seems to be thinking of trimming down. This also relates to issue number four, that there should be no sections, when clearly they will be needed. If you look all the old templates, which some are calling the more professional version (myself included), they had multiple sections, and worked just fine. JQF 16:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea who I'm replying to, here.
For most of the kitchen sink templates that I edited (can't speak for anyone else) I defined notable/important/relevant on the fly, looking for a series of interrelated articles. "Platformers starring Sonic developed by Sonic Team/its predecessors" seemed to be an obvious thread in the pile of randomness that was {{Sonic games}}. This is mentioned in the draft guideline; don't make a scope so huge that you end up with many unrelated articles crammed together. There may be a new niche for a template devoted to, say, the 8-bit Sonic games or the handheld Sonic games or whatever; this is a feature and not a bug. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, forgot to sign. What I'm saying is, you can't define notable/important/relevant without a consensus from other people. What is notable to one may not be notable to another, and vice versa. If you want to define it, you can do that, but you'll want to bring before others, and you'll have to do that for ever template. Otherwise, you open up the kind of debate going on here. If you want to define, for example, the Sonic games as "Platformers starring Sonic developed by Sonic Team/its predecessors", then you have to make that nice and clear, which would probably mean labeling the template "Platformers starring Sonic developed by Sonic Team/its predecessors". I think the old templates had nicely defined scope, which went along the lines of "Games in Series X". Why you think this is a kitchen sink approach is beyond me. If you've seen the templates in other sections, a number of which have been referenced in this talk, you'll see they work fine. The only template I've seen that is even close to "Kitchen sink" levels is the {{Simpsons characters}} template, and if you look at that, you'll see that it's nicely organized, sectioned template. And I don't think splitting the templates into subsections helps at all. This is part the reason I have such a problem with #4. Having sections and such has become a standard of the navboxes. If you don’t want them, your going to have to convince all of Misplaced Pages to drop them. JQF 16:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The old template included dozens and dozens of games. It had a vaguely-defined scope of "games related to Sonic in some way" (Flicky? Mean Bean Machine?). It was a hallmark of the problems with scope creep. If someone wants to define some other basic series of articles for {{Sonic games}}, I'm not going to lose any sleep, but if it gets huge again it's going to get trimmed again.
Needing to section a template is a good sign that you've probably stopped linking an article series and that you've started cramming a comprehensive list into multiple articles via a template transclusion. Comprehensive lists with metadata are why we have lists. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the scoop was as vague as "games related to Sonic in some way" for most of the navboxes. However, if it was, then yes, it would need to be trimmed. I fell, however, that you are going to the extreme. I fell that instead of trimming the fat, as you say you are, you’re leaving nothing but bone. As for sections being a sign of an over stuffed navbox, no, it's not. Have you actually looked at the other templates presented, like {{X-Men}}? Those are sectioned, and they show all important and relevant information to the main topic. I don't see how you can thing that. You’re a supporter of merging, according to your user page, so wouldn't you merge collection of lists that could all go on one page, and each would be it's own subsection? How would this be any different? JQF 18:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I did leave only the bone. Navboxes are skeletons, and should lead to the core articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, User:A Man In Black/CVGnavbox has a draft of a guideline on navboxes for this project. It's a rewrite of the rules above, but geared to a less wiki-savvy reader and with a whole lot more explanation of hows and whys. If you're curious about why such-and-such rule is the way it is (or how strict it's meant to be), the guideline writeup is a lot more verbose. Feel free to edit it, for anything from copyedits to major points I missed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I think rule 6 should be changed a bit. Saying "no non-English games unless the whole series wasn't" is a bit too broad -- a perfect example is the Front Mission series. Two (three if the 5th game comes here) of the series in English, the rest not. Another example is Parodius which had some European releases of two (or three?) of the games. I could probably name some more. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed; Front Mission, Fire Emblem, and Parodius are good examples (but do we have separate articles for each Parodius game? Really?) The guidline draft has some softer language about erring on the side of peripheral games, with games not released in English and spinoffs given as examples. That way we're not cramming (for example) the various Japan-only spinoffs of the Mega Man Battle Network series into a MMBN template, but the Fire Emblem template could cover the whole series. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Having a rule about no non-English games sounds a like Americentric to me. Plus, having you ever heard of importing? Just because it was never released in an English speaking country doesn't mean it wasn't played there. JQF 14:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, English-language Misplaced Pages, you know? This is discussed in greater detail below. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
I didn't see any greater details below, but English language doesn't mean we talk only about English things here. Are you suggesting we delete all the articles about countries that don't speak English? Or don't include them in lists of countries on the English Misplaced Pages? Are you saying that people don't want to know about the games released in other countries, but not here? I'm curious as to what exactly your reasoning is. JQF 18:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, it's right above. Please spare me the red herrings and straw men; I wrote that thinking of series where there are fairly obscure spinoffs that never made it to English, such as the MegaMan Battle Network series. Obviously, core games that never made it into English (Dragon Quest, Parodius, and Fire Emblem come to mind) should be included. Were you making some other point? If you weren't, I don't think we disagree, here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This new template format for the CVG templates is out-of-line with the movie and comic book templates (for example, look at the templates for Matrix, Terminator, Superman or Spiderman). Even music templates follow a similar format (look at The Beatles and Freddie Mercury templates for example). Using a different template format for the CVG articles would be inconsistent with the templates for other forms of media. Another flaw has already been pointed out by a few other people; the new templates are essentially redundant if all they include are a few games. Another problem I have is with #6. I have not yet seen a good reason for why upcoming canon games should not be included. It would be reasonable to exclude spin-offs but I still don't see any decent reason why upcoming canon games which are essential in the series (such as Metal Gear Solid 4) should not be included on the template. Jagged 85 09:46, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Being more restrictive than other content areas is unavoidable. Scope creep in templates is pervasive, and the only way to reverse it is to start in one place and move to another. Is there some reason they shouldn't follow our lead?
The goal of a navbox is to link only a few, strongly-related articles. What are the slim boxes redundant to? The huge kitchen-sink templates were ugly clutter redundant with actual list articles or categories.
As for upcoming "canon" games, who says what's canon? These templates are bad enough without cramming speculative, low-quality articles which may turn out to be completely wrong and misguided. That's said, it's a bit softer in the current draft guideline (which I suggest people read because I could use help with it); it's an example of something to cut when space is tight or when the articles are low-quality, not a draconian DO NOT HAVE UNRELEASED GAMES EVAR. If you'd like to discuss the specific case of the upcoming Metal Gear games, I'd be happy to do that on the talk page for that template. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Isn't there a navbox standard for all of Misplaced Pages? Isn't that what was being followed before? As for who says what is is canon, I think that that is the people who make the games. Having games that have been announced is fine, and having the game on the template makes sure it gets its fair share of attention, and thus is kept up to date, so it becomes more than a low-quality bad-info article. And remember that the function of Misplaced Pages is designed to remove or fix up wrong and/or misguided information. It's the whole reason that info has to be sourced, and goes through that whole process. JQF 14:43, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
No, there isn't a standard navbox appearance. That's the problem, and it's why I decided to just go ahead and declare a certain appearance standard. There's {{Navigation box}}, on which this design is based, and then most of the non-pop-culture projects use vertical seriesboxes at the top of an article. The navboxes are in general pretty haphazard; I'm fairly sure the film project doesn't have a standard style, I KNOW the comics project doesn't have a standard style (they can't even agree on a fixed width), and the motley assortment of TV projects don't agree on much of anything. Our standard style is just {{Navigation box}} substed with some standard parameters, to be honest.
As for announced games, Misplaced Pages isn't a crystal ball. Between announcement and release, games are often renamed, completely redesigned, delayed, cancelled, inaccurately described, deliberately deceitfully promoted (MGS2 anyone?), and, invariably, the subject of great speculation. An article for an upcoming game is nearly never a useful part of an article series; most of the editors who bring things to GA/FA quality avoid touching game press on upcoming games in articles on existing games because the preview press in the games industry pretty much sucks. (If I were ChrisGriswold and I could convince people to adopt good-sense rules, I'd be pushing for this project to deem preview coverage unsuitable as a source for a Misplaced Pages article save when that coverage was noteworthy in and of itself, as in the case of how MGS2 was deceptively promoted.) A navbox should be guiding readers through a series of strongly interrelated articles, and an unreleased game's article is almost never going to be usefully interrelated to other articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, don't see a {{Navigation box}}, and I can't find one by looking. If there isn't an official standard, I'd say that the old templates conformed to the unofficial standard. The comic project navboxes just went through a major change, but their end result looks like the old templates, and they still agree on that stuff being standard. Most of the TV projects do their own thing, as far as I know, so they aren't that good an example. As for what I'm guessing {{Navigation box}} is suppose to look like, I'd that that is just a simple navbox designed for simple copy-paste processes. The old templates look much more developed and, in my opinion, profession and encyclopedic. I know that Misplaced Pages isn't a crystal ball, but if something like a name changes, people will change the stuff referring to it. Misplaced Pages is adaptive, and if it is the next game, I'd say chances are good the people will keep the info up to date. Things like inaccuracy and speculation have a system for being dealt with, as evident with every other article in current or future status. Most articles don't get to GA/FA status until after the item is out, so there is no chance of speculation and such getting in. And does a press article about an upcoming game usually talk about a game already released? Don't talk about ChrisGriswold here, as he isn't here, and is probably wrapped up in his campaign to have all Marvel Civil War comics merged into one page. Also, the one game you keep bringing up (MGS2) cannot be used to describe events surrounding all games. It's just one unique example, and is not a basis for games as a whole. Yes, a navbox should guide people through a series of strongly interrelated articles, which is why I'm here, and a future game is important to the other articles, as it is the future of the series. It tells people where the series is going. Don't you want to be informed about the future of your favorite games? As far as anyone knows, it is going to be part of the series, so you'll have to add it sooner or later anyway. Are you asking people to wait until the release date to add it the template? That just sounds counter-productive to me. JQF 16:03, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The old, unofficial standard sucked and was broken. The template to which I was referring was {{Navbox}}. We shouldn't link bad articles prominently until they have some hope of becoming good articles, and unreleased games are not likely to be major subjects of commentary in other articles. Preview commentary still isn't reliable by any sane standard. Future games may be important, but just as often they're not. (Games get cancelled, changed, postponed, redesign, sometimes the promotion is overblown, sometimes it's a lie, etc.) We should add things once we know they're important, instead of just assuming they will be. I'm suggesting that people err on the side of exclusion of speculative content when there's some doubt as to the value of that content.
This comment needs specific refutation, however: Don't you want to be informed about the future of your favorite games?
Halt. Navboxes are not for fans of the series. Fans of the series already know about all of the games in the series. Navboxes need to guide readers who aren't already fans to the articles they need to read to fully understand the whole, with general information given prominence over specific. Navboxes tie together a series of articles, and until a game is released its article is generally not yet a part of the whole. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, first, saying the old templates sucked is POV, which you shouldn't let get in the way of your editing, and as for broken, if I though they were broken I wouldn't be writing this. Second, I see what you were referring to, and now I must point out {{Navbox generic}}, which is a simpler form of the old templates. Third, you’re assuming that all articles about future games are bad, which is a generalization. I've seen future games pages which fall anywhere from stub to GA quality. Also, even if the page isn't that great, it doesn't make the game any less a part of the series, and by adding them to the template you can draw more attention to page, and get more people helping out with the fixing up of pages. Are you suggesting that we only focus on the good pages, and ignore the bad ones? If you do that, than the bad pages are going to stay bad, because nobody knows about them but hardcore fans. I'll agree that future games are unlikely to be referred in other game articles, but what about things like the character pages, and the series page? I'm not saying Preview info is reliable, but it is all the people have. As for not wanting to do it because the game may get cancelled, changed, etc, that's like saying you don't want a page to get created because it might get vandalized. Yes, change is possible, but that's what the little edit button is for, so that you can change the info if it falls out of date and such. Again, what's important to you may not be to someone else, and vice versa. I personally believe in adding anything that might be important, and if it's not, whoever removes it will say why they think it isn't, and I can agree or disagree, and we can take it from there. As for speculation, remember that everything has to have a source, to speculation usually doesn't get in to the pages, so you don't have to worry about it. As for my comment, you do realize that Misplaced Pages is run by fans, right? I agree that Misplaced Pages is not for the fans (that's what special wikis, like the Trekkies' Memory Alpha, are for). No, Misplaced Pages is for conveying information to the laymen, like you said. Now, if it's not in the navbox, how are the laymen going to know about it? Are you saying that non-fans don't want to know about it? JQF 18:30, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
WTF? Those templates were huge and ugly. NPOV does not demand that we put huge and ugly things in articles other than in articles about things that are huge or ugly.
You're conflating "game series" and "article series". A game can be part of a game series, but its article shouldn't be included in an article series until it's a useful part of that article series. The vast majority of preview articles aren't the latter. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

AMIB i'm taking a brake from editing wikipedia for a few days to allow my temprement to cool down. however i will say the following, one: i am concerned with other templates such as {{Halo}} and {{Mario series}} which i believe to have been made useless. Two: i'm sorry for reverting the page like that, i did it in the heat of the moment. Three: future games should be listed in templates as they are a vitle aspect of a series and just because they may contain speculation is no reason to not includ them. and fore: i agree with what JQF says about what to includ as templates are for both fans of the series and newcomers and therefore should contain as much info as posable to make it more usefull El cid the hero 19:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Again. Vital part of the game series, not a vital part of the article series. Don't sweat taking a break; it's a good idea and the wiki will still be here when you get back. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, this post is probably going to look suspicious coming after a user with practically the same name, but what're you going to do? In regards to rule 1, I'm not sure if standardizing the color for all of the templates is entirely necessary. Some garish color schemes pop up of course, but I feel like these can be resolved on a case-by-case basis, without the need to make a blanket ban on unique color schemes. Some games have a fairly strong association with a color, and using such colors in navboxes could make make them a bit more recognizable. To use Zelda as an example, green might act as a sort of unifying element for Zelda-related articles and navboxes. Not to say that all navboxes need color, but where it's visually appealing and makes sense I don't think it needs to be prohibited. Perhaps there's a less restrictive way to avoid crazy color schemes from getting out of hand. Suggesting using lighter colors maybe, or limiting color use to the title line only. El Cid 07:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that you get a motley assortment of different-colored templates at the bottom of each page, in addition to the problem of occasionally-garish color schemes or disputes over which color should be used. This way we're using the same color as the navbox, which also has a standard, fixed color. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:03, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I know you really want to push this thing through, MIB, but I believe this is still in discussion and a standard has not been agreed upon. That aside, I agree that a color ban / standardization is a bit nit-picky. I suggest not using exact values for such a guideline, but give some reasonable room. -- Ned Scott 08:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Standardizing the appearance of navboxes is the whole point, and why I started all of this in the first place. Wario used to have four templates, each of which was a different color and size and style. A line needs to be drawn somewhere, and picking a single neutral color prevents the inevitable mess. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Standards or no, I'd like to bring up a template that no one's mentioned yet (as far as I know): {{Half-Life series}}. I mean, wow. --PresN 16:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
While well done, I think that that template is too big, as it should just focus on the games. The other sections are good, so it should be split into three different Navboxes, basically Games (which would be the first three sections), then Characters (the next three sections), and then the last three sections can be another navbox, although the name will need some though. JQF 17:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

non game examples

I haven't been closely following the discussion above. However, from what I've seen I think there's more than one issue here. AMIB has the basic idea here, but I don't think we'll get the exact same results for each nav box. Nav boxes need to be about articles that are directly related to each other or to a parent article. Most stubs in nav templates don't help and probably should not be in a nav template.

BUT, I don't think the point is to make all nav templates only include X number of links. Lets take a look at some non-game examples (same idea, but might include more templates outside of this WikiProject, to bring in some "outside" ideas):

Template:Cardcaptor Sakura, I believe all the links on that nav template are completely appropriate. It's not a small nav box, but it's not huge. All the links it includes are to articles that are beyond stubs and are pretty well written. The articles all share a direct relationship with each other. One could create a List of characters to replace individual links, but it's hardly necessary.

Another example, Template:Bee Train, is a bad nav box. It's smaller than my above example, but these articles don't share a direct relation other than being produced by the same animation company. The works themselves are very different and the over-all production staff and plots are not closely related.

Here's a really good nav box: Template:Haruhi Suzumiya. It could be even smaller by listing the links one after another, but using the table format makes this a lot easier and cleaner looking.

So yeah, just some things to keep in mind. I don't think we should make nav templates so small and unformatted that it defeats the whole point in organized navigation. Thoughts? -- Ned Scott 05:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that a lot of the problems might be red flags to how the articles are organized over all. Fixing the nav template, while making things cleaner, won't fix the real problem. When you do find a huge template that contains links that are mostly related it might be because there's merging and 'cruft cutting to do. -- Ned Scott 05:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Nearly half of {{Cardcaptor Sakura}} is whitespace or metadata. I would redesign it by identifying the characters as the series of articles being linked, then linking the umbrella articles in a single line of links at the bottom; this would reduce size by nearly half.
All Template:Haruhi Suzumiya needs to reduce size by at least a third is to ditch that column on the left, which really isn't adding much info. You would probably have to make the links a bit more verbose to compensate; this wouldn't be a big problem, however.
Remember that video games, unlike these dissimilar examples, lend themselves to simple horizontal arrangement, in chronological or numbered order. Generally, when you have a case where that isn't true, where there's as much vertical arrangement as horizontal, you're no longer linking a series of tightly-integrated articles but instead trying to cram a comprehensive or semi-comprehensive list into a transclusion.
As for merging and cruft cutting, that indeed needs to be done. One task at a time, though; if we wait to fix this problem before fixing the problem of uencyclopedic, overspecific articles, the templates will never get fixed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:46, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Part of my point is the number of links as well as "acceptable size". Yes, there is white space, but that is not always an issue, it depends on the situation. Also, whitespace can be a good thing in that it helps the visual layout of something to be cleaner, making it easier to navigate and find the link you're looking for, etc. Smashing everything together can make the whole nav box useless. -- Ned Scott 06:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, AMIB, agian you dismiss the spliting of them into columns. While you could take them away, it helps to have them there. If it wasn't though they were useful, then why did people use them in the first place? Why do you find them in so many navboxes? Also, no, not all video games lend themselves to simple horizontal arrangements. If they did, don't you think it would have been like before you got to them? Take the Legend of Zelda Template. Before you got to it the it mentioned the BS disk series, the CD-i games, and the LCD games. Now, nothing about those. That's a loss of information, pages that a user may not know about that are an important part of Zelda history. JQF 12:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
I only have three points: we need to standardize the appearance, we need to reduce metadata, and we need to reduce useless clutter links like Satteliview games, CDi games, and LCD games. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 12:36, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, we need a standard. I suggest following the {{Navbox generic}} template, as that is what most navboxes follow. Metadata isn't that big a deal unless it isn't properly written, and things like the CDi and LCD games arn't "useless clutter", as they fall under scope (even by your standards) and are a part of the game's history. JQF 14:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and I'd like to point out that none of these changes were put up on the navboxes' talk pages before or after, which they should have been, as a number of them ask to bring up any style changes before hand on the talk page. This is a result of there being no standard. No standard means that changes to each template need to be discussed on each template's talk page. I think if you had gone that route you might be getting better reception. I've gone through and looked at the changes you've done to most pages, and most I disagree with. The only navbox I think that really needed to be "dealt with" was the Resident Evil template. That one should be broken up into multiple templates. JQF 14:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
To be fair, many of them lack a discussion page and {{navbox generic}} is but a proposed standard, if that. That's not a good enough excuse to revert. Combination 14:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Lack a discussion page? Every page has a discussion page! Even discussion pages can have discussion pages! And {{navbox generic}} is the norm for the majority of the navboxes, and was for the ones in discussion before this all started. I just re-proposed it to make it clear what most navboxes use. JQF 14:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Lack of, as in empty, non-existent etc. Then might I ask why you're reverting to something that doesn't follow {{navbox generic}} guidelines? At best, some of them may resemble the appearance of one, but the structure and code vary from box to box. Combination 15:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Just because nothing is written there doesn't mean you can't write something. And most of them do follow {{navbox generic}} guidelines. {{navbox generic}} is just a basic template, with no colors changed in the sections title and such. Some of them have moved the title to be a bar over the links instead of beside, but other wise are the same. JQF 15:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree with all those who oppose AMIB's points. Without expressing everything that has alraedy been said many times, his ideas and messages seem to be the most unreasonable and non-viable way to go. It seems as if the majority of users agree with this as well. Your claim that the old templates are "cluttered" are overrated and a reduction of metadata is very unclear to me. If necessary, I will restate every single thing ( that has already been said ) against your argument that is valid, but I hope that such prior things will have actually laid an imprint within peoples mind as they can then weigh the two sides properly, instead of "my way or eff you". I'm not going to state that WIKIPEDIA! is a wikiality, but in many ways we all know it is. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Krisp E (talk • contribs) .
I just want to make it clear that I do not oppose AMIB's points. Also, the entire point of a WikiProject is so that we have a centralized place of discussion, and that we don't have to start a new discussion on each and every talk page of those templates. We're talking about how to improve upon ideas, and this whole idea of "opposing" and taking sides needs to stop NOW. JQF and other's comments are disrupting what was a healthy discussion and collaboration about nav templates. -- Ned Scott 05:54, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Needs consenus

Though I'm not completely for or against AMIB's proposals, please remember not to change the templates until some sort of consensus is reached among editors (such as with a straw poll) to prevent any edit wars. After all, this is still a proposal and not yet a guideline. Also, wouldn't Misplaced Pages talk:Navigational templates be a better place to discuss this, since this topic applies to all navigational boxes?--TBCΦtalk? 18:07, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes it would be. I'll go do that now. JQF 18:09, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

JQF (talk · contribs) has reverted every template he can lay his hands on. Fuck it, this isn't worth the effort if nobody wants anything improved. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:20, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the idea that there are "sides" to this issue. The more I think about it the more I understand AMIB's rational. This is a discussion, and we shouldn't be so quick to take "sides". Rather, we should push forward and take the good and throw out the bad. I've reverted those templates back to the ones introduced by AMIB. We can improve on these templates, but we need to more forward, not backwards. -- Ned Scott 05:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me clarify: I'm not saying that we should "take sides", I simply think we should improve on and discuss AMIB's template guidelines first before actually implementing it. This way we can avoid any edit wars or incivility among users.--TBCΦtalk? 05:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I do think your suggestion is in good faith, but it does make an "idea vs idea" type setup. I don't think we're finished discussing the exact look of the "new" template layout, so a vote or such would be premature. I guess there isn't a major need to edit all the templates before finalization, but considering the horrible shape most of them where in, there really isn't a need to leave them be. -- Ned Scott 05:56, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Continue discussion

Lets continue discussion and improve upon the ideas proposed by AMIB. I think we can all find something that we all agree upon. I think there are many template layouts that would satisfy all involved that have yet to be proposed, but still address the concerns raised. We shouldn't forget the core issues here: standardize, reduce link clutter, etc -- Ned Scott 06:01, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all this discussion should be moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Navigational templates as I've noted above. After all, if a guideline is to be made for the structure of navigational templates, it must apply to all genres and not just video games.--TBCΦtalk? 06:33, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Not necessarily. I've given some additional thought to AMIB's comments to my non-game examples, in that a lot of game nav boxes can be different from others. I think I was mostly thinking of Halo when I was giving those examples, and Halo has sort of grown beyond game.. so it probably wasn't the best example.
In any case, we're still discussing ideas, and I think we should visit Misplaced Pages talk:Navigational templates after our ideas have formed a bit better. I would not oppose discussion there, but it just seems premature to try to include everything and anything when everything and anything might not apply. -- Ned Scott 06:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
One comment about Halo is that even though it's branched out into other media, the main video game trilogy still seems to be, for the time being, paramount. The film is still in production, and the books don't really seem to have taken off independently of the games. So I'd wager that most people are still looking for the main trilogy, or need an overview article or two to branch out.
That said, I do think that, once you're already in an article on a specific topic, a separate template for articles of similar specificity would be a good idea. For example, a template linking all of the characters with individual articles together would be fine if you're already in an article on one of those characters, but not from the main game series article. I guess what I'm going for is that, if you view articles as belonging to some sort of layer of detail, it's most efficient to design templates to link across that layer, and to overview articles for one layer down. — TKD::Talk 10:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I started making this out to be two sides, that was what I though it was becoming. And for the record, I kept reverting the templates because they kept getting changed to a set of standards that were still being discussed, which I think is jumping the gun. Anyway, the only points I have a problem with are: 4 - the removal of sections, 6 - the removal of non-English release games, and 14 - the removal of games without pages. See reasons for each below.
I think sections are important because they help the user understand things about the games in the templates. Take the {{Wario series}} template. Wario has been in two completely different series of video games, the Wario Land series and the WarioWares series. Both should be mentions, but they should be kept separate, as the two are their own series. And, if start throwing list of character, places, etc, you should have them sectioned off from the games, cause they aren't games.
I don't see how you can remove the non-English games. They are part of the series, so they should be there. Just because someone in America has never heard about the game doesn't mean they don't what to. The English wiki isn't suppose to be Americentric, and if look at Wii#Confirmed launch titles' list of launch titles in all regions, you can see that people want to about gaming all over the world.
Again, I can't see how you can remove games without pages. They are part of the series, right? So they should be there. Just because there isn't an article doesn't mean there won't be one forever. And who knows, if somebody see that redlink, and knows something about the game, they may start a page for it. That's how these things work. Same thing goes for "weak/bad" and future game articles. The more attention it gets, the more people will fix it up.
Those are the three items I have issues with. The others I don't see any problems with. JQF 13:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and I'm going to revert the templates to before this discussion started, as making changes under proposed standards is jumping the gun, AMIB should have waited until a consensus was reached. JQF 14:01, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd rather we refrained from labeling a specific group of games canon, series, spin-offs and whatnot and remain neutral, and simply list relevant or related titles. The ado of interpretation can be left at the discretion of the reader. Furthermore, the VDE functionality provides quick access to template discussions as well as edit should someone wish to expand the template with additional items. Combination 14:41, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, like I said, I fell that some need that differentiation, as it is kind of an all or nothing situation. I don't think that "canon" should be used as a sorter, but series and such are officially labeled and should be used. Take the {{Donkey Kong series}}. That has three different series, which are all relevant to DK, and are related titles. By separating them into seperate sections, it makes the games easier to navigate. As for the VDE, that should be in. It's a pain to get to the template and make changes otherwise. JQF 17:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Basic principles

Reforming these templates needs three basic principles:

  • Standardize the appearance. It's inevitable that some pages will have multiple navboxes, so they need to have largely similar apparance and line up nicely.
  • Identify series of articles and link only the articles in that series. While article series will often coincide with game series, that isn't always the case. To avoid scope creep and bloat, navboxes need to be pared down to a series of interconnected articles, favoring umbrella articles over specific articles.
  • Reduce metadata. There's a tendency to include metadata not necessary for simple identification of the links. This not only bloats the template, as the metadata is relevant only to specific articles, but often encourages linking multiple series of articles, by splitting the navbox into sections.

All of the rules about excluding articles were getting at the second point; oftentimes obscure spinoffs are not relevant to the bulk of the rest of the games, and such games are often not localized to English. When talking about the Legend of Zelda series, the LCD games (simple games branded with the Legend of Zelda name, mostly unrelated to the bulk of the series) and CDi games (made by a third party under a contractual obligation) aren't closely related to the whole.

Is there any significant objection to the core principles? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 12:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

AMIB, i whish to know what you means by your second point. could you please give me an example? El cid the hero 15:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's hard to give examples without giving examples of what not to do.
For example, one could argue that every game that Mario appears in is part of a game series. However, these games will span decades, a dozen or more developers, and a half-dozen genres. Instead of making one single "Mario series" template, you should identify more-specific series of interrelated articles, such as "Mario platformers" and "Mario RPGs" and "Mario sports" games.
Likewise, you should avoid cramming all of the members of a large class into a template unless the template is linking only members of that very specific class. Linking every Resident Evil: Outbreak playable character is probably not okay for a Resident Evil, a Resident Evil spinoff, or even a Resident Evil playable characters template, but it would probably be okay for a "Resident Evil: Outbreak playable characters" template. If you were making a Resident Evil: Outbreak template (probably a bad idea since there are only two games), linking to a "Resident Evil: Outbreak characters" article or category would be preferable to cramming a dozen links to character articles.
In general, irrelevant offshoots should be avoided. This usually includes (this is all off the top of my head)...
  • Trivial remakes (e.g. Kwazy Quux 2 DX), because they're only strongly related to the game they're a remake of 99% of the time.
  • Cancelled games. Games that didn't even make it to market are generally not influential on the series as a whole. There are occasional examples (Star Fox 2), but they're rare.
  • Trivial compilations. Generally, compilations are not significant parts of the development or history of a series; they're just the same games repackaged a different way.
  • Upcoming games. Games are often cancelled, changed, deceptively promoted, exist in rumor form only, etc. Preview press is a lousy source, and while a game may be a part of the game series, its article is rarely a major part of the article series until after the game is actually released.
  • Extremely limited-release games, save when the whole series is limited release. This isn't so much about rare games as non-influential spinoffs of the series on obscure platforms or oddball services. The LCD Zelda games aren't particularly influential on or important to the other games, and the dead-end Mega Man spinoffs on the Wonderswan were outsourced to other developers and had little influence on the series as a whole.
None of these are written in stone, just good advice to combat scope creep.
If you're deciding if articles should be tied together in an infobox, ask yourself if the two most far-flung links in the template are still strongly related enough to make a link useful. Are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam closely related enough to make a link useful? I'd say yes. Are Flicky and Mean Bean Machine closely related enough to make a link useful. I'd say definitely not. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Again, I have issues with the exclusion of games. The navboxes are an all or nothing kind of thing. If you name the navbox "X series video games", it is expected that all games from that series are in the navbox. Now, if you named it "Notable video games from X series", then you could do that, but that might open up the debate of what is notable, which calls upon POV, which isn't suppose to influence editing and such, so the whole thing may end up being scraped (but that's just what I'm guessing). Also, as I've said, excluding non-English release games seems incredibly Americentric, which Misplaced Pages isn't. Are you going to suggest excluding the original Final Fantasy III from the Final Fantasy template because it never saw a release of the original version in North America? What about the games that started in Japan and their sequels made it to North America, but not the original? How would you fell if the Japan Wiki did the same thing? I can't see that suggestion happening. Now, for your suggestion of mega series, you give Mario as an example, you can do that, and I foresee someone making a navbox for each genre. I don't have a problem with this, but I figured I'd point that out. Remakes and compilations can all just be put on a list page, which should be put in the navbox. Now, what you say about upcoming games can be said for any upcoming material. I just fell that as long as it is slated for release, it should be in the navbox, and that you are looking at it very negatively. I mean, honestly, how often do games that are part of major series (like the ones that have navboxes) get cancelled? Names rarely change, and then usually no more than once because the first name was only a development and/or codename. Most games I know of don't get deceptively promoted, and if they do, then it goes on their permanent record (ie public perception), as well of that of the ones doing the deceptive promotion, and it ultimately cost the company in the end. As for "exist in rumor form only", did you forget that everything on Misplaced Pages needs to be sourced? Rumours don't stay on Misplaced Pages for long. JQF 00:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Seems like that's a good reason to consider better names, not make massive templates. As for rumors and cancelled games, I beg to differ that they're rare. And before you protest, I removed each of those from a navbox in this recent cleanup. I could probably find more if I went further back. Unreleased games usually aren't relevant before they're released, and oftentimes they don't even make it to release. I would be curious as to whether anyone else is particularly convinced by your arguments on this point.
As for the non-English thing, how long are you going to harp on this? I've softened it, rephrased it, and basically gone out of my way to say that no, we shouldn't take an English-centric perspective, but instead that a game that wasn't localized for other regions is often, but not always, not terribly relevant to the series as a whole. (Take Dragon Quest for example: DQV = very relevant. That one DQ Monsters 1 & 2 compilation = not so relevant.) I don't think we particularly disagree about this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:52, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I personally am pretty much on board with the idea at this point. I've gone ahead and done a few navboxes already. I too think we should be lenient with the un-localized games, Mother/Earthbound gets shot to hell if we don't include Japan-only games, and I think we all realize that. But stuff like Kirby no Kirakira Kizzu probably doesn't need to be mentioned.
As for what's notable, I think that consensus won't be too hard when it comes down to it. Most of these navboxes already have a "Main Series" section, so it's really just a matter of limiting the box (primarily) to those games and splitting own entries into their own navboxes if needs be. It might be tricky for some series; for example, I personally had trouble with the {{Kirby series}} since it seems half of the games with Kirby in them are spin-offs. Nintendo seems to use Kirby as a guinea pig for a lot of game concepts. But that seems like an uncommon problem that would crop up.
Concerning unreleased games, like I said at the Mario template talk page, I think games reach a certain point where they are fairly set in stone. Playable demos or betas released, a concrete release date, marketing being initiated, those sort of things. I actually think Super Mario Galaxy is a good example of such a game that just reaches inclusion status. El Cid 05:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I'd say Galaxy is right on the outside of the line. However, Galaxy is a good example of right where the line should be drawn, whichever side it falls on. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Ok, I think you think I want to have unreleased and cancelled games on the navboxes. I don't. What I'm saying is that I think you think all future games are 90% likely to become unreleased or cancelled. I think future games should be added to the navbox, because as far as people know it will be released. If the company says it will be released, then assume good faith and add it to the navbox. Until someone says other wise, it is part of the series. However, if you want to make it so the game has to fulfill X criteria to be added, make it so that it has to voted on, on the navbox's talk page. That way it is a group decision. Same thing goes for "non-notable" and "non-English" games. I thing we can agree that these kind of things needs to be dealt with on a navbox by navbox basis, because it has been pointed out that "non-notable" is different for every body, and that excluding "non-English" games would really screw up some of the navboxes. And if one person tried to do all that, it would definitely result in an edit war on a few of the navboxes. Oh, and to reiterate, sections should be kept because it basicallly turns the navbox into a list, which might as well be merged to the game series page. JQF 14:42, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and you are going to remove the navbox from all the pages that got removed from the template, right? JQF 14:56, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that future games are often renamed or cancelled, and their articles are often low-quality, poorly integrated into the article series. I wouldn't say that they're always or even mostly not released in final form, just often enough to be a significant problem when paired with the issues of article quality.
I fully agree that individual games and individual templates should be resolved on a case by case basis, but we need to establish that if you're getting much larger than, say, {{Donkey Kong series}}, you've stopped identifying members of an article series and started making a comprehensive list of all of the members of a broad category. We set broad standards here and kibitz over the individual cases on the individual talk pages, using the standard (is it a part of the article series yet?) set in the broad standards. (That's how guidelines work.)
As for sections, navboxes are brief lists. They're a list of articles in an article series. If you're adding sections, you're turning it from a brief list to an annotated table, which not only encourages scope creep but also means you're cramming a large table full of a great deal of information that may not be relevant to every article in which the template appears.
As for cleanup, yeah, that's gonna have to be done. I've been doing it sort of haphazardly on the pages on my watchlist, but we need to do it in a more comprehensive fashion. Anyone feel like volunteering to help? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't think that future games are often renamed or cancelled, but I don't think it is that big an issue, cause things can be ajussted accordinly in the event the game is renamed or cancelled. I just find you lack of Good Faith in companies very negative. I fell your saying "If there is the slightest chance it will get cancelled, it's not worth my time". That's like deleting a page simply because it get vandalised. The articles are often low-quality and poorly integrated simply because they are new and haven't gotten much attention. Every page starts like that. By adding them to the navbox, people will look at it and say "Oh, that's the latest game, I wonder what's up with it." They will look at the page, and some of them will say "Oh, that's wrong, I'll fix that", and that's how articles get better. The more attention a page gets, the better it gets. I don't know what your trying to say with that "final form" sentance, but if it's that games change while in development, doesn't every thing? Isn't that part of the game's history? Is that really a valid reason to ignore a game? I don't think it is.
If you agree about the case by case basis, then the item should probably be changed to "Games included in navboxes shall be dealt with on a case by case basis on the navboxes talk page", since that's what it needs to be. I don't think you can create a standard that would satisfy everybody, so why not leave it to the people who want to deal with it. I mean, the Project Final Fantasy can say what games they want on their template, and the Project Zelda can say for their's, and so on. Let those who have an invested interest in the game series say what gets put in and what gets left out. As for sections, I notice that the new templates still have characters and such. Shouldn't you properly mark that they are major characters in the series, like you would in any other list? I mean, doing this to every game and not the rest is fine if you make it clear to everyone that that mean it is a game, but shouldn't you still clarify what the stuff that isn't a game is on the template? Don't want to go and create unwanted confussion or nothing. If you want to eliminate scope creep, why not create standards for subsections? How about, no more than 3 sections after main series? Or, sections can only denote different series of games? Or, only one other section called "More Info" that links to the list pages? I was never saying "Let the sections go wild", I was saying "Why get rid of something that makes navagation easier?" JQF 16:22, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

{] don't have much faith in video game preview press from long experience. (Each of those is a game that was previewed that turned out to be drastically different from its final form or just been killed before release. This is off the top of my head; I could list more if you insist.) It's pretty much making-it-up-as-you-go-along, from the amateur level all the way up to the pros. It's one thing to have Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, which is about a month away from being released IIRC. That's no big deal. I think the borderline should be drawn at Super Mario Galaxy; if the game isn't slated to come out in less than a year (especially if it has no release date), it's probably too far off to go into a navbox. Due to the low quality of preview press and the low quality of preview articles, I really do think we need to err on the side of exclusion, because these articles cannot be made into good articles until after the game is actually released. I'm not saying don't have articles, I'm saying don't cram those articles into navboxes until we have something verifiable rather than crystal balling. I'm beginning to suspect that you're the only one with a big problem with this; I'm not going to respond to anything but a fresh argument (from you, JQF, or someone else, it doesn't matter) on this point.

The standards for subsections are don't have subsections. If you prefer, the maximum is zero subsections. Link only to umbrella articles and only when strictly necessary. If you look, only the very smallest templates have links to specific subarticles (like specific characters); most of them have links to generic "characters" lists or nothing at all. Generally, if something was going to go in a subsection, that means that it wasn't relevant to the bulk of the games. Subsections aren't just a problem; they're a byproduct of a larger problem. Eliminating their availability not only reduces metadata in the template, making for a more-efficient template, but also discourages scope creep. Win-win.

The various Wikiprojects can decide specifics. I just want to set up some style rules. The Pokémon project has been pretty much indifferent, I've gotten compliments and encouragement from some Zelda-ers, and I haven't even touched most of the Square-Enix templates (Deckiller has some big merge project brewing so I'll probably hold off for a bit until I talk to him about where the new umbrella articles are going to be). I don't see a groundswell of opposition from the Wikiprojects to the generalities of this redesign, and specific objections can be dealt with when they're raised. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 17:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, think I already said this, but I'm not saying add crystal ball articles (Do those usually last longer than a week?). I'm just saying assume good faith. Aren't you suppose to do that on Misplaced Pages? If you want to go by your suggested standard for this, fine, but I can guaranty you'll have some issues down the line with it.
Those are your standards for subsections, and if you look at the other templates in other parts of Misplaced Pages, allot of them have subsections, because they are useful and help organize the navbox. The only problem you've said they cause is scope creep, and that can easily be fixed with something like the suggestions I made earlier. It's no reason to completely scrape them. If you don't want subsections, fine, but that means you shouldn't have the other links, like characters and such in the template, by your standards. You said the navbox is to help navigate through the games, then that's all it should be. That simple.
Now, if you just wanted to set up some style rules, then why did you make format rules too? Style would have just been things like size and color. Format is things like content. If you wanted format changes to, you should have said so. JQF 18:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
You know what, this has gotten to long winded. Taking in what’s been said, I've taken the standards you proposed and have re-formatted them to be updated per what we have agreed upon, and I think I've made it more professional sounding. How about these?
  • Style
    1. 80% width, class toccolours, color #CCCCFF, cellpadding=2
    2. Links should be centered instead of left-aligned
    3. Titles should be styled like so: '''] ]'''
    4. Game names should be italicize, and all other links shouldn't.
  • Format
    1. All major changes must be discussed on the talk page before hand, else they will be reverted.
    2. If there's no umbrella article for the series, leave the title unlinked
    3. Meta-commentary and Meta-data should be kept to a minimum.
    4. Sections should be kept to a minimum to avoid scope creep.
      1. Sections should only be added if deemed notable by a consensus of users.
      2. If a section other than the main series grows to more than a dozen link, it should either be trimmed down or split off into its own navbox per a discussion on the talk.
    5. Games included on the navbox should be decided on a case by case basis on the navbox page. However, a few general suggests:
      1. Unreleased games should be excluded unless deemed notable by a consensus of users.
      2. Avoid games never released in English unless deemed notable by a consensus of users.
      3. Avoid upcoming games until a consensus of users deem the article up to standards, notable, and likely to be released within a year.
      4. Do not link redlinks or article sections.
        1. If there isn't an article for it, it doesn't aid navigation to link an article that doesn't exist. As such, if you fell it is notable, create a page for it and ask if it can be added to the navbox.
        2. If the article section is really that notable, it probably should be its own article.
      5. If there are multiple sub-series of games, it is acceptible to section the games into each sub-series for easier navigation, clarification and visible name reduction.
    6. Use non-bearing spaces to ensure names don't split on line breaks
    7. Separate names using bullets ( • ) to avoid confusing meta-data.
    8. Omit the name of the series in the game names, when space is at a premium.
      1. In a series of games differentiated by subtitles, using the subtitle alone is acceptable.
      2. In the event of odd naming conventions, games may be referenced as 1, 2, etc.
      3. Do not use acronyms unless the game's name is itself an acronym.
    9. All links should link directly to the article. Make sure to pipe link any name with a space in it, then replace spaces with non-breaking spaces (&nbsp;)
    10. Link lists of things (characters, places, items, etc.) over the individuals even when the individuals have their own articles. If there are a lot of individuals linked, a list page should be created. If there are more than a few list links of this kind in the navbox, they should be sectioned off from the main series for easier navigation and clarification.
    11. Avoid unnecessary links; include only articles which are deemed to be useful for most/all of the articles linked by a consensus of users.

JQF 00:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

So, what exactly has changed from AMIB's initial draft? Combination 02:29, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found here. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Sandy (Talk) 15:50, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Duke Nukem Forever

Is this worthy for GA class? I just wanted to get a broad assessment before going for a peer review. Hbdragon88 03:13, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

The lead-in and plot have no references at all. "the popular Duke Nukem series" and "It is notorious for its protracted development" are almost POV, and will definitely need references. The external links section needs to be trimmed down to 4 links at the most. I haven't really read it, but the timeline section seems to be following a format of "In 2001, they did this. . In 2002, they did this". Don't take my opinion as crucially as others, but consider the improvements.--TheEmulatorGuy 03:51, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks very much, your input is appreciated. Will be working on those issues for the next few weeks. Hbdragon88 05:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 21:16, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now put the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 00:02, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

{{Ubisoft-screenshot}}

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops; screenshots of software for which Ubisoft owns the copyright can be used freely, as long as we attribute them to Ubisoft. This is kosher; there's a summary here, and the permissions are listed with the Wikimedia foundation.

This means that the usual restraints on being sparing with images are not applicable to Ubisoft games, and that we can use images of Ubisoft games in much less restrictive subjects (for example, we could use a screenshot to illustrate an article on a genre, for example). If you've uploaded any screenshots of Ubisoft games, make sure to tag them with {{Ubisoft-screenshot}}.

Please only use this template on screenshots uploaded by the person who took them; any other screenshots should be tagged with {{subst:rfu}}. Note that this doesn't apply to boxcovers, promo art, or other related images, which are still fair-use images and should be used sparingly. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd appreciate if people could help me tag any images that aren't taken by the uploader with {{subst:rfu}}, and if you have any Ubisoft-published games and can take screenshots, by all means, do so! Ubisoft publishes the Myst games, the Rayman games, all of the Tom Clancy games, as well as many others. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That's better than the one I made. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:19, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It's been mentioned before on WP:CVG (at least twice I believe), but never actually implemented. Either way, great job on the template.--TBCΦtalk? 05:38, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, commons:User:Avatar/Ubisoft only applies to franchises owned by Ubisoft, not just those they publish.--TBCΦtalk? 09:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
That's actually what I was gonna bring up next. Puzzle Pirates was published in stores by Ubi, but is developed and owned by Three Rings Design.

I've added a note to the template to reflect this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:53, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Should such images be uploaded to commons? I was also wondering if there is a category where such images are collected. jaco♫plane 12:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If you want, and I don't think so. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to note that it doesn't matter who takes the screenshot. As long as the image is copyrighted and owned by Ubisoft, then commons:User:Avatar/Ubisoft applies.--TBCΦtalk? 04:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Fangame articles

I noticed the Sonic fangame articles have been put up for AfD, with a lot of consensus citing that fangames are not notable enough and should be deleted. As a result, shouldn't Category:Fanmade computer game remakes and sequels and almost every article be put up for AfD? --tgheretford (talk) 19:17, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Well the nom for deletion states that it fails WP:SOFTWARE. Whether or not all the games in that category fail WP:SOFTWARE is subject to debate. Of course, WP:SOFTWARE, is a guideline and not policy so the only way you're going to get deletion is by clear consensus. Mass AFDs usually only go through on clear cases of mass hoaxes, spamming, etc. so I doubt trying to put all these articles up for deletion would succeed. —Mitaphane talk 19:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
Seems very notable to me, based on the 'number of google hits' straw poll. Have voted at the nom page. A worthy piece of software. --Oscarthecat 20:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

AFD is really just a vote based on who shows up to vote. In the case of Sonic: The Fated Hour, as an unreleased fangame it had no notability whatsoever and was deleted. The other three fangames got strong support from its fans (who are also Wikipedian editors) and survived their initial AFDs (I suppose that some have been renominated again). Hbdragon88 03:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm considering placing most of the articles in that category up for deletion. Most are totally unsourced, and some aren't even about finished, playable games. A mass AfD probably wouldn't be the best idea, so I was thinking something more like AfDing five or so articles separately every day. How's that sound? I wouldn't mind help, either, both in choosing which articles to nominate and making the actual nominations. --Slowking Man 07:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

A proposed guideline WP:SOFTWARE, and not unquestioned one. Unfinished are one thing, however, for most of others a non-trivial web publication still can be found. CP/M |Misplaced Pages Neutrality Project| 17:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
If the some of the games aren't finished they would definitely fall under WP:NOT crystal ball, barring some notable outside coverage. I'd shoot for those first. —Mitaphane talk 17:50, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What about fangames that are approved or supported by the authors of the original work? Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:22, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why the basic principle of fangames which are the subject of commentary in reliable sources independent of the subject itself isn't a good one. It works for pretty much everything. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Serial Experiments Lain

Hi, I've been working on the Serial Experiments Lain article, and need help with the PSX game part. The anime is quite famous, so it wasn't a problem, but the game was never released outside of Japan, and I could find no reliable information whatsoever on it, apart from a few screenshots, and an AMV on youtube. Does anybody know where I could make some research? The game was released in 1998, and is some kind of network simulator, where you gather pieces of info in order to understand Lain's story. Thanks in advance to anyone who could help.--SidiLemine 17:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I did some looking, I'll post things here as I find them.
"In the game, users can interactively access fragments of Lain's memory. Then users can actually feel the Lain who exists inside the Web. In the TV animation, people can understand Lain by following the story." - Yasuyuki Ueda in Animerica Vol. 7, No. 9 - I found it on this page: , so good thing it's referenced, eh? Might want to find that Animerica somewhere to confirm. --PresN 17:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
There's obviously the pretty bad source of , but I assume you saw that already. --PresN 17:32, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I didn't. Thanks! --SidiLemine 09:59, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

What should be done with Category:Alien and Predator games?

The problem is: Aliens don't always appear in Predator games, and vice versa. The category needs a rename, and a possible split: Alien games, Predator games and Alien vs Predator games I suppose could work. They are two seperate franchises, but have had numerous crossovers (but not all movies or games feature both Predator and Aliens).

  • This also brings up the issue of this template:
Alien
Films
Short films
TV series
Other media
Soundtracks
Comics
Dark Horse line
Novels
Games
Video
Other
Podcasts
Universe
Characters
Humans
Androids
Other
Other
Related

As you can see, the Alien template lists Predator as well. The template probably needs to be changed, or a Predator template should be made. I see no reason why they should be clumped together, just because of numerous crossovers. They are still two seperate franchises. RobJ1981 07:41, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Should links to Maps for video games be allowed?

Hi, I believe maps for video games are a valuable resource for game players. Sometimes a map can be more helpful then a FAQ. I feel both are very useful when playing a game. That is why most strategy guides have Maps as well as walkthroughs for games. The user "ReyBrujo" believes that maps "do not add useful information for the casual reader". He will not allow me to add map links for video games.

I feel differently. I think if the casual reader would find a FAQ useful, then they would also find a Map useful.

Please help me to make links to maps for games an officially approved link on wikipedia.

Thanks, Snesmaster 22:49, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

As I explained in the user's talk page, I have no problems in accepting nesmaps.com external links if the WikiProject agrees. -- ReyBrujo 22:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Well Misplaced Pages is not a game guide, so linking to them doesn't really seem to be fruitful. A link to the Gamefaqs entry, which I've seen on a number of pages, seems to make more sense than the specific linking to maps. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 00:52, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I would think "not a collection of links" would also come into play. However, sometimes adding these links can help give some fans a bit of .. an outlet.. of sorts.. showing that there is information on this, but it is not on Misplaced Pages and it should stay off of Misplaced Pages. Basically, as long as we don't get wild about adding such links, they could actually help reduce game 'cruft and bad articles. -- Ned Scott 01:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Maps on the page shouldn't be there, but links to pages with maps are fine in my opinion. guitarhero777777 01:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think there is anything wrong with maps so long as they are there to illustrate a bigger picture and not just added for the sake of adding content. For example, if you were going into discussion how Hyrule has been portrayed through the Zelda series then maps would be important to illustrate that point. On the other hand, putting a map of every dungeon in Windwaker is needless for both people who've played and have never played the game and is just filler. —Mitaphane talk 23:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
That is an extremely great point. I fully agree with you. guitarhero777777 23:13, 29 October 2006 (UTC)


Requesting comments

Can someone comment at Talk:Ever17 about the plot summary I added (Ever17#Details)? (Note: it's full of spoilers, so if you plan on playing the game don't read it.) I tried to keep it short and only describe the basics of the convoluted plot. --Mercercounty 20:37, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

New FAC

Just a heads-up: Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. Thanks for reviewing if you stop by. --Zeality 15:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Japanese Reviews

Does anyone know of a good source of Japanese reviews, own copies of Famitsu, or read / write the language for searching? I don't like passing FAs with rational, unaddressed objections, and this might happen twice if Raul forwards MNSG. Our CVG articles usually have very little input about Japanese criticism and reception, which is pretty important considering the market there (and that several games originate there). This is a plea for anyone who might have access to this information or some kind of Japanese Game Rankings. --Zeality 18:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


Video game hoaxes

List of computer and video game hoaxes: If anyone would like to, please consider contributing to the completion of this potentially good article. - A Link to the Past (talk) 20:02, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Category: