Talk:MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy

WikiProject Role-playing games

I'm removing the element from this Talk page which reads: "This article is within the scope of WikiProject Role-playing games...." The Wiki page for that project states "Role-playing video games are outside the scope of this project; they belong at WikiProject VG." Mike Agricola (talk) 22:54, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Notes

This is making me kind of wary: a slew of notes to vague books that don't seem real at first glance. Couldn't it be expanded to include actual information about the books being so widely cited? And couldn't the references be used in-line to clarify what they're referencing? Salvidrim! 00:40, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank-you for your suggestions. Here's my response.

(1) Yes, a lot of the publications cited do seem obscure today, but that's largely due to the fact that video gaming trade publications tend to lack longevity; most of the video gaming magazines on the market 20 years ago ceased publication a long time ago. But as print publications they still constitute reasonably reliable sources. Computer Gaming World in particular was considered one of the most respected magazines in this market back in the day. In fact I note that the Video game article guidelines state under "Sources: "Using sites like Gamespot and IGN as reliable sources for older games (pre-2000) should be carefully considered. While such sites are considered to be reliable sources today, prior to around the turn of the century, they did not necessarily possess this same credibility. Most video games with content pre-dating 2000 should include content from print journals for information released during that time."

(2) The article is about MegaTraveller 1, not the publications being so widely cited, so that's why little actual information about the books/magazines in and of themselves is included. However, all magazines cited are Wikilinked to articles written about them so it is easy for a reader of this article to obtain that information if desired.

(3) Parts of the article loosely paraphrase, summarize and combine facts obtained from two or more sources together, so that it would be difficult to precisely clarify each and every reference. So it seemed best to simply provide citations, with page numbers, to the sources used in obtaining the facts presented in a particular sentence or paragraph. The objective is to satisfy WP:Verifiability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike Agricola (talk • contribs) 01:34, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not doubting the magazine refs; in-line refs would be highly preferable but the sources themselves are likely good. You should make one ref use a {cite} template and simply use it in-line wherever you're sourcing from it, instead of unassigned references and a slew of "notes". Salvidrim! 02:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your suggestion. I just modified the page using the {cite} template to condense citations referring to the same source and the same page number. However, I would still prefer to use separate notes when citing different page numbers from the same publication. If I were to condense all citations referencing the same publication using the {cite} template into a single reference, information about which page(s) is being referenced in a specific citation would be lost. --Mike Agricola (talk) 17:41, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Unless the page range is very high, simply making a reference to the whole range of page should be sufficient; that'd probably be standard for an article in a magazine (as opposed to an entire book).

The article cites the MegaTraveller 1 user manual several times, which does have a rather high page range (over a hundred), so I would definitely prefer to maintain separate citations to that. Lichtmann's review in CGW is rather lengthy and is broken up in the printed issue by the interspersion of several pages of advertising between pages on which the review is printed, so even here it's more convenient in terms of WP:Verifiability to maintain separate citations. On the other hand, the reviews printed in the Amiga gaming magazines tended to be printed on two or three consecutive pages, so I suppose that any inconvenience introduced by combining those references would be minimal.

Perhaps we should let other editors weigh in at this juncture? If others express a consensus to combine citations referring to a single publication, then that would be fine with me. --Mike Agricola (talk) 18:18, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree with separating the user manual refs. As for the lenghty article: pages of ads in between aren't that much of an issue. What kind of length are we talking about? ~10 pages? Salvidrim! 18:32, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The page numbers are 16, 18, 105, 106. Not a lot, admittedly, but I did a bit of checking into Wiki's citation guidelines and here's what I found: Wikipedia:Citing sources states:

Citations for journal articles typically include the name of the author(s), the year and sometimes month of publication, the title of the article (within quotation marks), the name of the journal (in italics), the volume number, issue number and page number....Inline citations usually also include specific page numbers, as described above for books.

I also came across this: "Featured Article and sometimes even Good Article review generally insist upon specific facts being cited with specific page numbers."

So it seems best to me that the page numbers be kept even for the magazine citations. That would appear to be consistent with the overall Wiki consensus. ``Mike Agricola (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried the {{rp}} template? This will allow you to post the page numbers while keeping the souces unified. BOZ (talk) 19:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate the suggestion BOZ. That may be the best solution in some circumstances, but I'm not sure that it's the best in this one. I note that the Wiki page associated with this template features a rather prominent warning:

This template should not be used unless necessary. In the vast majority of cases, citing page numbers in the <ref ...>...</ref> code is just fine. This template is only intended for sources that are used many, many times in the same article, to such an extent that normal citation would produce a useless line in <references /> or too many individual ones.

In this article, some sources are certainly cited several times, but I also don't think the "many, many times" threshold is reached. So it seems to me that this article falls within the "vast majority of cases" where ordinary citation code is just fine. --Mike Agricola (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

While I can definitely see {{rp}} being a useful alternative and I think it wouldn't hurt, I don't think it is strictly necessary. And while I am aware of the guidelines explained above, I believe that articles in magazines and actual journals aren't exactly the same; an article in a magazine that is <5 pages long probably doesn't need specific page refs. And even if it has more pages, citations referencing the same pages should be condensed. Salvidrim! 22:03, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding magazines and actual journals, it's certainly true that there's a considerable difference between a video game magazine and a peer-reviewed academic journal. However, as best as I can tell, for the purpose of describing citations, Wikipedia lumps both together within the category of "journals". WP:Citing_sources#Journal_articles doesn't have a separate category for magazine citations, for example. And for that matter, some papers published in academic journals are <5 pages long too, as is frequently the case in a publication like Physical Review Letters.

On the other hand, I recognize that there may be an informal consensus among experienced WP video game editors along the lines you are suggesting. After all, there are certain occasions when many Wikipedians seem to agree that the exception to the general rule is preferable to strict adherence: WP:IAR I suppose the question can be boiled down to:

"Should Wikipedia's general guideline that 'specific facts be cited with specific page numbers' be strictly adhered to when citing brief video game reviews from print publications, or is the exception preferable to the rule?"

I would venture to suggest that the answer to this question would be of interest to VG editors more generally, so perhaps we should ask it (and resolve it) in a broader context. Specifically, if your position is agreed upon by most experienced VG editors, it seems to me that Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources#Sourcing_style should include a statement reflecting that consensus. That would be a benefit to other relative Wikipedia newbies like myself so that this sort of conversation can be resolved much more quickly should it arise again in the future. :) Perhaps a discussion should be started over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Sources to discuss whether such a clarification is warranted? That would not only resolve the question at issue in the MegaTraveller 1 article, but also clarify the situation more broadly too for the benefit of other VG editors. --Mike Agricola (talk) 17:08, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

WT:VG/S is more about discussion about actual sources. I would definitely see the benefit of a discussion at WT:VG! Salvidrim! 18:19, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Alright, the question has been posed in WT:VG, so let's continue this over there. :-) --Mike Agricola (talk) 21:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikiproject video games assessment

Per your request at the video game project Mike I've reassessed the article C-class. This is an excellent article, thank you for your work.

The article is basically B-class, but I held back from that because of one particular issue. The lead section should be a concise description of the article containing all major aspects. For video game articles they typically fill out to fill two (sometimes three) paragraphs consisting of:

• General information (what is the subject of the article, when was it released, on which systems?)
• Gameplay.
• Plot (if applicable, if the plot is throw-away then it might consist of one or two sentences).
• Development.
• Reception.
• Where a legacy section is present, as in here, one or two sentences may be necessary/relevant to include on the tail-end of the lead.

As it stands the lead covers everything except the development and reception, I'm not sure what if any of the legacy information needs to go in, but those two aspects need covering for the lead to be 'complete'. If the lead were completed then I would suggest that it should be rated B straight away.

There are some other minor issues within the reception section.

• See WP:SAY regarding the usage of words like "declared", when assigning statements to commentators it's best to use plain, neutral language such as "said" or "stated".
• In a similar vein "The article justified this poor assessment by..." is problematic. It's kind of a judgement on the writer's motives as opposed to letting the quote speak for itself.
• This part is more awkward, and I have great trouble with it myself, but the flow of the reception section is very much he said/she said. Picking out common themes in the reviews, backing them up with some quotations and noting any dissention (with due weight) is a better format than summarizing each reviewer's opinion one after another in blocks. If there are any aspects of the game which each/most reviews touch on, be it the combat system or travel within the game etc. then they're good aspects to cover. This goes doubly so for the basics such as graphics and sound.
• I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Amiga Magazine Rack, which carries scans of Amiga magazines, but it has six viewable magazine reviews, some of which are in the article but some aren't.
• The reception section has enough (IMHO) reviews, and there are only so many needed, but the more reviews are present the easier it is to find common threads. Take away the retrospective worst 100 piece by CGW and the Dragon Magazine review which is just a score at present, then you've only got 4 reviews there to play with. This is a multi-format release which received plenty of coverage, so a few more couldn't hurt, particularly if you could dig up some Atari ST reviews from Atari magazine scan sites. PC mags are a lot more troublesome to get hold of.

One other minor issue is that some box art would be good, if you could find any without watermarks etc.

Like I said, to me personally it's 95% a B-class article, other project members may well disagree and would have rated it B from the outset, so I have no issue if another editor ups it in the meantime or if you expand the lead and do so yourself. I hope to see this nominated as a Good Article in the future. Someoneanother 00:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

• • I put up the boxart. Salvidrim! 00:50, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
    • That's great, thanks :) Someoneanother 00:58, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the great suggestions Someoneanother! I'll definitely take those into consideration when I do some further editing of both MegaTraveller articles in the near future. Appreciated. --Mike Agricola (talk) 23:17, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
        • I just made numerous edits to the article to complete the Lead, rearrange and expand Reception, and add/modify a few other things here and there. Does it now merit a B-class status? --Mike Agricola (talk) 22:46, 27 March 2012 (UTC)
          • It does, rated accordingly. Great stuff. I'll give it a thorough going-over when I get a minute but I doubt you would have much trouble getting this article through GA now. Someoneanother 10:34, 31 March 2012 (UTC)