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Spoiler tags

I don't know whether it has been pointed out here yet, but I don't honestly feel there's a place for spoiler tags in Wikipedia. Originally, there was talk of proposing this widely to the community through the village pump or a similar forum, but as a user on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning raised, I believe it might be more effective to establish concensus for each brand of articles and gain opinions on the removals through each appropriate wikiproject, rather than a mass notification, which doesn't at this point, seem paticularly sensible. My views for their removal are simple, although as they've been around for length of time I realize many might not agree with my logic:

• Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Despite the notion that wikipedia holds a large range of articles, the core value and status of the encyclopedia hasn't changed. Many proffesional encyclopedias do not advocate their usage, and according to the generally accepted manual of styles for academic places of knowlege this isn't accepted. An example would be encyclopedia Britannica.

• This hasn't been established on WP:MOS to my knowledge. Such guidelines that are helpful to the encyclopedia ussually are integrated as appropriate.

• As may be noted on my talkpage and discussion with previous users who deemed my removal of spoilers somewhat outlandish, many conceed they really don't assist the project in thier intended usage or in the building of the encyclopedia. In my removal of spoiler tags, which I used to study and gauge the effect upon the encyclopedia and its contributors, my finds established the spoilers themselves had no effect on the quality of the encyclopedia, paticularly the CVG articles I removed from paticularly in the basis that many readers who come to wikipedia for gaming articles are well aware of the source subject.

• The template is redundant. Its very vexing, I think, that we provide our readers and editors with this template when we have headers and TOC's which allow us to accomplish an identical objective. Its really simple and I don't paticularly believe we are giving our readers much credit to thier intelligence. When one sees the header "Plot" or "Story", what do you think is going to be in there? As an encyclopedia, its our job as editors to include complete summeries.

• When I measured the relative amount of articles I removed spoilers from, I noted the amount that were reverted and I concluded only roughly 20 % of the hundreds of articles I made removals from were reverted, usually by a newcomer to wikipedia or sometimes an established one, but when the revert was questioned, the editors in question could not provide a explanation for why the template was useful to wikipedia. This issue can be verified to a furthur extent on WikiProject Opera; recently Opera Wikiproject's decision on the matter as well the summeries and provisions provided by the German wiki for their wide removal of the tags.

This of course, is a rough and concise explanation of my thoughts on the issue and can be looked into at a greater extent on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning and a archived discussion which was sucessful in establishing the pratice as no longer a guideline. Additionally, furthur comments and thoughts on the issue can be found on my talkpage.

Offering a further option in this case is a bad precedent in my view, when people who don't want to see spoilers or remain ignorant, the organization as I noted above covers the coup-out again rendering the template unnecessary. Moreover, the site-level disclaimer linked on every page states:

Wikipedia contains spoilers and content you may find objectionable

Wikipedia contains many different images, some of which are considered objectionable or offensive by some readers. For example, some articles contain graphical depictions of violence, or photographs of human anatomy.

That should be all we need. I understand this a common practice amoung us and my opinion on the matter may be considered by some mad, but I ask that we need to seriously analyze the situation here and realize these tags are simply unencylopediec. In conclusion, my data has proven that the removal of the tags has not been in anyway determential to the articles and in some cases, actually increased productivity [1] (I removed the template around early June in this article and productive contributions, paticularly to the plot summary increased expotentially).

Comments...? -Randall Brackett (previously Zero) 19:44, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with most of your points. Spoiler tags are unencyclopedic, and whenever I see one I feel as though I'm at GameFAQs. Kil ^(talk) 20:58, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

As can be ascertained by reviewing some of the places that Randall referenced or linked to, I am in complete agreement with this proposal of removing the spoiler tags on the basis of them having no encyclopedic value. In no way do they actually contribute to the encyclopedia's purpose of being informative about subjects on a comprehensive level, and, in actuality, they're redundant of the fact that this is an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is defined as a comprehensive source of information on a variety of subjects. This is -- as Randall and now Kil have expressed -- an encyclopedia, not a fansite or blog. Ryu Kaze 21:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, given that Wikipedia is not censored -- and, again, given that it is an encyclopedia -- what encyclopedic purpose are spoiler tags serving? The answer is "not a single one." Ryu Kaze 21:16, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear ˉˉ^anetode╞┬╡ 21:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like something I'd support. --Axem Titanium 21:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

As an additional show of support for this motion, I'm going to now remove the spoiler tags from three articles I've put a lot of work into (so I would do absolutely nothing to reduce their quality), one of which is a Featured Article: Final Fantasy X, Spira (Final Fantasy X) and List of locations in Spira. Ryu Kaze 02:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I've done the same with my part of the Final Fantasy articles as well. Crazyswordsman 23:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed with all of the above, particularly: As an encyclopedia, its our job as editors to include complete summeries (emphasis mine). I see lots of summaries that simply detail the outset of the plot and make no effort to actually summarize the game. Nifboy 04:37, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tags are needed. People might be searching the internet for help on Insert name of game here, end up here, and find out about what happens at the ending.--Ac1983fan^{(yell at me)} 22:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Given that this isn't GameFAQs, doesn't look like it, doesn't have the same purpose, and doesn't present itself in a similar manner, I can't imagine why someone would follow a link on Google with the header "[Insert name of game here] - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" instead of one of the links to walkthroughs or forums at GameFAQs or IGN if they were looking for a walkthrough or a forum about the game. Really, even if they did follow the Wikipedia link instead for some reason, they should have plenty of time to figure out what they're looking at before seeing a spoiler under the obviously-titled section of "Plot"/"Storyline," especially given the constant use of "encyclopedia" across Wikipedia's pages. Ryu Kaze 23:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Something else that might be relevant to consider (as an example) is this search result on Google for "Shadow of the Colossus walkthrough." Not only are links to GameFAQs and IGN in the first few results, but we don't even get a link to Wikipedia within the first five pages. The same is true when searching for "Shadow of the Colossus FAQ" and "Shadow of the Colossus forum." It's not until we search for simply "Shadow of the Colossus" that we get a link to Wikipedia on the first page of the results, and even then we've got links to IGN and GameSpot/GameFAQs (they share forums and FAQs) prior to that.

Really, if someone is at all specific about what they're searching for, they should find it without seeing spoilers, and even if they do stumble into Wikipedia for some reason, they've got plenty of warning based on the fact that the place says "encyclopedia" everywhere. I'm not seeing how the spoiler warnings are verifiably or logically beneficial on even the often-cited courtesy level -- mustless an encyclopedic level -- in the unlikely scenario presented. Ryu Kaze 23:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

First, Wikipedia is a really bad place to find how-to information – I doubt many people come here looking for help getting through a game. Second, we can't let hypothetical situations like that determine policy. The same person could see the spoiler in a search engine result summary, or hear it through some other remote means originating here. AMHR285 ^(talk) 23:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Let us not forget that "Wikipedia the free encyclopedia" is written on any external link. We're editors of a neutral encyclopedia. What business is it of ours to argue wheater or not to keep someone ignorant...? -Randall Brackett 23:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Simple. If I do some research, and it is proven to be true, I cannot write about it here. Why? Because it has to be verifiable from reliable sources. It's not our job to keep people ignorant. It IS our job to collect what is known and make it verifiable. Only then can we have a truly free enyclopedia. Any reputable encyclopedia won't put spoiler tags in. People should expect spoilers in articles about characters. If I write a bio on one of my favorite Final Fantasy characters here, wouldn't it be natural for people to expect spoilers? Also, those who do come here may be looking for additional information and already have a pretty good grasp on the subject anyway. Crazyswordsman 01:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We put the spoiler tag in other articles about fiction, so why not video games? Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 07:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

While I'm indifferent on this issue, I think the point is to remove them from all articles about fiction. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That's correct. However, given how likely removing them all was to be a lengthy process, Randall decided that it might be a good idea to start with an individual WikiProject first and work from there. Rest assured, CyberSkull, we fully intend to see spoiler tags removed from everything from Final Fantasy X to The Little Engine That Could. Yes, this classic children's book had actually had been given a spoiler warning... and so had Romeo and Juliet... and Beowulf... and Citizen Kane... and Lolita... and Odyssey... and The Pit and the Pendulum... and The Divine Comedy... and The Magnificent Seven... and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea... and The Brady Bunch... and A Midsummer Night's Dream... and Rocky... and The Breakfast Club -- for some of which their "spoilers" are their basic premise or common knowledge imbedded into our culture... and what the hell kind of spoilers can there possibly be in Mario Kart or Iron Chef?? Absolute absurdity. We're warning people that articles contain information apparently. We'd better get spoiler tags for toaster oven and blender soon. God knows if we don't, someone will think they require them. Ryu Kaze 12:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, this has gotten out of hand to the point that if spoiler tags remain, I'm strongly considering pushing for this as their updated replacement. It's even more "useful." Ryu Kaze 13:09, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler tags are given as a courtesy to readers, not as censorship. It's the same reason the Main Page doesn't have a giant picture of a woman's vagina on it. This courtesy clearly out weighs any negative effect the spoiler warning would have on the article. -- Ned Scott 18:37, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That's complete rubbish. The disruption of spoiler tags can be particularly egregious, cluttering up to the point where it I would deeply consider that of an afd nomination. It really doesn't do to assume people of being courteous and whatnot, when they're simply placing the templates about without rhyme or reason. And please do read the policies about what wikipedia is and try to understand the fictionous gratification of people growing more knowledgeable from intrusive templates. I honestly feel editors have lost sight of the encylopedia. We give knowledge and work to the best of our literate abilities. This isn't a religious institution where we must feel it necessary to "sheild people from knowledge". -Randall Brackett 19:25, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Ned, you can read my responses to your various comments on the spoiler warning talk page. Best to just tell you to go there instead of copying it all to here. Ryu Kaze 22:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to reiterate, though, that we don't have a picture of a vagina on the front page because the vagina article isn't a Featured Article that has been placed there. It isn't a Featured Article at all in fact. It has nothing to do with censorship, given that Wikipedia is not censored. That is a policy. Spoiler tags are not. They are, in fact, redundant of the fact that this is an encyclopedia, irrelevant to our purpose here -- meaning they contribute nothing to making this more of an encyclopedia -- and highly unprofessional. Jimmy Wales himself has said he wants Wikipedia to be of Britannica quality or higher, and that he wants it to see print. We're here to make an encyclopedia (a comprehensive collection of knowledge), not to redefine that word to mean something opposed to what it currently means. The word itself identifies this place as being full of spoilers, as does this notice accessible from the bottom of every page of this encyclopedia. Ryu Kaze 22:06, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

And just so we don't have to go through the discussion here as well, "censorship" is not defined solely as the removal or exclusion of information. That is simply how it's commonly used. "Censorship" extends to regulating information in any manner that involves treating it differently from other information. Wikipedia is not censored because -- like all professional encyclopedias -- Wikipedia is neutral. In other words, Wikipedia sees information, and information only. It does not see "Spoiler information, non-spoiler information. Spoiler information, non-spoiler information." It is supposed to see them as the same thing and treat them as such. Ryu Kaze 22:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

We may not have a vagina on the front page, but nor do we have a "Picture warning: This article contains at least one detailed pictures of the subject matter" on the vagina page. If you look something up, expect to learn something, or carefully avoid what you don't want to see — which, frankly, you already have to do even with the spoiler tags. — Wisq (talk) 21:41, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Although being more of an editor rather than a reader, I'll comment on this from the user's point of view.

Wikipedia slowly, but steadily becomes a source of summarized information on all subjects. When I am deciding whether I should watch a film, and look for neutral and objective information, first of all I look for its entry here. Most of the times I get what I want - an objective view on the subject, giving the overall idea, while everything that can spoil the fun is separated by warnings.

As a reader, I do know this isn't a specialized movies and games database. But, as long as information in Wikipedia is better filtered and better categorized, it doesn't matter.

Now, if the tags are gone and the spoilers are mixed up with everything else, I won't be able to use WP this way. Well, maybe it will resemble a paper book more closely, or maybe it will become more indiscriminate. It might be very important for a scholar. For me, as a reader, it doesn't matter, as Wikipedia will lose its usefulness for this purpose.

If I have already watched a movie (or played a game), I don't need a short retelling of its plot. If I haven't, I do not want it. Ones who do want can ignore the tag.

As an editor, I have to agree that tags don't make WP look more encyclopedic. In fact, *all tags* don't. You won't find *any tags* in a paper encyclopedia, and you will as well find there no talk pages, no edit histories, no projects, and, of course, no edit button. They are here because Wikipedia isn't paper, and because they *do improve* its usefulness as an online information source.

CP/M 12:57, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

But how do they improve it? In what way are they contributing relevant information (relevant information being equal to all other relevant information) to Wikipedia or making it easier for us to give people that relevant information?

True, Wikipedia is not paper, but nowhere was it implied in that policy's explanation or Jimbo Wales' reference to it that this means encyclopedic philosophy does not apply. It was explained that it applies to the number of subjects we can cover. It was inferred that it applies to how we can present our information (in-line references, links, etc.) If we throw out encyclopedic philosophy on this matter, then the status quo is gone. We're no longer being an encyclopedia that treats relevant information impartially. We're no longer being a neutral, uncensored, comprehensive source of knowledge. We're holding to a double-standard. We're contradicting ourselves. We're, quite honestly, being hypocrites at that point.

Given that you've said that you know Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a film review site, who does the responsibility for the absorption of information then lie with? You say that if you haven't seen the movie yet, you don't want the plot info. Why not skip it? There's a table of contents on film pages. There's a section clearly marked "Plot." It is the responsibility of the readers to decide what they want to read. As editors, we're merely here to treat the information impartially and give it to the readers. Not assume for them that they are incompetent and incapable of reading the "Plot" header unless we give them a little banner below it that -- in smaller text -- says "Spoiler warning: plot... details follow."

OK, I see there's some kind of misunderstanding. No doubt, there are sections named "Plot", which are obvious spoilers. But there are sections which names do not assume they are spoilers. No objection against removing tags from "Plot" sections, as they contain spoiler warnings in the very name. However, if not so obviously named sections contain spoilers, my opinion is that they should be marked as such. I hope this removes most of the misunderstanding.

Now to the questions. By separating spoiler information into a separate section that can be avoided, we do not lose neutrality, comprehensiveness or anything else. We simply separate overview and plot retelling. It is already done, and the barrier is in form of spoiler warnings.

You've asked - "In what way are they contributing relevant information to Wikipedia or making it easier for us to give people that relevant information?". I'll answer. They do not make it easier to us. They make it easier for the readers to separate relevant information from irrelevant, according to their preferences. Therefore, the improve the usefulness of Wikipedia to a large number of readers.

And, in my believe - which, of course, can be disagreed with - the primary purpose of Wikipedia is to be useful for the readers as a source of well categorized neutral information, and everything else is only as important as it serves this purpose. First actual usefulness, then ideas and concepts. --CP/M 18:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, in paper encyclopedias, you will find notices to check out related articles. Ryu Kaze 13:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Why not simply avoid the plot section of the article? AMHR285 ^(talk) 15:59, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I think this is the crux of the problem. Many people seem to forgo the meaning of wikipedia in place of fictional barriers intended to be appropriate for movie review sites. This isn't that kind of website. And I've no idea what the concept of paper has to do with the meaning of being an encyclopedia. Paper, java, its merely different means of presentation and effect. It doesn't change the way an encyclopedia should conform itself. -Randall Brackett 14:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Are we obliged to mimic existing paper encyclopedias?

OK, if you believe we do, I've got one right on the table. It's about sci-fi films of mid 20th century. It, of course, has no spoiler tags. But it also has no spoilers of the kind we have, no complete plot retellings.

If we do intend to have them, we need to take some care for the readers. Keeping them exclusively in the "Plot" section or tagging as spoilers - it doesn't matter. But in no way just removing all the tags and leaving everything else as it is. --CP/M 18:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

In some cases so called "spoiler material" is the basic premise of the work in question (Titanic, The Passion of the Christ, Romeo and Juliet), and in others, the information is pop culture that we have no concern to shield someone from (Darth Vader being Luke Skywalker's father, Rosebud being a sled). Regardless, an encyclopedia's concern is with the presentation of relevant information and the impartial treatment and presentation of it. We're displaying care for the readers by bothering to compile them an encyclopedia for free in the first place.

Encyclopedias are supposed to be comprehensive, neutral, and uncensored. We can't achieve that if we're carrying around a double-standard under the plot section of every work of fiction.

While paper encyclopedias don't always feature play-by-play summaries of plots, neither do we. We're not supposed to try copying the story into our articles here. We're just supposed to detail it, including the most relevant of information. We're supposed to shoot for brevity when writing plot summaries so that they maintain a length that wouldn't be off-putting to an uninitiated reader, but we are supposed to make them complete.

On the issue of where we locate spoilers, as said, in some cases, a work's basic premise is the "spoilers." Even so, however, most of the time, spoilers are within the Plot/Story/Plot summary sections anyway. Often they're included in the Character sections too, but the characters are an aspect of the plot to begin with.

As far as mimicing existing paper encyclopedias goes, it is those which have set the standard for encyclopedic philosophy, which includes such fudnamentals as no censorship and neutral regulation and presentation of information. Wikipedia's founder, Jimbo Wales himself, has said that he wants Wikipedia to try to meet the standard of the Britannica, and hopefully surpass it. Ryu Kaze 18:31, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This is very hard to believe. When did anyone say we had to mimic a paper encyclopedia...?

As for the remainder of your comment CP/M, that's somewhat sensible. I suggest we take this to a policy formatting page and propose we strengthen the organizing of our articles so we make sure everything is neat and orderly. But having the redundnat spoiler in view of a table of contents and headers that can be created very easily suits our needs currently. -Randall Brackett 18:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course, we should incorporate the general encyclopedia philosophy. But not every detail of formatting standarts. The reason is that we deal with subjects Britannica won't ever bother to mention. You won't find an article on a computer game character there, and you won't find something like this spoiler there. We do deal with these subjects, and we have a different formatting style, which includes tags. Our capabilities, reader selection and range of purposes are much wider.

There is no neutrality violation in simply adding a small notice which shows where the spoilers are. Spoilers aren't good or bad, they simply are information the game or book authors wanted to remain unknown to players or readers until they play the game or read the book. It's not we who decides, but authors. It is done for the reader's own sake. If the information was intentionally separated in the original, we don't add discrimination by leaving it separated in the article. It is only as much of discrimination as having separate Gameplay and Story sections.

We display care for the readers by collecting the information from different sources. But we as well display care by categorizing this information, allowing the user to read only what he wants. We can display even more care for the readers by recognizing that different people are not only interested in different subjects, but also in different aspects of the subjects. One of the most common differences in approaches is that some people are interested only in the information that won't damage the experience of reading, watching, or playing the book, film or game, others are interested in both parts. By recognizing this in arrangement, we let each group get the selection of information they want.

Whether it is done by proper use of Plot section, or by spoiler tag, doesn't actually matter. To remove redundancy while retaining usability and flexibility, I suggest to remove spoiler tags in situations where they can be expected because of article or section name, and reserve use of tags for non-obvious situations. --CP/M 07:10, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "The reason is that we deal with subjects Britannica won't ever bother to mention. You won't find an article on a computer game character there, and you won't find something like this spoiler there. We do deal with these subjects, and we have a different formatting style, which includes tags. Our capabilities, reader selection and range of purposes are much wider."

Simply because we have more room doesn't mean we're not an encyclopedia and can try to redefine that word simply because a few editors are emphasising their own interpretations. As has been mentioned, even Wikipedia's founder looks to Britannica for a standard of encyclopedic behavior. Our purpose in how we treat information is no different from Britannica's. We merely have more advanced methods of fulfilling that purpose.

You are making very distant assumptions from his word. I'll rather ask him directly.

We have more capabilities, more readers and more goals. We don't have to mimic other encyclopedias. And, in case when changing formatting style improves usability, we may, can and should do it. CP/M 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "There is no neutrality violation in simply adding a small notice which shows where the spoilers are. Spoilers aren't good or bad, they simply are information the game or book authors wanted to remain unknown to players or readers until they play the game or read the book."

There is definitely a neutrality violation at work when we're singling information out and warning people away from it. Allow me to quote something I said to another editor a short time ago: "We'd expect to have the spoiler notice/no censorship clause in the site's Disclaimer and list of policies. Once we're into the meat of an article where all the info's supposed to be getting impartial treatment, for some of it to be singled out as 'In the opinion of us, the editors who are supposed to remain impartial and not try to influence you, you may not want to read this!' is out of place and inappropriate. ...As I mentioned before, all the information's supposed to be getting impartial treatment. In other words, the standard for the treatment of information is what everything's supposed to get. A universal spoiler notice that singles no particular bit of information out is impartial. It applies to every single article and every section in each of those articles. The same is true of the censorship clause on the list of policies. No one's being singled out there and warned against, as though we're trying to shield people from a particular bit of knowledge. These spoiler tags on the other hand not only set some of the information apart, but they also warn people against reading it. That is not our place, and that is not the encyclopedic way."

We are not warning people away. We are not assuming what they might want. We merely inform them: this information is of type X, and this is of type Y.

What to read is left to their own dicretion. CP/M 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "It is done for the reader's own sake."

So we get to play God now? We get to choose what we want for other people? What we think is best? Let me quote something else I said to the same editor: "Maybe next we can decide what the readers should be having for breakfast. 'A sausage biscuit?? No, no, no! That is not healthy! You should be having a bagel and a piece of fruit.' It's really not a far cry when we're trying to influence their learning with impartial treatment of information within an encyclopedia just because we think it's better for them. Hell, if the info's not getting impartial treatment this isn't an encyclopedia to begin with.... Neutrality is one of the fundamentals of being an encyclopedia. I don't even know what the hell to call it if we don't have that. It might as well be randomfansite.com or randommoviereviewplace.net."

No. We simply inform them.

And, concerning your analogy - yes, we do have the right to inform people that sausage buiscuits are not the healthiest of all foods. We don't do it because it is too widely known. If we write an article named Healthy Food, though, we should separate healthy and unhealthy food. The reader will decide for himself.

Most works of fiction are designed for entertainment. Therefore, we should inform the reader about data that he might not like, given we know many readers do not like such data. The reader will decide for himself. CP/M 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "If the information was intentionally separated in the original, we don't add discrimination by leaving it separated in the article."

Yes, we do. When we look at that information we're supposed to see plot information, plain and simple, and treat it as such. It is not our place to decide for other people what they should or should not be reading "for their own sake."

The authors have already decided it. And we don't tell people what to read - only inform them.

It's just like separating article A from article B, because a lot of readers are only interested in subject A, not B. CP/M 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "It is only as much of discrimination as having separate Gameplay and Story sections."

Those matters are completely different. As I was telling the same individual I mentioned previously: "Unlike spoiler tags, those actually are a navigation tool, and have the added bonus of making things more organized. That information is still being treated impartially. All the headers do is identify where different sub-sets of information on the subject can be found and offer a means to quickly access that information, not put forth a presumptuous interpretation warning people away from the information."

• "We display care for the readers by collecting the information from different sources. But we as well display care by categorizing this information, allowing the user to read only what he wants. We can display even more care for the readers by recognizing that different people are not only interested in different subjects, but also in different aspects of the subjects."

They're not our children that we're deciding what's best for until they are 18 years of age. Many of them are adults, and those that aren't sure aren't our kids. We give them the information. That is our purpose. That is it. We have no purpose beyond that, and it is not our place to go beyond that. We don't assume them to be stupid or incompetent, incapable of deciding what they want to read for themselves, and that they have some disability that prevents them from understanding the meaning of "encyclopedia" and the implications of a universal spoiler notice. We're not here to babysit and teach people to be scared of information. We're here to be a serious, impartial, uncensored, comprehensive body of knowledge that anyone can access without us trying to influence them.

You know, cigarettes are only sold to and bought by adults. Well, at least they are supposed to. Nonetheless, cigarettes have a notice that they may be harmful for one's health. Despite the fact everyone already knows that.

Spoiler warning is exactly the same in function, informing people of what is ahead, but not stopping him from reading. The only difference is that spoiler warning contains less known information, and therefore is more useful. CP/M 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "One of the most common differences in approaches is that some people are interested only in the information that won't damage the experience of reading, watching, or playing the book, film or game, others are interested in both parts. By recognizing this in arrangement, we let each group get the selection of information they want."

Again, beyond our purpose and authority. We're letting them select what they want to learn by giving them tons of relevant information that they can easily access. That's where our careful treatment begins and ends. We're not supposed to decide to present some of that information to them differently just because we think that information to be damaging. We're supposed to treat it all the same. That is what Wikipedia's policies call for, and that is what being an encyclopedia calls for. Ryu Kaze 14:05, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

No. This is not beyond our authority. We take authority to separate overview from details, initial reaction from historical significance, and so on. We as well have the authority to separate general information from plot retelling.

We are not supposed to treat all information the same. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

In fact, there can be nothing more useless than just tons of information without sorting. The air you breathe contains more information than all the Net. It only doesn't separate true from false, useful from useless. Real Information is separation, sorting, and presentation of data.

In this case, it means appropriate identification of information on each aspect.

CP/M 16:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• "No. This is not beyond our authority. We take authority to separate overview from details, initial reaction from historical significance, and so on."

That is entirely neutral. That's simply seperating the information into sub-sets for easier absorption and navigation. That has absolutely nothing to do with views of the information and is not an obstacle to viewing it. That makes viewing it easier.

• "We as well have the authority to separate general information from plot retelling."

You're not talking seperating things into sections. You're talking about influencing what people learn "for their own sake." You're talking about persuasion and warning people about learning.

• "We are not supposed to treat all information the same. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information."

As I have said before, we are supposed to treat all relevant/verified/encyclopedic information the same. It's policy. There's nothing neutral about warning someone against learning or taking it upon oneself to determine what is or isn't suitable for readers to see. That's censorship.

• "In fact, there can be nothing more useless than just tons of information without sorting."

There's a difference between categorization and censorship. One makes the navigation and absorption of information easier, while the other either excludes information or -- as in this case -- sets it apart from all other information and attempts to persuade people from looking at it.

• "In this case, it means appropriate identification of information on each aspect."

"On each aspect"? So we're supposed to be identifying what's a noun, what's a verb, what's an adjective then? We're supposed to give readers the information, make it easily accessible and present it all as equal. Not decide what we think is best for them. Not shield them from learning. Not decide for them what they should not know about the subject. Categorizing information doesn't mean we take neutrality out of the equation and present our own views of it or tell readers what they might think of it.

I can't see how this has ever been an issue. It's blatant dodging of policy. Ryu Kaze 16:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I've already replied to most of these objections in previous paragraphs. Let's avoid excessive breakdown of arguments; we both have the same purpose here, after all.

I'll summarize it up. There is no persuasion, enforcement, shielding, or whatever, in simply pointing: "this is plot information". Probably the wording should be changed, i.e. just "note: plot and/or ending details follow", or possibly the tag might be made a bit less visible, or possibly we could just use corresponding section names. It's implementation. In the purpose, separating setting information from plot information is nothing more than separating gameplay from critics. We don't remove it, we don't put it in small text or expandable box like TOC, don't tell it is unsuitable, don't filter it. It is presented equally.

You wrote that encyclopedias are aimed for people who have ability to make judjment by themselves. Well, I agree. And therefore these people cannot be turned away from information they need by Plot in the section name or equally meaning tag. They only help ones who prefer no plot information to navigate, in cases where sections are insufficient.

Without high matters: we've got sections and tags, that do no harm to anyone, and help a lot of people. I've suggested a compromise to make them optional and not to use them for appropriately named sections. I also see nothing game-specific in your arguments, so, if you want to ban their usage, the proper place is TfD. --CP/M 00:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I've something game-specific. In game articles the tag is especially not needed, by observation of the edits our readers commonly contribute. I think its a given almost all readers on our video game articles are already familar with the subject based on the nitpick edits such as over-elaboration, unnecessary trivia and cruft. To make such in-depth edits they must be into the content before they atrrived at wikipedia.

I really think the template is being given too much credit. I don't think people would honestly care about them ethier way. I think if a person truly didn't want to read something then they wouldn't. But I think its a given most people who are reading a plot section on a article are doing so to learn or indulge themselves. Many, I believe are reading them so they can contribute. I think the various tags such as clean-up and the like are appropriate since they directly dictate areas of need to help editors ammend subject matter and improve quality. These tags are technical, almost tools for both the reader and writers to know there's a need here. The spoiler doesn't have it. Its represents a fictional fear derived from those who take the concept of not wanting to learn to absurd heights. Ignorance-based thinking should not have a place in an encyclopedia. -Randall Brackett 00:56, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

For readers, I'm not sure most of them are famliar with subjects. Most editors are, but only a small fraction of readers ever hits the edit button.

* Its represents a fictional fear derived from those who take the concept of not wanting to learn to absurd heights.

The community guideline of warning about spoilers is based on quite real factors, and there's nothing absurd in preferring to learn the storyline the way it was intended, step-by-step, and to learn it while playing the game, not before.

Just imagine you are buying a detective movie, with complicated story and unexpected ending, and someone tells you how all this ends, and how the criminal is named. You would learn it anyway, just two hours later, but now you won't enjoy the movie as much.

Or imagine you are going to play a game, all of which revolves around learning about who the Nameless One is, but occasionally stumble across an article starting with "The game is about the mysterious personality of the Nameless One, who actually is..." (no, I won't). Well, some players find it acceptable, but many others don't. Therefore there is a common rule among players to either avoid spoilers that can damage the experience, which is done in magazines and printed game encyclopedias, or place them with a bit of notice, which is common on the web. CP/M 10:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "There is no persuasion, enforcement, shielding, or whatever, in simply pointing: "this is plot information"."

Given that it's different treatment for the information (sometimes even different treatment for different parts of plot information), it is certainly a case of non-standardization. If its purpose is to warn or otherwise notify readers about knowledge that is of equal value to other knowledge (meaning it's all encyclopedic, relevant to the subject, verifiable, etc.), then this is a case of censorship. In this particular case, the purpose is entirely to the effect of shielding. Making matters worse, it takes the editors out of their mandatory seat of neutrality and puts them in the unauthorized position of assuming for the readers what they may or may not should see. That's not what an encyclopedia's about, CP.

Knowledge can't have equal value. We aren't an indiscriminate collection of data. Some information has high value, like program sources, some low, like writings on the wall. In specific situation some data can have zero or slightly negative value, just like nuclear waste has high value for a reprocessing plant, but negative if it is in your home. All knowledge has different value, and even different for specific situations. CP/M 03:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Probably the wording should be changed, i.e. just "note: plot and/or ending details follow", or possibly the tag might be made a bit less visible, or possibly we could just use corresponding section names."

The wording is certainly one of the more horrible aspects of the matter, but that still wouldn't change that Wikipedia was contradicting itself and practicing one thing while preaching another. If things should remain such as that, then the rest of Wikipedia philosophy (verifiability, crystal ball, etc.) has no meaning and the entire system has collapsed in practice, even if Wikipedia is not officially declared as a failed experiment. When we start abandoning encyclopedic principle for the sake of hypothetical courtesies and editors overstepping the bounds of neutrality, then Wikipedia is no longer an encyclopedia, and is simply the biggest, most trafficked fansite on the net.

Again: There's nothing about NPOV. NPOV is lack of bias. Bias is having a preference towards some point of view. This has nothing to do with points of view, it's merely classification of NPOV information. CP/M 03:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "In the purpose, separating setting information from plot information is nothing more than separating gameplay from critics."

Again, they're entirely different. Seperating "Gameplay" from "Critical response" is a matter of grouping information into logical clusters for easier navigation and presentation. This allows the readers to view the information more easily. The spoiler tags serve as an obstruction to the information, that -- rather than categorizing it -- attempts to influence whether or not the information is seen. That's not the purpose of an encyclopedia.

The only one who can decide whether he reads the section or not is the reader. We only provide source data for him to make his choice of which information he will fill up his memory with. CP/M 03:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Without high matters: we've got sections and tags, that do no harm to anyone, and help a lot of people."

Personally, I've still not seen evidence that they actually do that, but even if they did, there still remains the matter of how they violate Wikipedia philosophy and turn the place into a powder keg of hypocrisy.

• "I also see nothing game-specific in your arguments, so, if you want to ban their usage, the proper place is TfD."

The matter's being discussed simultaneously on the talk page of the spoiler warning itself, actually. It was decided that while we shoot for the overall removal of the spoiler tags, it might be best to approach individual WikiProjects as well in the meantime. Randall got the idea after it was brought to our attention that Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera had successfully pushed for the removal of the tags from the Opera articles. Ryu Kaze 01:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

"Divide and rule"? This is an effective practice, as even a few people can constitute power within a small group. But if you want to ban spoiler tags, the place to go is TfD. Wikiprojects have no authority over editors. Covert action, by influencing decisions of small groups, is not exactly fair towards others. The arguments should be presented to the community as a whole. If the reasons are right, the community will accept them. CP/M 03:41, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The argument has most certainly been presented to the community as a whole, and was done so first. It was on the spoiler warning's talk page -- in mid-discussion -- that mention was made of the Opera WikiProject actually. That discussion has been ongoing since before this matter was brought to the attention of the CVG WikiProject.

Taking this straight to TfD may or may not have been a good idea. The discussion on the spoiler warning talk page has been going on for a while, so taking it to TfD or not taking it hasn't really been considered since we've been in the thick of a discussion on the talk page for a good while. Perhaps it would have been better. I'll keep the suggestion in mind. Thanks for the input. Ryu Kaze 04:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen the discussion there. But use of spoiler tags can't be banned by Wikiprojects or discussions on talk pages. It can temporarily reduce number of tags, and most won't be reverted, especially at pages which few people care about, but if there happens some edit conflict about it, the editor who inserts the tag is likely to be in his right, as long as the template exists. The upper limit of what can be reached through Wikiprojects is a guideline to avoid use of spoiler tags in situation where spoilers can be expected. This might be the common ground, which won't cause much contradiction, while still generally removing tags. CP/M 08:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Another CVG-specific question: What about non-plot info? Unlockable characters/items and so forth. I've always felt Characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee looked silly with a spoiler tag on it, but I've had one editor tell me it's "a huge spoiler". Nifboy 08:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think they generally are an example of situation where spoiler tags are misused. However, I'm not much into this genre, and in a specific game things can be different. Generally a spoiler is information intentionally hidden in the beginning in order to enhance interest, so it includes some characters in a plot-driven game like Planescape:Torment or Fahrenheit, but this one doesn't seem one of this kind. Considering unblockable items, it's unlikely that information about them might constitute the main source of interest. CP/M 10:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it comes down to a few simple questions:

• Do people come to wikipedia or does wikipedia go to them...?
• Do we force anyone to read our material...?
• Whose choice is it to read wikipedia...?

People come here, and we should encourage them to do so by offering information they need, sorted in a way they need. We shouldn't put ideas above people. We shouldn't take a banner "We don't care what you like, if you don't like it, don't read it". Wikipedia exists solely for its readers, not for hypothetical ideas. CP/M

• Why should neutral editors in an encyclopedia decide what is unreadable or inapropriate concenring spoilers..?

They can not label information as unreadable or inappropriate. No tools. They can only label it as containing plot data. CP/M

• Does wikpedia endorse ignorance or the complete, unobjective sharing of knowledge...?

Complete sharing of knowledge is not even physically possible as long as we speak about humans, as a homo sapiens specimen has a very limited amount of memory compared to a server cluster, and has to choose what information to store.

Back to the question, none of the above. We do not endorse anything. We just put information people need in a form they prefer. CP/M

• Has there been a large outcry by readers to our mailing lists or whatnot to endorse spoiler tags as making an article more informative...?

As far as I'm informed, we have no mailing lists which listed suggestions on removing spoiler tags.

However, we can put a voting on something like TfD and see what people prefer. CP/M

• Why shouldn't we leave all the decision making up to the reader...?

Exactly what we do when using tags. We only provide him with source data to make that decision. CP/M

• How does playing to a social networking site's ideal assist wikipedia's value as an encyclopedia...?
• Is there any data supporting why this tag would need to be held on so badly...?
• How would it harm the encyclopedia if the tag was removed...?

It would reduce the reader audience, by removing sorting which is essential for many readers to use the information. CP/M

-Randall Brackett 11:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I've answered all the questions above, each under original text section. CP/M 13:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "People come here, and we should encourage them to do so by offering information they need, sorted in a way they need. We shouldn't put ideas above people. We shouldn't take a banner "We don't care what you like, if you don't like it, don't read it". Wikipedia exists solely for its readers, not for hypothetical ideas."

So why would hypothetical circumstances determine Wikipedia policy, or, in this case, exceptions to it? People come here for information, plain and simple. The extent to what knowledge they come to seek is beyond our purposes. We're merely to provide comprehensive information for them if they want to read to that extent. Not to assume how much they may want and take measures to affect it.

Just because they are not hypothetical. Because people come here not for pagefile.sys of plain information, but for a selection of information they want. And it is for them to decide to what extent they want to have some information. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

In any event, in order to maintain encyclopedic practice, sometimes ideas must be put before people in hypothetical situations. For example, Wikipeda is not censored. We do not warn people about relevant images of pornography, sexual artwork depicting children or child-like characters or humans torturing and abusing other humans. Undeniably, some of these images would offend people. Others would be offended that we even have an article on The Da Vinci Code without slamming it and depicting it as the bane of all that is holy and correct. And others still would be offended that Wikipedia has spoilers that it treats like any other relevant information. However, encyclopedic policy must come before these hypothetical situations, or Wikipedia isn't an encyclopedia. It's that simple. It's either an encyclopedia, or it's a fansite masquerading as one under the veil of hypocrisy and double-standards.

Surely. We don't delete offensive information. But the articles are named corresponsively. We won't depict feces in an article about pipes. In case of other offensive information, we also should place it in corresponsively named articles or sections. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "They can not label information as unreadable or inappropriate. No tools. They can only label it as containing plot data."

Yet their purpose is to label it as potentially inappropriate. Which is still censorship and non-neutrality. Such focused "labeling" is not simply the organization of data. We already have a universal spoiler warning to notify people that any section of any article may contain spoilers. The use of these banners goes beyond, neutral, impartial treatment, and begins singling out, often under absurd pretenses (Mario Kart even has a spoiler tag).

"Potentially inappropriate" doesn't mean a thing. Potentially, this page might be deleted tomorrow. Potentially, I can be just an AI computer program. Potentially, everything is possible.

There are readers for which this data is really undesired. They know what they want, and for them this tag is useful. For other, it's just potentially - and actually nothing.

As for the last sentence, I completely agree: it sometimes goes beyond what is sensible, like in Mario Kart. Well, let's clear the tags there. Not cure a headache by removing the head. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Back to the question, none of the above. We do not endorse anything. We just put information people need in a form they prefer."

You haven't read the Wikipedia page or our policies pages it sounds like. According to Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia is "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language." Among Wikipedia's policies are neutrality and no censorship. We most certainly do endorse certain concepts, among them being the impartial sharing of encyclopedic knowledge. More than endorse it, we advocate it and illustrate it.

Sharing and enforcing are different things. We certainly have a limitation in our mission: we present verifiable NPOV information. But this doesn't go beyond the purpose: we present verifiable and neutral information because people need this kind of information. We don't serve the concepts, we apply them, and this is reflected in the policy. All endorsement is internal, directed only to editors, not readers.

For the readers, we don't intent to force them to read this encyclopedia, only give them access to what they want. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "However, we can put a voting on something like TfD and see what people prefer."

Remember that Wikipedia policy isn't determined based on democratic voting. Consensus isn't considered merely a show of hands or marking of ballots, but, rather, logic-based discussion with arguments supported by evidence. Also, again, encyclopedic philosophy must come first, or this isn't an encyclopedia and is just another everyforum.com or randomfansite.net.

Of course. But places for community-wide discussions are not individual Wikiprojects. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Exactly what we do when using tags. We only provide him with source data to make that decision."

The data is there in front of them already. They can already make that decision. It is not within our purpose to take an extra measure to influence that decision. This is policy based on encyclopedic principle.

Today, the data to make the decision is in front of them. They see a notice about spoiler location.

If the notices are gone, and spoilers are located outside corresponting section, they will not have the required data. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "It would reduce the reader audience, by removing sorting which is essential for many readers to use the information."

How is it "essential"? It would undeniably be impossible for readers to locate the same information without spoiler tags? I don't see how that's conceivable unless people are using ctrl+f searches with "spoiler" as their search parameters instead of articles' tables of contents. And, again, such "sorting" as what you're speaking of here is censorship, which we're opposed to on the basis of encyclopedic integrity.

It will exactly be quite hard for readers to locate the same information without appropriate sectioning or notices. And, again, no censorship is present. As an example, censorship is when a TV channel broadcasts no porn. When a porn movie goes after a notice that it contains pornography, this is not censorship.

Such notice is an exact equivalent of spoiler tags on Wikipedia. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "I've answered all the questions above, each under original text section."

If I may ask, if you respond like that, could you at least sign each one of your own comments? It makes things cluttered and more difficult to read when responses are within somebody else's message, interspersing new comments with old ones. Thanks in advance. Ryu Kaze 14:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I use thread-style to minimize cluttering of the page with quoting, and suggest to use it further. Comments signed. CP/M 21:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

• "And it is for them to decide to what extent they want to have some information."

That is my exact point: it's their decision, not ours. We're not to be warning people about specific information or trying to influence their decisions to learn about it.

Spoiler warning does not influence decisions in a harmul way - it only provides data to make the decision. Don't consider our readers to be brainless. They can decide for themselves, whatever tags there are. Informing people that here is information of kind A, and here of kind B, is completely appropriate. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Surely. We don't delete offensive information. But the articles are named corresponsively. We won't depict feces in an article about pipes. In case of other offensive information, we also should place it in corresponsively named articles or sections."

It isn't on the basis of corresponsively named articles that those images are on those particular pages so much as it is a matter of relevance. For example, an image or two from the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse page would have relevance on a page like (example) "Controversies and scandals associated with the Bush administration's war in Iraq." In fact, if you check the human rights' abuses section of the Iraq Conflict page, you'll find one of the images from the Abu Ghraib page. Obviously "Iraq Conflict" doesn't suggest that you might see such a thing even as much as "World War II" would, but it's certainly there, and it's certainly relevant. There's no concern over this image of an asshole US soldier grinning like a dumbass over the corpse of a man he tortured to death because Wikipedia doesn't concern itself with censorship or "categorizing its offensive material into appropriately named articles." It simply puts relevant information where it belongs, and that's the long and short of the matter. This is how encyclopedic principle would have Wikipedia conduct itself.

Offensiveness of such images is much less than one of the spoilers. The tags were created for a purpose which they serve successfully (see below). Truly, there is a lot of misuse, but it's misuse what should be addressed. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• ""Potentially inappropriate" doesn't mean a thing. Potentially, this page might be deleted tomorrow. Potentially, I can be just an AI computer program. Potentially, everything is possible."

Exactly my point once again. Given that someone's potentially going to find any number of things inappropriate about this encyclopedia's content, and given that we have a no censorship policy and a neutrality notice, people finding unmarked spoilers offensive is no more a concern than people finding those images from the Abu Ghraib and Iraq Conflict pages offensive, or people finding this image of a prostitute offensive, or this image of pornographic videos.

Again: it works. No need to destroy, therefore. Fixing what already works almost always leads to even worse consequences. People don't feel like they need warnings here (and, well, there's not so many people unfamiliar with porn), but feel like they need them for spoilers. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "As for the last sentence, I completely agree: it sometimes goes beyond what is sensible, like in Mario Kart. Well, let's clear the tags there. Not cure a headache by removing the head."

I appreciate that you acknowledge that the tags are used to ridiculus extremes. Some have refused to acknowledge even that because of the flexibility of the word "spoiler." However, I still see the tags themselves as a problem within an encyclopedia. Their misuse is not the core issue here. That's just icing on the cake.

• "For the readers, we don't intent to force them to read this encyclopedia, only give them access to what they want."

Once again, you've stated my point to the letter. Wikipedia's purpose is to provide the readers access to the information. The mission begins and ends there.

Exactly. And information is separation and classification. The type of classification in question is requested - it is provided. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Of course. But places for community-wide discussions are not individual Wikiprojects."

True enough. This is just where our discussion has happened to take place.

• "Today, the data to make the decision is in front of them. They see a notice about spoiler location. If the notices are gone, and spoilers are located outside corresponting section, they will not have the required data."

Actually, they would. The decision is always theirs and theirs alone, to make as they see fit. Not with additional suggestions based on the interpretations of editors.

Content disclaimer offers a choice: "accept it or get out". Nothing wrong, but we are able to provide a better choice: "read only general data or all available". We, in fact, do provide this choice already.

It is not an interpretation. It is as simple as it is: separating plot detail from overview. Editors make much more controversial choices while making every edit. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "It will exactly be quite hard for readers to locate the same information without appropriate sectioning or notices."

How so? Unless they're specifically looking for the spoilers in an article, I can't see how that would be the case, and even if they are, in most cases where it would apply, the section headers identify spoiler-laden areas.

Because they can be specifically looking for non-spoilers.

In cases where section headers do identify them, it's OK to delete tags. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "And, again, no censorship is present. As an example, censorship is when a TV channel broadcasts no porn. When a porn movie goes after a notice that it contains pornography, this is not censorship. Such notice is an exact equivalent of spoiler tags on Wikipedia."

A TV station is not necessarily neutral like an encyclopedia. In fact, they put those notices there for the explicit purpose of influencing the viewers' decisions to watch or not watch those programs. As an analogy of the situation with spoiler tags, it is -- as you said -- absolutely the same kind of situation, but that actually hurts the argument for keeping spoiler tags because an encyclopedia isn't supposed to be trying to influence or persuade its readers.

These notices merely inform the viewer that this is porn movie. The viewer can't be turned away from what he likes by a notice that this is exactly what he likes. If the viewer doesn't like porn, it's the right thing to inform him that it is porn. Yes, it influences his decision. It influences it by providing him with information. And this is what should be done, because we don't have the purpose to fill user's memory as much as possible. Information for making decisions is at least as important as content itself. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, as I mentioned earlier, censorship is not only the exclusion of content. It is also the regulation of it outside the standard.

• "I use thread-style to minimize cluttering of the page with quoting, and suggest to use it further. Comments signed."

Thanks for signing. That alone was enough to give it clarity. Thanks also for the suggestion. Perhaps I'll start doing that again. Ryu Kaze 23:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm almost afraid to hop in on this rather intense discussion, but I have to say it: I've never understood why we need spoiler tags, and would be happy to see them go. All encyclopedias contain plot-related discussion in articles about fiction, so the line on every single page -- that Wikipedia is "the free enclopedia that anyone can edit" -- should be enough. In my experience, having to work with spoiler warnings can have a detrimental effect on prose quality; the fact that an editor needs to corral any potenitally offending information off in a single section or number of consecutive sections to avoid excessive numbers of warning/end warning tags can influence the organization of an article unduly. Besides, we're probably not doing anyone any favors by creating the impression that Wikipedia is "safe" for people who don't want to be spoiled. This is a wiki -- exceptions happen. -- Lee Bailey^(talk) 23:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason is simple: we're a different kind of encyclopedia, as we cover modern works as well, and in large number, not restricting ourselves to the most famous ones. And, for editors, we only use spoiler warnings where direct, massive spoilers are present. Or at least we should and can. Spoiler warnings actually give editor the freedom to discuss plot-related content in detail anywhere, instead of only corresponding sections. If the tags are used sparingly, they won't make a significant effect on the looks of articles. CP/M 00:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how spoiler warnings give editors the freedom to discuss plot details -- I would have assumed that we had that freedom anyway. My point about organization is that a "massive" spoiler -- say for example, the identity of a murderer in a mystery movie -- may not take up an entire section, but having a single sentence "fenced off" so to speak (perhaps in an analysis or critical response section) is unseemly, especially if I had to do this several times in one article. On the other hand, if I "fenced off" the entire section with spoiler warnings, it would be effectively hiding relevant information from anyone warned off by the spoiler tags. Using the tags sparingly, as you suggest, is problematic for that reason -- it's hard to precisely target plot-related information in the middle of blocks to text without either using a lot of tags, or changing the organization of the prose.

Personally, I don't think much harm would come to the users of Wikipedia if we stopped using the tag altogether. Some people would notice spoilers in articles they don't care about before ones they do; others won't, but will learn to be a bit more cautious before diving headlong into an encyclopedia article about the movie they plan to rent for the evening. When you put that together with the fact that most users will probably encounter spoilers eventually anyway if they continue to assume Wikipedia is a "spoiler-safe" website -- because we're freely editable so things change rapidly -- then it's hard to see a reason for the tags. -- Lee Bailey^(talk) 00:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "The reason is simple: we're a different kind of encyclopedia, as we cover modern works as well, and in large number, not restricting ourselves to the most famous ones."

As I've mentioned before, the definition of "encyclopedia" remains constant -- as do the principles of the concept -- regardless of how much space you have to cover different subjects. The fact that we have more room just means we have more information to give readers, not that we're deciding to make an attempt at redefining the concept. Despite all the differences Wikipedia has with paper encyclopedias, all these differences are merely extra tools to make achieving the goal easier (more space, in-line references, links, etc.). The goal itself is only different in that it is on a grander scale: Jimmy Wales wants Wikipedia to be accessible to people all over the world and in their own languages. The principles of neutral treatment and presentation of information remain the same.

Actually, it remained constant only in the paper age. The key difference lies here: paper encyclopedia is a book. It may be long, but it is still a book that can be completely read by any of its readers. And, therefore, a paper encyclopedias can offer just the information that every well-educated man should know. But we have long surpassed that point, and are growing faster and faster. Wikipedia can't be completely read by anyone even in his lifetime, and contains more information than a single man can know. So it's no longer a book, but rather a library, which are very different things. CP/M 12:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

It's still an encyclopedia. Just a larger one. Ryu Kaze 16:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Spoiler warnings actually give editor the freedom to discuss plot-related content in detail anywhere, instead of only corresponding sections."

As Lee said, we have that freedom anyway. Wikipedia is not censored. We discuss plot details where it's relevant. We don't need the permission of a non-impartial spoiler tag to do that.

• "If the tags are used sparingly, they won't make a significant effect on the looks of articles."

This matter is not even so much about aesthetics and formatting as it is about the integrity of the project. If we have spoiler tags, this isn't an encyclopedia. It's really that simple. If we endorse the targeting of information for seperation from other info based on our own opinions and/or interpretations and/or assumptions... editors attempting to influence readers to learn some information while not other information... and the non-stardization of accessibility to information -- even going so far as to present an obstacle to selected information -- then we have abandoned not just Wikipedia's policies (if some of them get ignored, then all of them might as well be), but also encyclopedic princicple, and the purpose of this project has then failed. Ryu Kaze 01:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad we have found a lot of common grounds and agreed on the principles. I'll try to isolate the source of contradiction, the assumptions we have based our earlier arguments on. It is all about two questions: "Is determining information as a spoiler essentially subjective?" and "Is spoiler warning an obstacle for accessing information?". I suggest we focus on discussing ad solving them further, in two threads. CP/M 12:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Alright. That sounds fine. Ryu Kaze 16:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Is spoiler warning an obstacle for accessing information?

Here, I think it is not an obstacle. It takes the same effort to read a paragraph, no matter whether it has a warning above or not. CP/M 12:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Is determining information as a spoiler essentially subjective?

This question might be more complicated. One certainly can be subjective when making his decisions, and this is how we get Mario Kart cases. However, I believe we can reach a consensus on what constitutes a spoiler, and create a formalized guideline, which will prevent subjective views from affecting the decision. CP/M 12:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I really think it defeats the purpose of an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a massive comprehedum of subjects that are collectively gathered and presented to the reader in a organized, unbiased and free manner. I don't refute the claim the spoiler is widely accepted across the internet, but those websites are simply not encyclopedias and I think it apropriate we don't follow their practices.

On a comprimise, provided we ended with an agreement to retain the template across the project, I would advocate we only use the template in articles that describe the subject as still in development of not yet released (such as [Dead or Alive:Code Chornos).

Placing these unencylopediac tags on regular articles in any capacity, however is pushing the envelope. -Randall Brackett 16:13, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Organized manner. That's the key concept. Organization of information is sorting it by all factors required. In ships section, for example, we have ships sorted by country, by fleet, by era, by type, by class, all indepentently or semi-independently. In fiction section the required sorting is by type, by genre, by age, and by pre-reading/post-reading designation, or, simply, by spoiler presence. There is no evidence that they are unencyclopedic, as today what is encyclopedic is defined more by Wikipedia rather than examples from the previous age. They are not a violation of the basic concept of truth, the only real, underlying concept of encyclopedia. CP/M 17:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Is spoiler warning an obstacle for accessing information?
  • "Here, I think it is not an obstacle. It takes the same effort to read a paragraph, no matter whether it has a warning above or not."

But the matter isn't supposed to be "Is this a small obstacle or a large obstacle?" It's supposed to be "There is no obstacle. Only aids to get there faster." That's where being neutral and having no censorship comes in. Even the small spatial and intellectual obstacle that the spoiler tag happens to be (the text is only displaced an inch or two) is still an obstacle where there should be none. We're not supposed to even bother ourselves with whether or not relevant information is courteous. If it's verifiable, that's all that matters to us. Building an encyclopedia isn't even an issue of courtesies regarding potentially "offensive" or "inappropriate" information being the last thing we consider. It's simply not something we consider at all. Using my favorite Wikipedia quote twice in one hour now:

• "Wikipedia shouldn't attempt to be a slightly less disruptive version of everyforum.com. It should attempt to be an encyclopedia, and everything else be damned." — AMHR285

That's where our concern lies, no matter how heartless or inconsiderate it may seem.

In fact, it isn't an obstacle at all. There are readers who want data X + data Y, and ones who want data X only. For the first, nothing can be easier than to ignore the tags. For the second, tags provide instant sorting of data into X and Y, allowing them to access X faster. CP/M 17:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

You're suggesting that there are people who want to read only spoilers, and aren't concerned with reading them in the context of the subject (in which case they wouldn't convey anything to them anyway)? Ryu Kaze 18:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

People who want to read only non-spoilers. They are data X. CP/M 18:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Is determining information as a spoiler essentially subjective?
  • "This question might be more complicated. One certainly can be subjective when making his decisions, and this is how we get Mario Kart cases. However, I believe we can reach a consensus on what constitutes a spoiler, and create a formalized guideline, which will prevent subjective views from affecting the decision."

Regardless of how a spoiler may be defined, though (I'm still shaking my head over the concept of gameplay spoilers, but that's me), the core issue is "What's more important when building an encyclopedia: courtesies that probably are helpful, but not necessarily encyclopedic, or encyclopedic principles, without a rigid recognition of which there is no encyclopedia (by principle) anyway?" Ryu Kaze 16:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Usefulness and actual merit. Encyclopedic principles aren't going to read Wikipedia. Only real humans are going to. The principles haven't been carved in stone by the God; the principles are just what real humans wanted to have. There is no core principle that forbids tags, only references to paper age encyclopedias which don't use them. The tags are nothing more than another layer of sorting. CP/M 17:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Where is the encyclopedic merit? Again, warnings for images of pornography and torture would probably be useful, but they have no place here. The same is true of spoiler tags. The main policies page itself says it: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Its goals go no further, and material that does not fit this goal must be moved to another Wikimedia project or removed altogether. (See What Wikipedia is not)."

The tags are much more than a simple layer of sorting. They're a POV-based judgemental obstacle that seeks to direct people away from information. Inserting spoiler tags in an encyclopedia is like reissuing the Bible with the Book of Adolf Hitler. Ryu Kaze 18:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

See above: once we establish a formal procedure, tags are not POV-based and not judgemental. Taking Bible analogy, I don't see what can this do with Mein Kampf; in this analogy, it's rather like inserting a note to the Old Testament that Christianity is based on New Testament. I'd prefer to stay away from religious analogies, though.

As a side note, it is possible that you take these tags too seriously, like speaking of a line on the road as a some kind of leftist ideological obstacle. They are just a few bits that inform people of what is plot-related and what is not, nothing more. CP/M 18:26, 10 July 2006 (UTC

That's enough of this. I push we take a round of views from each member of the project and establish a concensus. There is enough data here from each side of the debate to clariify the mindset s pertaining to the tag. I've opened a sub-section for this purpose below.

Views on spoiler tags: needed or not needed in video game articles?

• My view on the matter is that I simply think they're intrusive to page layout, they are ideals derived from a social site (something wikipedia is opposed to), they're logicially unnecessary, redundant to our already competent headers and TOC's and many of our readers, I believe, are already knowledgeable on the subject anyway (or else they wouldn't insist upon the insertion of cruft and over-elaborate material). I support they be banned from video game articles. I also utterly refute any claim that the removal of the template would make the encyclopedia less acessible to anyone and if it does I would require substantial evidence to support this baseless claim. -Randall Brackett 19:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• To summarize my words: spoiler tags are not some kind of ideals or concepts. They are just another categorization. True, many of our readers already know the plot; but even more don't. The notices are here to help the second group make their decisions. Removing them would benefit no one, but would turn Wikipedia useless for readers who are yet planning to enjoy the game. CP/M 20:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Well, I guess if we're going to get anything settled one way or the other, it had to come to this at some point (though, like I mentioned on the spoiler warning talk page, I really think this is something Jimbo or the board themselves should ultimately address given that matters in the site disclaimer are their territory). But as far as this applies here, my views of the matter are that the spoiler tags are 1) unnecessarily redundant of the definition of "encyclopedia" and Wikipedia's universal spoiler notice; 2) a non-neutral banner in that they're a warning (which in itself requires that someone's judgement has been passed) serving as both an intellectual and visual obstacle (they displace text by about an inch) to dissuade people from viewing specifically selected information that is supposed to be presented as impartially as other relevant information on the same subjects; 3) a template whose presence creates a double-standard in the application of Wikipedia's neutrality and non-censorship policies, thus rendering the system of Wikipedia policy biased and hypocritical; and 4) based on a system of accounting for hypothetical situations that are not something Wikipedia's policies are actually concerned with in the first place. While they probably are helpful to some and a useful tool to others, given that usefulness alone is not enough to merit exemption to rigid policies, any potential courtesies they may fulfill are hypothetical scenarios -- themselves easily countered by the hypothetical scenarios in which some readers may not even care if they come across spoilers, or may never look at them to begin with if they wish to avoid them given that many spoilers lie within sections headed "Plot" or "Story" -- which are not the concern of this encyclopedia, and, thus, not the concern of its editors. Useful things are great, but not all useful things are necessarily of encyclopedic value, and the principles of Wikipedia come before courtesies that may or may not be necessary. On these grounds, I support their removal from video game articles. Ryu Kaze 20:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Personally I think they are necessary. They may be a bit annoying to see, but without them a person's gaming experience could be ruined. I say this out of experience since I have read several game pages on wikipedia and stopped when I saw "spoilers"--Karimi 02:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I think spoiler tags a wholly appropriate if used properly. This is really a debate for Wikipedia:Spoiler warning. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 03:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I, too, see little wrong with spoiler tags. I have found them to be useful to me on numerous occasions when reading certain articles, and I believe they should stay. --ADeveria 12:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I believe spoiler tags are not necessary. For readers, they create a false sense of security, since there is no way to guarantee consistant use in a freely editable environment -- a person would probably run into less spoiler information if they didn't have the idea that is spolier-safe in the first place. For editors, it's limiting in terms of options for organizing an article; the present "spoilers begin here/spoilers end here" system means references to plot information can only go "inside the box", unless you want to have a messy article with many sets of tags. -- Lee Bailey^(talk) 17:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• I may be a bit late, but I agree completely with the point directly above. Spoiler tags are a mild inconvenience to the people who should be reading the article, they provide a false sense of security for those that shouldn't, and they limit the freedom of editors. They run counter to Wikipedia policy that spoilers may exist anywhere in the text, and I don't think they ultimately benefit anyone. As one who has been accidentally spoiled by user-added content in many supposedly "spoiler-free" environments, I believe we are simply setting ourselves up to be spoiled. If you don't want to be spoiled, avoid anything that may contain spoilers, including Wikipedia. — Wisq (talk) 22:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Request for comments: Spoiler tags

A request for comment has been started at Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC with a structured discussion page on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/RfC. The debate is structured for the purpose of providing a quick overview of the arguments, and there are ways to submit opinions on solutions as "straw poll" like sections, regular discussion, and individual statements from the frequent debaters. Your views are velcome. --GunnarRene 05:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Help

The cruft is imploding my brain. Can someone please help clean this up?

- A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I'm tempted to rewrite it as:

Mario series characters

- Nifboy 06:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Could you? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:05, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It is done, although it could be prettified a bit. I also prodded Stanley the Talking Fish and Ukkiki, which look to be the most obvious choices for immediate deletion of the first dozen I looked at, and tagged a number of stubs for merging (Pianta, which I've already merged). Nifboy 07:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

(For those of you who are looking at this and are like "Huh?" this was the old version of {{Mario characters}}) Nifboy 07:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

That was very, very strange. Why on earth was there Donkey Kong and other series in a Mario template...? -Randall Brackett 18:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If I were to guess, I'd guess that the Donkey Kong info was in the Mario template because Mario's first appearance was in the original Donkey Kong. Of course, that's hardly a logical decision to base such a template design upon, but that's the only thing I can think of. Ryu Kaze 18:50, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware Mario made his original appearence in Donkey Kong as "Jumpman", but Diddy Kong and Trixie do not have anything to do with Princess Peach and Toad. -Randall Brackett 19:35, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I was just trying to make my best guess as to what reasoning may have been behind it. I guess whoever designed the template saw them as part of the same continuity to some degree. Ryu Kaze 22:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Since Nintendo has been including the Kongs as playable characters in Mario spin-offs, I can see the argument. I, however, agree that the template was unweildy and needed to be cut a bit. I think this is better. I wouldn't be surprised if people started adding characters back in, but I think it should stop with the likes of the major bit players, like Waluigi and Birdo and such, as they've been playable in a number of appearances. Kidicarus222 22:37, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

This template is more conscise in nature. I agree with you that this should stop with the likes of major bit players. If we were to include every playable character, the template would look unnatural. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 22:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I went and added Waluigi, Daisy, Birdo, Toadette and Bowser Jr. But I really can't see how any other character deserves in, especially at the risk of making the template look like crap. Everyone else is either a generic character, too minor or some permutation of an already existing character (e.g., Baby Mario and Dr. Mario). I think this looks good. Also, I thought of another argument in favor of simplyfing. One of the neat features of the Wikipedia is that you can click the "what links here" and find out what articles refer to the one you're reading. However, when the template links to every Mario character ever, the "what links here" reflects that and makes the list huge and not that helpful, since most of the articles never mention most of the other characters on the template. This solves that. Furthermore, by only including the major characters, many of them are mentioned in each other's articles already. Make sense? Kidicarus222 22:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The red might cause eye-cancer. Does it have to be that way?--elias.hc 14:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Houdy..

I'm pretty new to the Wiki, and have started climbing this rather steep learning curve in regards to exactly how things should be done here. Haven't even created my User: page yet. :-)

I'm looking to concentrate soley on the Ultima Online entry, as (a) I have several years experience playing and writing about the game, and (b) it's really the only game I have extensive knowledge about anyway.

There's a small amount of trepidation, as I don't want to step on other's toes. I decided a short while ago that contributing to Wikipedia was a good thing to do, and contributing to the UO entry would be a great place to start. I've edited parts of that entry already - but I certainly don't want to come off like some guy who appears from nowhere and starts adding content for no apparant reason. I've poked about the site a bit, and I guess I'm looking to get an idea of what constitutes 'protocol' when making changes to an established entry. Point me in the right direction?

--Ghosty Twofish 15:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC) ghostytwofish

Mainly, take a look at the guidelines in the 'help' link to the left, and if you want to make any huge, sweeping changes/additions, suggest them on the talk page first. You'll get a feel for it pretty soon. --InShaneee 03:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

General CVG character Template

Discussion continued from User talk:A Man In Black#General CVG character Template

Zero wants to redesign Template:General CVG character. He'll be along to explain why. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Or not. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Editors can easily view the discussion from the talkpage and make comments here as needed. -Randall Brackett 05:01, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Um. Okay. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Reasoning for modification on Template:General CVG character

Okay. I've made an edit here, which has slightly changed the asthetic design of the template. Uniform templates are a profound idea but I noted that, as it was implemented across articles the illustrated images and low-quality gifs looked horrid in the box and wouldn't mesh together.

I concluded this was due to the infobox design being derived from the original CVG and arcade templates, which is specically formatted for box art, cropped rendered images and screenshots. Placing various images that did not have the same effect as box art and often left a large hole distinguisable to the template, which irked me. This was an exceptional problem on images with high resolutions.

I also changed the design to give the template the general appearence lifted from individual (both substed and standard) templates previosuly in use, essentially which gives the project our own unique version of the template, rather than the perhaps, lazy lift of the CVG box. I've tested it arcoss various articles and I'm pleased to say its competent. I provide visual examples below:

Original implementation

This template is what we're using right now.

Yuga the Destroyer
'Samurai Shodown series` character
Yuga in Samurai Shodown 64
First game	Samurai Shodown 64
In-universe information
Fighting style	Various arts of magic

New implementation

This template is derived from test code in my userspace.

Yuga the Destroyer
Yuga in Samurai Shodown 64
Game series	Samurai Shodown series`
First game	Samurai Shodown 64

Comments on if the new design would be acceptable would be appreciated. -Randall Brackett 07:48, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

This template replaces borders with thick white padding and has no other changes. Why is this better? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I felt it sensible given the circumstances. All of the original templates retained this basic "float" design which had undefined borders. This also helps the white backgorund merge with the image so it looks professional, in my opinion. I don't see why we would have stick to the CVG box design, unless we had to. It's certainly not against policy and it's a little ugly [2] [3]. The template was formatted for box art and the like, not character pages. -Randall Brackett 08:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Nearly a half-dozen templates were replaced, and they each had a variety of different designs. The CVG design is consistent with the rest of the CVG templates, the floating-field design looks awful, and reception of this design has been pretty positive. (ReyBrujo's idea isn't bad, but poses technical problems.) This template, using this design, has been implemented in a number of articles (Sonic articles, Kingdom Hearts articles, Ultima articles, minor Mario articles. ToHeart articles - whatever ToHeart is) that I had no hand in editing. I think you've got a solution here in search of a problem, a problem that doesn't exist. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:29, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, okay and the design being consistent with the CVG box is relevant, how..? I believe I retained a design similar enough to be associated with the project (the blue and white bordering, etc.)

I saw a problem. You're welcome to disagree but when I see something I feel could improve wikipedia, be it minor or large I go to editting. I see you describe my "problems" as nonexistent. That's fine but I don't have a reason to edit without rhyme or purpose. The template being distributed across various articles having to do with this, I also don't understand - that really sounds irrelevant.

I suggest you get over the obsession with the template immediately. The wiki is a place for various entities to edit and improve in the manner they perceive fitting. Suggesting others reasoning is unhelpful on their attempt to assist is not the behavior acceptable at wikipedia. -Randall Brackett 08:39, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a CVG project infobox. Why shouldn't it look like the others? Admittedly, this is a lame reason, but it's something other than "AMIB thinks padding blows" and "MMZ thinks borders suck." Right now, the borders version is both the status quo and the current style used in the project's other infoboxes, and you haven't offered much beyond you just not liking how it looks.

As for the "images meshing" thing, I have no idea whatsoever what you're talking about. (And it looks like I'm not the only one.) Please provide specific article examples, and explain (using short words, please) so that this isn't just a "MMZ just thinks it looks nicer this way" thing. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I've already clarified I've seen a problem that irked me. I've no idea what others think on the matter. Of course I'm not liking how it appears. I'm used to seeing float designs across many of the articles and it looks overall more sensible to me.

I've explained my reasoning, which you describe as invalid. I'm not going to make a redundant post when it's but a few headers above. I'm not concerned really. I brought the porposal here to ask on opinions if this was suitable for a design on the template. It's a minor quibble, that if rejected is fine, and if accepted, is fine. I'm certainly not regarding this as a big deal. -Randall Brackett 09:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the floating boxes are ugly. That is all. Nifboy 08:43, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see the point in revising a working infobox that ties in well with the widely used {{Infobox VG}} as the issue, from what I can tell, doesn't exist. This looks more like an editor pursuing a design that is in accordance with his own preference. o/s/p 12:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know that I did do anything wrong here. If I truly believed I was acting in selfish faith, I wouldn't have summitted for review. I merely thought there was little wrong with modifying the design in a way I thought reasonable while retaining similar designs used previously. I think that you're acting in good faith, but you're accusing me of acting in bad faith because my interpretation of the situation is different from yours. -Randall Brackett 14:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

The floating version seems cleaner — words being in the middle of each box as opposed to seemingly scrunched up to the left are probably why. This is all preference of course. AMHR285 ^(talk) 13:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I changed the bordering, however. It no longer "floats". My design was meant to merge the white background with images so it appears similar to a gif. I think it makes the template appear more professional, particularly when we have but the option of low-quality jpegs. This is particularly effective on images like Image:Quint.gif.

I think I'm sensitive to this because I possess paticularly horrid eyesight and I don't intend to stop using the computer anytime soon. If this is the case and it's ineligible, then I apologize for this and I won't push the issue.

I also felt it nice to stay consistent with past template designs and thought it effective by capturing the overall appearence of them in the CVG's template as it was so vastly implemented. In my opinion, I perceived the original CVG template as suitable for some things and not for others. These are minor quibbles, however and I've no problem with them being rejected. -Randall Brackett 17:03, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you put in the a section for the the translation of a character's name in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean? -—Preceding unsigned comment added by Dangerous-Boy (talk • contribs) 18:52, July 15, 2006

I was under the impression we already utilized those niango-whatever templates for that. -Randall Brackett 20:32, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

{{Nihongo}}. Nifboy 00:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't you incorporate the language templates in the character template like the inclusion that is done for metal gear?--D-Boy 01:38, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

You could just stick the {{Nihongo}} template in the {{{name}}} parameter. I'll fiddle with working alternate names into a field, though. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:45, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget the Korean template.--D-Boy 20:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Recent video-game deletions

Editor ESkog has recently deleted several video-game related articles even though the discussions on AfD leaned toward keeping, overwhelmingly so, sometimes. They have been claiming that those in favor of deletion were citing policy and those in favor of keeping were just sayign they wanted it. A quick read of discussions shows this is not the case. It normally goes something like this: An articles is nominated for deletion because it's a game guide. Several people come along and explain hwo it isn't a game guide, or at least is salvageable. Page gets deleted anyway. Examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Command & Conquer Red Alert Infantry, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of vehicles in the Halo universe. Are there any thoughts on this? Ace of Sevens 03:33, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:DRV, if you're really concerned. --InShaneee 03:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, many of those deleted were pretty hard to justify having separate articles, particularly the plethora of C&C sub-articles. But, I think that there should have been sometime to transwiki that information, in any case, it wiped out many users' hard work all too quickly. Also, in the Starcraft units debate I thought there was a good counter-argument for deletion, compared to the massive amounts of Chess information. Even though Chess is a 1000-year-old game and more notable, it still shows some precedent. Not to mention the tons of fictional element articles on say, Star Wars minutia. The "Wikipedia is not a game guide" argument should only be used on game guides, not everything. It's definitely worth keeping an eye on, as it seems there are currently several AFDs going on right now, with the same kind of debates. --SevereTireDamage 06:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. He didn't even bother to justify that one. It could have easily gone to no consensus much like this one. --SevereTireDamage 00:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but DRV is still the place for this discussion. Nothing can be accomplished here.--InShaneee 00:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, somethign can. We need some sort of guideline as to game guides. Numerous AfD users seem quick to call anything about video games a game guide or game cruft and therefore deletable. I propose that anything which is potentially valuable to a non-player is not a game guide. Ace of Sevens 00:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the problem is that too many people just hate any and all things video game-related on Wikipedia. It's funny that a whole subpage of deletion requests has actually been set up for CVG stuff, just 'cause there's so much of it. I agree with you Ace; too many video game articles have been lost to "Gamecruft, WP:NOT" as a reason for deletion and then numerous "delete per nom" replies. That's pretty much the case for Units in Advance Wars, which I'm defending to the best of my ability (but probably to no avail '-_-).

I belive there's a very large gray area when it comes to what a "game guide" is, which needs to be more clearly defined. I'll try and use Units in Advance Wars as an example. In it's current state, the article basically provides a general overview of each unit in the three AW games; in fact, it's really of little value to those who've played the game, as it's stuff you learn to become familiar with (ie unit attacks, what tanks are more powerful, what all the sea units secondary attacks are, etc.). I belive that if the article was filled with things like unit strategies or just pure statistical info (like this older revision of the article, which was reverted by me), it's crossed the [not very clearly defined] line over to game guide. This is the argument I've used on the AFD page for Units in AW, but I somehow doubt it's going to get through to many people (most people just say "delete per nom," move on, and never look back). -- gakon5 01:15, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I say this because porn articles used to have the same problem, but now that there are notability guidleines, this isn't so much the case anymore. I was hoping something similar would happen. Ace of Sevens 01:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean something like WP:FICT. WP:GAME, perhaps? --InShaneee 03:18, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't even realized there were all those subdivisions of the Notability document. (WP:SOFTWARE also relevant.) Something like that would be optimal As Gakon5 said, I am tired of the one-note, ill-considered AfDs that just go "WP:V. WP:OR. Cruft. End." where no one really considers the deletion seriously based on the content on the article. I mean, especially when you consider 90% of the junk that normally goes into our deletion archive (Banana Hoard??) that legitimately needs to be put down, a list of units in a game played by millions of people globally today doesn't deserve more than a half sentence? (Games I don't even play - I find the articles interesting on an encylopedic level, nonetheless.)

But anyway - we should probably look at existing and recent examples. For fhe Units in Advance Wars article, I voted for a merge, since there's already a good and existing Units in Nintendo Wars article that covers most of the units in the Nintendo Wars series. It's very good, not a gameguide, gives historical information, interesting on a design level because of that. Not just interesting, actually, because you need to know basic information about the units to understand how the game is played, but I suppose there's that thin line between instruction manual and encyclopedia again. A typical card game would have full rules coverage, but most computer and video games, especially strategy games, have far more complex rules, strategy and complicated sets of tokens. (See Gameplay of StarCraft, which might be next on the chopping block if Units gets axed.) There is also the possibility that adding the Advance Wars units (two more games of new units) may make it too bloated and hence need to split off again. OTOH, there are probably many who don't think either article deserves to exist. --SevereTireDamage 03:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

How do we go about creating new guidelines? Do we create WP:GAME or discuss it elsewhere first? We should act quickly or pretty much everythign except the games themselves will be gone. Ace of Sevens 04:01, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to create policy. Looks to be a long drawn-out process, so either way, it wouldn't really be useful for a long time, even if we could get a policy accepted. Technically the Workshop is a proposal which seems to have been kind of abandoned, like the Improvement Drive. Still, it's worth considering a Wikipedia:Notability (computer and video games) on principle, since it seems a lack of actual CVG policy on notable articles does encourage what's happening. --SevereTireDamage 05:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with the deletions in this case. The encyclopedia's purpose is to inform a general population — this information does not have any significance in an overview of the games. An overview of units and whatnot should be placed on the main page. Or, in the case of large series, prosified into a general interest article like Final Fantasy magic. That article may have some information describing magic's use, but it is not a "game guide" because it describes, compares, and informs how magic is integrated into the series as a whole. — Deckiller 04:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

For the most part I do agree with you. Also see Units in Nintendo Wars (from above) and The Legend of Zelda series weapons and items for similarly good articles, as they're both based on the history of the series and in the case of Zelda, the place of the weapons in the fictional universe. I don't think every single Starcraft or C&C unit necessarily deserves its own page either. But I feel uneasy about the Starcraft, Advance Wars, and Halo article AfDs, since I think those, while at times can skitter close to being game guides, can also offer valuable encyclopedic information for people looking for information about games they have never played that isn't a "game guide" - especially on the design and gameplay level. But many of the voters summarily dismissed the pages outright. I think at the very least, the pages should be appropriately transwiki'd in bad cases with a lot of content. --SevereTireDamage 05:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I recently posted my own thoughts on this to the StarCraft units page. I did vote Delete, but only because it could be transwikied. On principles however, I do agree with you (@SevereTireDamage) and ReaverDrop. But there are many other StarCraft pages that can't be transwikied to my knowledge (eg the prominent StarCraft players page) that I fear could be up for deletion for "fancruft" reasons. Is there any way a Wikipedian can be alerted when a games page has been nominated for deletion? Aside from checking that page like everyday, I mean. -- Solberg 06:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Solberg

Click the watch link. It'll show up as a page change when they add the deletion template. Ace of Sevens 06:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I already knew that but thanks... No seriously, is there a better way? If not, there should be. Like a message being sent to your e-mail address or a script that posts it on your talk page or something. -- Solberg 06:29, 18 July 2006 (UTC)Solberg

The two easiest ways are to watchlist the CVG deletion page, or if you're feeling particularly vigilant you can look at the daily logs at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. --SevereTireDamage 06:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Proto/gc <-- some of you may want to check this out; dude basically has a hit list, and a big one at that. But then when you scroll down to his "Edit list" section, which starts with this:

These sections of articles may need removing/editing. That being said, a section isn't so bad. The existence of a whole article is bad. A brief description of the gameplay of a game, referring to various weapons used, etc, may well be of encyclopaedic interest.

Somehow it seems to me like he's contradicting himself. It's like he's against Summary Style or something. Oh, and I'm switching my Units in AW vote up to keep, just because I feel that strongly about this now.. and because, how is merging going to help? The two articles are big enough on their own. -- gakon5 14:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

• An update: in the StarCraft units deletion, several people have specifically endorsed deleting all video game character pages. While I voted delete on thsi one on the basis of redundancy, I don't like where this is going. Ace of Sevens 19:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
• Units in Advance Wars was axed :( never stood a chance... -- gakon5 15:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Good. It was wholly unencyclopedic. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 15:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry to hear it. But, it was somewhat borderline on the encylopedic vs. game guide issue.--SevereTireDamage 19:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't consider it entirely unencyclopedic, but then people side with that whole Cruft Theory or whatever, which says that the information isn't useful to anyone. So yeah, if you have AW, this stuff isn't useful, I get that. I acknowlege that myself; but unuseful to other people who haven't played the game? Maybe not useful, but there certainly are people who are interested in reading this kind of stuff (at least me... but there are others). I wish people would start looking at this stuff from an Inclusionist point of view.

My current fear is that too many articles are going to be shot down by people who don't even read the articles. I think it's a safe bet that half the people who voted "delete per nom" probably didn't even read the article (or parts of it) in the Units in AW deletion. They just read the nomination and agree or something. Like, right now at the Zap! deletion page, several people are voting delete on the grounds that it's a non-notable Flash game. It isn't even a Flash game; the article says it's a PC game. (of course that article deserves to be axed as it really was only notable for a short period of time two years ago)

Maybe I'm wrong about the whole not-reading-the-articles thing, but somehow I feel there are people who just look at deletions (especially cruft ones), go "oh no, cruft," plug in "delete per nom," move on, and never look back. -- gakon5 21:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

This is absolutely ridiculous[4]. Deleting Units in Nintendo Wars per a non-existing AfD, wonderful. I'm guessing he was probably confused by the AfD for Units in Advance Wars. I sent him a talk message, hopefully he'll undelete it soon. --SevereTireDamage 02:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I restored it and re-deleted it per (an already tagged) CSD A5, because it was transwikied per discussion on an AfD. However, I'm not sure if this entire scenerio merits such bold moves at the current time, especially considering the suggestion was not directly mentioned on an AfD relating to Nintendo Wars itself. — Deckiller 02:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

New deletion criterion for fair use images

The Fair use criteria page has been updated with a statement that images that do not comply are subject to deletion. Images uploaded before 13 July 2006 require a notification and a seven day grace period, but new images can be deleted immediately. Although the policy covers more than just this, one important point is that images claiming fair use that do not have article-specific fair use rationale are now subject to deletion. I've just gone through my uploads and added fair use rationale to any images claiming fair use, and I suggest everyone does the same for their uploads or fair use images on important articles. If you want a list of what you've uploaded, go to Special:Log, select "Upload Log" and type your username in the box. Pagrashtak 18:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds pretty good. -Randall Brackett 18:35, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Policy sounds fair enough, but 48 hours? Sheesh, even though I'm a compulsive wiki-addict, it doesn't mean all editors are. Not everyone's going to visit Wikipedia every two days, it's not enough time for notification and argument. It should have stayed a week for all future images, too bad the debate is already closed. --SevereTireDamage 06:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Navboxes

Following after the brain-destroying {{Mario characters}}, many game series have navboxes that are growing ever-larger, including every single article in the game's associated category. While this comes naturally from having so much subarticles for every single game series with two games and three fans (but that's a rant for another day), these templates are huge, usually hopelessly ugly, destroy any use of Whatlinkshere, and tend to crowd the bottom of game articles.

Many of them even include every single character appearing in a category, including dozens of characters ({{King of Fighters characters}} is probably the worst).

Some examples:

• {{Castlevania series}}
• {{Donkey Kong series}}
• {{Fatal Fury}}
• {{FF jobs}}
• {{FFIV}}
• {{FFV}}
• {{FFVI}}
• {{FFVII}}
• {{FFVIII}}
• {{FFIX}}
• {{FFX}}
• {{FFXI}}
• {{FFXII}}
• {{Guilty Gear}}
• {{King of Fighters characters}}
• {{Mario characters}} (why does a one-line template have a hide option?)
• {{Mario series}} (augh the hugeness)
• {{Mega Man Classic}}
• {{Mega Man series}}
• {{Megamanbattlenetwork}}
• {{Megamanlegends}}
• {{Megamanx}}
• {{Megamanzero}} (why does it have a line to link to "related game series," three of which don't relate to this series?)
• {{Metal Gear series}}
• {{Pokémon anime characters}}
• {{Pokémon Gym Leaders}}
• {{Pokémon locations}}
• {{RE series}} (the hugeness makes me cry)
• {{Samurai Shodown characters}}
• {{Soul series}}
• {{Star Fox series}}
• {{StarCraft}}
• {{Super Smash Bros. series}}
• {{Tekken series}}
• {{The Last Blade}}
• {{Virtua Fighter series}}
• {{Yoshi characters}}

Not all of these are as bad as I describe above, but I'm also listing these here so they can be catted and possibly standardized at some point.

What can be done to slim these templates down? Should they be slimmed down? Am I insane? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:21, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh. Huh. We have Category:Computer and video game navigational boxes. Well, still, a lot of these are huge and ugly. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:42, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

• {{Mario characters}} used to be functioning until you put a meat cleaver to it...the show/hide has just not been removed yet. I created the {{Pokémon Gym Leaders}} navbox when they did all have their individual pages; now that most of them have been merged, its original purpose isn't really there anymore. It was at least much better than having three templates on each region's leaders.
• I don't understand why the SSB series template was given characters; they do nothing to aid in navigation. I reverted the changes to the {{Mario Kart series}} template for the same reason.
• The RE template clearly looks like it needs to be split. I for one am curious about the number of characters - are there that many major characters in both the video game and movie franchises? I have the feeling that many of them are minor and can be merged into something like List of minor Resident Evil characters, much like the MGS series has done.
• The Mario series is indeed huge...but I doubt that splitting it up would be beneficial. Hbdragon88 07:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

1. Hey, I didn't cut it, but I strongly feel it's better without, say, Dirk Drain-Head, Swanky Kong, and Orbulon.
2. Why not just remove them, then?
3. Well, I just cut the monster section down, since it was all links to entries on a list, but, yeah, the characters need to be merged.
4. Couldn't at least a quarter of those games just be consigned to the category? It's not like every single Mario game ever needs to be linked from every single Mario game ever. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:00, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I mean, where do we want to go? The {{Mario series}} template at one point did have a few characters, but there was no consensus on who was notable or not, and the template was huge anyway, so the characters were cut into the newly-created {{Mario characters}} template. That template has since gone thorugh a meat cleaver, so I question the real usefulness of it. However, some templates, like the {{Yoshi series}} template, could clearly take the characters, and would probably be preferrable, as there aren't very many Yoshi-specific characters. I used to like the {{Tekken series}} top-down layout, but now that it has since been coverted to the left-right version, the characters list looks ugly.

The Pokémon anime characters is also kind of ehhh is it useful...but the Pokémon locations template is much improved, at least over previous versions. The Wikiproject Pokénav came out with some really horribly square templates that I despised. Somebody else created a new series of individual regional templates; this one combines them all, and I think it looks clean and useful. Hbdragon88 04:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Solid Snake

Solid Snake has recently been rewritten, and I would appreciate input. I wanted to get the project's thoughts before sending it to WP:PR. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks all right (but what's with all the awkward parenthetical sentence breaks in the lead and later on? You should avoid those if possible) so far.

Another thing I'm not sure if it can or should be added, but while Snake started out a generic 80's action hero, by MGS he becomes a far more conflicted anti-hero and beyond that, and it feels like the article is missing information about his character development. His in-game actions are covered, but how about the themes explored, like the role of genetics and determinism? The blatant use of Snake for Kojima's constantly-fourth-wall-breaking message-heavy games in the Solid games seems like it should be mentioned. I know it won't be necessarily easy to write something like that without being original research. I'm not saying it should be a big section... but something. If you're desperate for some kind of secondary source, Tim Rogers is an actual journalist, and he wrote this[5] crazy postmmodern thing. Or this[6], which is another MGS2 paper.

Also, you might want to submit to CVG Peer Review before going onto regular peer review. --SevereTireDamage 09:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do with sources for something like that, but until then, I don't think it's something that can be added to the article (or that it really belongs in this article). Tim Rogers's piece is interesting but nearly incoherent (and insertcredit is a lot of fun but sort of iffy as far as reliable sources go). I'll give the JunkerHQ article a crack and see what I can get from it, though.

I know one thing missing from the article as-is; a fairly common interpretation of MGS2 is that Snake is the main acting character (as opposed to the protagonist), and that Raiden's role is largely to observe Snake...I don't know, carrying out the story. Something like that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it's a failure of imaginatinon, but I don't see how the JunkerHQ article could be useful for this one. :/ - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I figured it was a long shot, with a lack of secondary sources out there to talk about it. I still see Snake as a very unique video game character because of his ongoing and more complex characterization, which distances him from your Sam Fishers and Generic McActionGuys.

As far as Tim Rogers goes, even though IC is an iffy source sometimes, Rogers has written for Wired and currently Next Generation, so as a writer he is a credible source, even with his awkward often-times rambling prose style. JunkerHQ admittedly not so much a "credible source", but it is a cited essay and well-written.

The JunkerHQ essay emphasizes Kojima's and Snake's constant examination of free will, ironically, since he is a video game character, this topic comes up over and over again in the first two MGS2 games (I haven't played MGS3) with the game designers making this generally serious cinematic plotline, then throwing the video game's very nature in your face with vibrating "arm rubs" and "don't use a turbo controller" and etc etc which created a unique bond between the character and player. It also suggests that Big Trouble in Little China use of the sidekick being the real hero vs. the main character (ala Raiden/Snake) might be an influence on the game and use of Snake. Believable, considering how much was kinda cribbed from Escape from New York for MGS1 (Ha! FoxDie.). These things, though mostly focused on MGS2, I believe are significant matters concerning the character of Solid Snake, especially the intentions of Kojima. Even by MGS2, Snake is a friggin legend in that world!

Yes, I know most of this is borderline unverifiable, even if Rogers discussed it with Kojima. Still, I must give the currently revised article much credit for doing a great job actually analyzing the real-life history of the character more than the fictional history. Besides this specific characterization matter, this is how fictional character articles should be, optimally. --SevereTireDamage 05:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, part of the problem is that it's fairly questionable about whether Rogers actually talked with Kojima about any of this, and he's a bit coy about it.

I think some of this might be able to go in an article about the series (Eris knows Metal Gear (series) needs work), or even the games' articles, but, save for MGS2's very weird ending, Snake is played pretty straight, mostly wandering around doing action hero things.

Also, I'm leery of placing too much emphasis on one game in which Snake is only a supporting character. Kojima may mean this and Kojima may mean that, but these are very ephemeral sources for what is starting to feel like, to me, original research. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 12:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Game lists

Are there any guidelines for these? For example, should all the different names be listed e.g. in List of Nintendo DS games should all the 3 titles for Brain Training/Brain Age/Whatever the Japanese Title Is be listed separately, with appropriate regions applied after the names? And what about using country flags instead of abbreviations, and listing years after titles? --Zilog Jones 11:37, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's any guidelines currently, I've noticed many differences in the different types of game lists. Seems like about time that consensus is reached on how they should be formatted.

Some examples of the current differences in lists:

• List of NES games: Uses a table to display name, release date, manufacturer and notes
• List of games for the original Game Boy: Has similar information as above, but in parentheses after the name
• List of Atari XEGS games: Has headings for each letter
• List of Gizmondo games: Games mentions release information
• List of Amiga games: A-H: Split up into three pages, with games listed horizontally by letter

Most others, however, are simply vertical lists of game names with little other information. I guess the big questions here are:

1. What additional information for each game, if any, should be put on the lists?
2. How should they be formatted? Table, regular list, list with headers, or horizontal "lists"?

--ADeveria 12:41, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:LIST looks like a good place to start, as does Wikipedia:Lists_(stand-alone_lists), and probably WP:LC too.

I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is if a particular list is worth keeping or not. I think a good list:

• is meaningful. The number of red links should not outnumber the blue (Amiga games, I'm looking at you). It's just not helpful or particularly informative to maintain gigantic lists of names, without articles to back them up. One could argue about the notability of such lists.
• is concise. If a list details more than a single field, then the data is probably better represented by a table, as in the List of NES games. The one thing that worries me about using tables is that it encourages the replication of data already existing within articles. It might be handy and/or relevant to some to see the Alternative Box Art or Chief Sound Engineer's Shoe Size next to the titles in a list, but I'm only ever a click away from finding out these values, so it's best to keep summary data to a minimum.

Using the List of people by name (which is so immense that it is broken into hundreds of pages) as an example of a good list, I think the Game Boy Games List best displays what other video game lists should be aiming for.

--Revlob 13:39, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Specifically in response to Zilog Jones's query about multiple entries, I think a list of games should only contain as many entries per game as there are articles for that particular game. In other words, if the Japanese title for Brain Training points to the same article as the english title, then that should represent a single entry in a list, using the most prominent title. --Revlob 13:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

But that was my main concern with how it is now. It currently only lists "Brain Age", a name many outside North America would not be familiar with. Someone may look at this list, looking to see if "Brain Training" is there, but won't find it and may even assume an article on the game does not exist. My biggest issue was with Daigasso! Band-Brothers, a title which was only released in Japan under that name - there was the working title "Jam With the Band" for western release but this is as good as canned now - however only "Jam With The Band" was listed (a name which I had forgot about) so I just assumed an article didn't exist as it wasn't listed there (yes I know I could have searched but I couldn't quite remember the name).

Basically, I think all well-known alternate titles should be listed, though it should be clearly noted that the title was only used in a particular region (with country notation/flag and/or description saying the other name(s) of the game.) If someone just wants to see how many or what articles on games there are here, they can just look at the category listings. --Zilog Jones 13:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that the alternative titles be displayed as separate entries, or perhaps just listed next to the most prominent title in parentheses. e.g. Brain Age (Prof. Kawashima's Brain Training, Kahashima Ryuuta Kyouju no Nou o Kitaeru Otona no DS Training, etc.) --Revlob 13:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I think List of Final Fantasy titles is a great example of a list for a set of games that are very few. The boxes are massive, but there are few enough games to keep it from being too large. List of Mario games, on the other hand, would do well to be overhauled into a simple table system (it's huge, man!). That's actually something I've wanted to do for a while... makes me wanna go do it right now...

Most articles would do well to just have prettytable formatted tables, with fields like name / release / platforms and whatever else is important filling in space. Boxart maybe, but only if every game in the list had boxart, and it could be formatted well enough to look consistent in each game row. -- gakon5 14:21, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

AMIB is messing up the templates again - someone ban and desysop him

User:A Man In Black/CVG This time it's {{Infobox VG}}, and my redesign is at User:A Man In Black/CVG if you want to get into the nitty-gritty instead of looking at that nice example to the right. This redesign has two things going for it.

First off, I shook out some cobwebs. The left column is now a little bit lighter (something that I did on {{General CVG character}}, and it looks rather nice), I added some non-breaking spaces in important places. It degrades a little bit better, so if you forget an important field, it's not quite as ugly.

The more important change is that it obsoletes {{Infobox Arcade Game}}, which had been going to seed ever since the arcade games project petered out. It includes all the functionality of that template, while also handling console/PC/handheld ports much better than the old arcade template did.

I've even made a substable replacement tool, like I used on the character infoboxes, to ease conversion of the arcade template.

Normally, I'd just be bold and put this into place, but {{Infobox VG}} is transcluded on thousands of pages, so I thought I'd check first. I've tested it rigorously; nothing that worked before is going to break. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 18:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The mechanical changes are definitely a good thing. But I'm not crazy about the lighter blue in the left column, honestly. It stands out less, and the color just isn't as appealing. Just a thought, though. – Seancdaug 18:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see anything wrong with the new infobox design. I guess I echo Seancdaug's comments about the lighter blue in the left column, though. Thunderbrand 19:59, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Replacing the Arcade template = Good. Having captions = Also Good. The color change I don't have an opinion one way or the other about. Nifboy 20:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure we really need to merge the Arcade template, the vast majority of pages that use Infobox VG don't need those fields. There are also plenty of arcade pages out there to justify the use of the separate template, even with the dead project. There were also debates on the talkpage for the Infobox with people concerned about too many fields being added, to which I somewhat agree - it already takes up a huge chunk of the top of editing text. I don't really like the new color either, it's a little less pretty. Caption field is nice, though. --SevereTireDamage 05:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The arcade pages can use this template, which handles all the stuff that the old arcade template did, and handles alternate versions much more effectively.

As for the arcade-only fields, they disappear themselves when not in use. Other than cosmetic changes (and it looks like the light blue is a bust), existing uses of Infobox VG will be unaffected. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The benefit of merging the two would be that maintenance will be transferred to WP:CVG as WP:AG has been on the decline since 2005. o/s/p 10:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The light blue in the left column is a bust, so I got rid of it. It's kind of a shame; I liked it. Ah well.

New feature get: a series field, which you can use to link to an associated series article. Also, I don't think I mentioned the new width field; you can manually adjust the width of the template, if you want. (The template starts to look funny if you shrink it too much; this is mostly for the rare case where you'd want to widen it.)

All of the new features in this template (except for some minor layout stuff) are completely optional; when this template is moved to template space, there will be no noticeable change (save for any minor cosmetic changes that pass muster) in pre-existing articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Last chance to object; I'm going to roll out the new infobox tomorrow night if nobody objects. Once that's done, volunteers are needed to use The Tool to convert the arcade boxes over. (All you have to do is subst a template and fill in some parameters.)- A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:22, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay. Converted. Who's up to help convert the hundred-or-so arcade boxes? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

See section on bottom of page regarding this --mboverload@ 10:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Gamebox contents

Several days ago, an admin fully protected Template:Gamebox contents as a high-use template, probably not realizing it's our to-do list. I left a message on his talk page, but he hasn't responded. Can an admin here unprotect it? --SevereTireDamage 06:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's now semi-protected. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 09:02, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, it's appreciated. --SevereTireDamage 19:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

RT4X

I've voiced some concerns on the RT4X talk page about the article's content. "RT4X" is a term coined by a dev team to describe their (not yet released) game Sins of a Solar Empire. In my opinion, the article is a recreation of SoaSE promotional/marketing material, with no demonstration that the term is in notable usage outside of the promotion and discussion of SoaSE. As such, it falls short of WP:NEO, WP:RS and WP:NOT. I've suggested a redirect to the SoaSE article; your opinions are appreciated. --Muchness 09:57, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:StarCraft storyline

There are currently twenty articles covering the storyline of StarCraft, blow by blow, not counting the two game articles and the character articles.

Does some intrepid editor want to help me clean up this mess? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

What are your thoughts on the best way to approach this one? --Revlob 11:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Write two paragraphs about each race's storyline in each of the StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 11:52, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Workshop is live

Just putting this up to inform you all that the Workshop is now live, complete with templates and everything. We'd like some people to start nominating articles for improvement from the Essential list. Basically, you nominate an article, and if it gets two support votes, it's moved to the Active subheading. Then the three of you (or anyone else who joins in afterwards) can start working on the article. -- gakon5 15:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Cool. So does this mean CVGI should be officially closed? --SevereTireDamage 19:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

It's been off the collab list for a while now, but I think some nominations have sprung up in there as of late, no? At first people considered this a replacement to CVGI, but the Workshop is for Essential Articles (and thus for 1.0). It kinda breaks down like this:

• GCOTW: Any stub
• CVGI: Any non-stub
• Workshop: Essential non-stub
• Peer review: Any near-featured

Although I guess the CVG Peer Review is a bit inactive (some correct me on that, haven't been there in a while), but this doesn't have to replace the CVGI, if enough people still cared about it. -- gakon5 21:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

The CVG peer review has had 6 requests in the past week. If it wasn't active before, it is now. Nifboy 22:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, my bad. I hadn't been around there in a while. -- gakon5 23:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Bleh Star Control 2

I was browsing the Star Control 2 pages again today when I realized that some of them sounded vaguely familiar, and I realized why-- some of them contain information directly copied (save for minor edits made by later users) from this page, the pages this page cites, and possibly others:

http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/otherraces/ http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/scsaga/races.htm

Also, some of the information may also have been copied from the SC2 manual. I'd look into this more deeply but I'm busy so maybe someone else can take a whack at it.

-- Solberg 05:58, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Solberg

P.S. Here is a copy of the SC2 manual for reference: http://home.freeuk.net/a51/games/sc2/sc2.pdf

P.S. Part 2: Here is an example of copied information: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Chenjesu

P.S. Part 3: Note that the sources copied from may not even be 100% accurate. In the second page for example, this appears:

I have extrapolated a best-guess based on earth-type analogues and logical biological structures...

P.S. Part 4: There are never too many postscripts.

• Oh, *happy trails*. Well, if you want to AfD all the race pages per WP:COPYVIO I'll support it, unless there's a hidden Wikiproject:StarControl out there willing to rewrite all of that... --SevereTireDamage 06:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
• Even if they weren't copyvio I'd support their destruction. Nifboy 06:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I played the game so I can verify the information but it'd take a while and I'd probably have to look up reputable sources for the info I forget. The problem is I'm not sure to what extent the COPYVIO goes yet. Again, like I said, I'm busy and will look more into this later on. Just a heads up notice for anyone who also played the game (if you haven't, I truly recommend it) and can start the process. It may also be prudent to merge the articles of "lesser" races like the Gg that simply aren't discussed in great detail. -- Solberg 07:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Solberg

It's not the body, it's the personality

I've been increasingly noticing something in video game character articles of late. I'd like to share with you an example, this one excised from Gate (Mega Man):

“ Gate's character is somewhat of an enigma, because we see his true character very little. Most of the scenes that he appears in, he is using his inborn intellect and seeking vengeance for past actions that happened to him, but he is under the influence of the virus, so it is not truly him. Though Gate did vow vengeance, the scene that we see him in before he is driven insane, and the short snippet of dialogue after he seems to be recovering, would imply that he's by nature a fairly peaceful being. Angered by the unjust actions taken against him, he probably thought often of revenge, but never allowed himself to go through with such an action until the virus corrupted his mind. In the same light, he probably sometimes pictured the ideal world for Reploids, but such a fantasy would never have involved mind-control and destruction, as it did when he was insane. Gate, the true Gate, is obviously very intelligent and seemingly fairly peaceful. He regretted the destruction caused by Eurasia, and appeared almost distraught over the amount of lives lost. Later, after he was defeated, he said that he would probably regret having brought back the "evil Sigma." The word "evil" in that sentence is crucial, because his actions while he was insane were certainly evil, but he never recognized them as such. Recognizing Sigma seemed to indicate that he was starting to regain control of his mind. And Alia's promise to try to repair him seems to indicate that his mind is recovering or looks promising for recovery, since Alia probably would not repair a Reploid that was still under the viral influence. ”

Here's a gem from Ryu Hayabusa#Personality:

“ Ryu has an adept understanding of what is right and wrong, and in his own way is an honorable person, but prefers to keep such facts hidden. In fact, he is quite responsible, but presents an attitude of noninvolvement to the world outside his life. He tries to avoid fighting Jann Lee in the second tournament, and also tries to avoid Ayane in his quest to eliminate the Tengu and Genra. On the other hand, once involved, Hayabusa doesn't hold back, immersing himself fully into the situation. Finally, he is very philosophical on matters concerning the world around him (very much like Gen Fu), and seems to be well beyond in wisdom than his current years would depict. ”

And, worst of all, here's Cloud Strife#Love:

“ The love of Cloud's life has been a subject of debate for years. This is, indeed, one of the most debated aspects to Cloud's character. The game presents a scenario where Cloud stands between Aerith and Tifa, and receives a fair amount of affection from both. Within the game itself, the player is presented with the opportunity to warm up to one or the other, or neither as well. Depending on how the player chooses to have Cloud treat either woman, a scene in the Gold Saucer will be affected, in which Cloud will go on a short date or outing with either Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie, and in a rare case Barret. However, since this matter is obviously up to the player's decision and interpretation, the canon outcome is fiercely debated. [This goes on, and on, and on, for eight more paragraphs.] ”

Can we please add something to the CVG manual of style to discourage this kind of original research silliness, with fans endlessly speculating about the motives, thought processes, and feelings of fictional characters? I don't think WP is the place for freeform interpretation that borders on fanfic, as all of this is wholly original research. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's wild, OR speculation. On the other hand, something like Squall Leonhart at least removes speculation (or reduces it significantly) by using references and compressing the information. — Deckiller 02:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll admit I have an ulterior motive with this one; I've been trying to clean out the Mega Man articles (which are a mess), but every improvement has been hard because there's a lot of emotional attachment to every single article (just look at Gate's article; this is the dramatic reveal villain from one single game that bombed). Nearly all of the MM articles have these awful, speculative, interpreted-but-not-attributed "personality" sections, and it's being argued that citing specific lines from the games themselves supports these interpretations (See, Vile is cocky! Here's[1] a line where he's cocky, and here's[2] a line where he's cocky!) and because they're cited to these selected snippets of dialogue they're not interpretation and not OR. I'm hitting a wall; I don't know how to make this any clearer. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see too much wrong with citing in a synopsis section (unless it's too much of a synthesis). However, it's best to balance it off with a couple other sources, such as interviews and secondaries. I want to do that with Squall's article in the future. — Deckiller 02:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thing is, there's no secondaries for most of these characters. Nobody's mentioning Vile's or Gate's or whoever's personality in interviews. These "personality" sections are cut from whole cloth, written based on the article author's interpretation of the story. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 02:51, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with MiB. I see this stuff everywhere, and a guideline about it would help greatly. It's OR, plain and simple. --InShaneee 02:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• Yeah, the best way to handle it is to have a "development" section, citing an interview or two. Then, in the synopsis, supporting in-game examples with text references. I think it's a good balance. Using game script as a primary source is great but, again, it needs some kind of secondary source/interview to reinforce it. — Deckiller 02:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
  • For example, the first paragraph in the Overview section of Squall's article is not technically OR, but it can easily be reinforced by the creator's interviews above (which makes me wonder, where's the info about his personality? did I forget to include it when splitting the character info off the main article during the FA push? hmm...)— Deckiller 03:00, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Keep in mind, these "personality" sections are generally in addition to a proper plot summary section. Gate, for example, has a full, extremely-detailed description of his role in MMX6, and then had, in addition, a description of his personality. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:04, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Yeah, it's absolutely inappropriate. Characters should have a lead, "development/appearence" section (which then describes the character's actual personalities beyond plot elements, if cited in interviews and whatnot), a succinct synopsis section (with other appearences if necessary), and then...well, that really covers it all, except for the traditional footer sections. Please no "special attacks" or "limit breaks" sections :) — Deckiller 03:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
        • (A bit OT) Did you see the whole section devoted to Omnislash in the Cloud article? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
          • Yeah, I saw that and flipped out. I could understand a brief mention on the page (and the limit break page), but I think that's WAY too much detail for a general interest encyclopedia. — Deckiller 03:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• This stuff has me thinking about RPG gameplay information on character articles — should things like limit breaks and whatnot have some sort of mention to attain comprehensiveness standard? Of course, but we can't devote an entire section to it; it should probably be summed up in the lead section or the development section. — Deckiller 03:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I support including both. I don't think it's too much to say that gameplay elements have a strong connection to a character's fictional development. I wish we didn't have to defer to that kind of thing - people have this ghastly fear that because it's a video game, we can't talk too much about the actual gameplay, or we won't be taken seriously. It's absolutely absurd. Gameplay and story, in good, thought-out games, are tied together - what you can do with characters is representative in some way of the fictional characters, the same way an actor's wardrobe and lighting in a film is often significant. Of course, in many cases it needs to be confirmed externally, especially anything with nuance.

I really think it's more than trivially disputable information to say that, yeah, the super powerful, keenly overdramatic, final destructive killing blow that is forced upon Cloud to end the game (whether you legitimately find it or not) does notably pertain to the character in a significant way. Now if I said, "THIS MEANS CLOUD IS THE BEST MOST BADASS HERO EVER" yes it would be OR. Since the move was also so important to the whole game itself (being the final in-battle act for the player, semi-cinematic) and it also shows up in the movie, it perhaps arguably might deserve its own section. --SevereTireDamage 05:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I removed a ton of "Personality" sections from various Mega Man articles. Let's see if it sticks. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Not bad, but we just have to make sure that we don't shun common sense; usually, obvious things, such as "the character began to grieve after she died" or "he is refered to as a lone wolf by his peers", is acceptable, as long as there's citations and mention of the overall character development in the "development" section (with interviews cited) and situations in the "synopsis' section. Personality sections are indeed uncalled for. In general, though, an obvious conclusion or synthesis is allowed, which those articles clearly did not do (they went into excess depth without solid citations) — Deckiller 03:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Sometime, it's also in the wording: saying "He is a lone wolf character" is a lot different than saying "His closest allies consider him an isolationist [1]". By narrowing it down, it decreases the necessary intepretation gap, hopefully to the "point of common sense". — Deckiller 03:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I did remove one referenced section (from Berkana (Mega Man) - one of two villains from Mega Man Xtreme 2, a fairly obscure GBC game); tell me what you think.

“ Berkana was a flirtatious Reploid who anxiously awaited the arrival of X and Zero, [1] and even called X "cute." Her overzealous and overconfident attitude is what led to her downfall, as she could've had Gareth stop X and Zero before they were to get too close.[1] She also simply could've not let the Erasure incidents become too obvious, but she had them attract the attention of the Hunters through her overuse of it. [2] Although she worked for Sigma, it seems unlikely that she was infected by him, as he said after her defeat that she had gone "too far." If under Sigma's direct influence, he would not have allowed her to act as such. Her weapon of choice is fitting for her role in the story, as she would steal the souls of Reploids to enhance her own powers.[3] In battle, she would steal X's abilities to limit his movement or power. [4] ”

All of the references were to "dinobotmaximized"'s text dump of the game here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:05, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Although it's "at least" a game script, I still agree with that section's removal, at least for the time being. It needed significant rewording/integration into plot synopsis or a development section, and specific quote citations (see FF8 and FF10). I know next to nothing about Megaman, though. — Deckiller 04:07, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It was cited to specific lines, but they weren't examples of the character being described as anxious or fliracious or whatever; they're examples of the character being, in the article author's opinion, flirtacious or anxious or whatever.

Never mind that this is one of three villains in a minor GBC game. :/ - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

OUCH. Minor characters don't deserve major depth, because that obviously contradicts the comprehensiveness standard. — Deckiller 04:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, an article discussing part of the complex gameplay of the world's most popular RTS and FPS games can't survive contentious AfDs, but minor Mega Man villains that don't even span 2 games stay on? Better hope nobody finds these, if you seriously even want to keep them... --SevereTireDamage 05:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Those articles would probably never survive AFD, at least not without being merged. Gate and Berkana and Gareth are going to end up merged if I have anything to say about it, though. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• Your examples from the top look pretty bad. Did you actually look at the WP:CVG manual of style, though? It's actually in 3.2.2 Scope of Information, under "Other unsuitable content":

“ Theories or speculation. You may think that the Chozo were actually cannibalistic, perhaps based on a sentence referencing their mysterious eating habits in an instruction booklet, but unless this has been stated explicitly in official literature, it does not belong in the article. This applies to theories that aren't your own, as well.

Similarly, fan ideas about characters' lives or relationships are not appropriate for the encyclopedia.

”

So, yeah, it's already there. You can use the CVG Manual of Style to argue against this sort of thing, since these rules already derive from the site-wide policies. So go ahead and put Gate up for deletion, and trim that OR from the Ryu article.

You also complain about that FF7 paragraph. I took a quick look at that section now- while anything that says "some say...", "fans believe..." or "disagreement among fans..." should obviously be deleted (and there's still some of that in there), that section actually references and sources the game's dialogue, and is remarkably thorough, and not so much original research as one might expect. Of course, it still has the high risk of interpreting the dialogue too much and using it as evidence to support a point, as you mentioned earlier. General personalities of characters can usually be cited from instruction manuals or official literature, though (i.e. Dan Smith of Killer7 is a cocky killer not just becaue it's obvious, it says this officially.) I don't want to go into the fanfiction thing either, but sometimes the literature isn't there or is undeveloped, and you have to use the game as a primary source. But yes, it's a problem that fans will constantly take things too far and start making their own observations - I just ask that you give them a chance at first, especially if you haven't played the game. I'm not sure what to think about Ninja Gaiden's Ryu, since I haven't played that game - maybe that information is trivially obvious? --SevereTireDamage 05:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Gameplay articles

In short, yeah, we should probably work on a guideline. Especially in regards to the fear of covering gameplay elements. I'm not quite so concerned about this fanon-type stuff since it can and wil be recognized as "bad" in most cases. --SevereTireDamage 05:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not really a fear of covering gameplay elements; it's just that there's so much tendency to make these hard-core OR articles about game mechanics (the Pokémon ones were really, really bad) that inevitably attract how-to, theories, vanity, and so on. I think if you really think that the how-this-works subject really needs to be covered, you need to draw the line in the sand on one unquestionably notable case's gameplay spinoff article and say, "This is going to be the gameplay article. It is going to be comprehensive and sourced and describe the game as a phenomenon instead of offering advice" and then go to the people who want the garbage deleted and say, "We want to make a definitive article that all future how-to/vanity/stubs/garbage for this game can be redirected to. Help us make it." That's really what happened with the Pokémon articles, and I think it's why character junk is safer than item/gameplay junk.

I feel de facto policy is better set by example than by edict on this one, since no amount of decrees from CVG is going to save most of these "Weapons of Foo" articles, where at best they're gobs of description sourced only to the games and game guides and at worst they're trainwrecks that would shame a fansite. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:15, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

(Wow, this topic has drifted.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll admit guilt there. You're probably right, the best way is to actually make a high quality article of note (assuming they doesn't get AfD'd just for the concept). I haven't been able to contribute to most of the recent AfDs, though, since I don't play those games.

I was actually looking at the table of optimal example articles on the CVG front page and I was really dismayed that while there are 12 game articles, 6 character articles (Torchic is featured?? Pikachu I can understand...), 2 system articles, 1 genre article (I'm actually impressed that made it, it couldn't have been easy to find references for Bishōjo game) and 1 history article. Does this mean nobody was ever able to come up with a featured or good article on specific gameplay or gameplay elements? Doesn't this strike anyone as odd, given that this is Wikiproject:Computer and Video Games? Shouldn't video game elements and units be on a equal level of importance as the fictional characters, if not more so? Is ludology a myth? Should we be afraid of writing anything that might use an instruction manual or *gasp* official strategy guide as a source? How will Batman get out of this one? --SevereTireDamage 06:53, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ludology is not a really developed field. There's not a lot of discussion, even for the cases where there should be, and the vocabulary just isn't there. You're hitting on a hole in the game industry, and it's bigger than Wikipedia.

That said, why not start with Gameplay of StarCraft, and if it's AFDed, make the same challenge I suggested above? You'd at least get me to defend it as a project, if you promised to make it the redirect target for all these godawful SC subsubsubarticles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It's difficult because I don't play Starcraft. It's ironic; I come to Wikipedia to read about such things as I find them encyclopedic and interesting, but because I don't have in-depth knowledge on the subject I can't really help prevent them from being deleted. I think most of it is pretty good right now, though, at least until they start getting a little too detailed on the units. But much of the article's beginning is exactly how it should be: gameplay tenet followed by descriptive example. But I'll see what I can do. --SevereTireDamage 22:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is to generally describe a work, leaving the major details in. Gameplay is usually a format; however, development, story, and other things involve lengthy process and arcs and whatnot. Moreover, excess details on gameplay is seen as game guides and how-to, which is not describing the main aspects of the work. — Deckiller 07:08, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Gameplay is just a format? Are you kidding me? I appreciate the cinematic advances of video games as much as the next guy, cutting my teeth on Final Fantasy games a decade ago, and I love the MGS games. But gameplay is the chief backbone of a video game! Historically games have always been able to get away with shoddy plots/fiction as long as they had good gameplay (see: almost every traditional console game franchise ever, every simulation PC franchise game ever), but usually not the other way around (games are not interactive movies and err, porn, and I weep again for the awesome plot but broken gameplay of Killer7). Games are generally not created around a plot, but the other way around. I'm not saying the minor fictional elements should not be covered, but I think it's pretty damn hard to argue that say, a list of minor characters from any given game is more worth covering than the generic gameplay elements, especially for complicated sim and strategy titles.

Even Wikipedia:Featured articles lumps all the CVG articles under Sports and Games, rather than culture or media (which is debatable itself, but...). Look at Blackjack or Cricket, which feature very long gameplay sections (in Blackjack it's practically the entire article!) because as games, that should be a huge part of the article. Most strategy or simulation games especially have much, much more complicated gameplay! Notability is often an argument here (like Super Mario 64 is comparable to Blackjack...) but we are covering games here on Wikipedia, they are covered under the width and breadth of the project. Lately, I've had to waste a lot of time defending AfDs rather than working on articles. Anyway... yeah I've probably taken this conversation way too far out of its territory. --SevereTireDamage 22:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thsi has been frustrating me as well. The general attitude of the AfDers that anything that describes gameplay is a game guide and cruft has basically caused games to be treated like movies or novels with relatively unimportant interactive sequences thrown in, which clearly isn't the case. We need something either on this project page or a village pump discussion to back this, though because saying so has made no difference in AfDs so far. Ace of Sevens 04:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, in the terms of the video games I edit, the plot/story requires much more words than gameplay does to attain comprehensiveness standard. I think it should be handled on a case by case basis; not with this nonsense "delete nn game guide gamecruft", which is extremely unprofessional. So, I can't really pick a polarized side here, because RPGs are much different than strategy games. — Deckiller 06:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean to make this an either-or thing, I just wanted to point out the games with more of a storytelling bent get a lot more slack in terms of being deemed "encyclopedic". I believe both gameplay elements and fictional elements have places in Wikipedia. It makes sense that a Final Fantasy-style game would require several sub-articles, it's the semi-equivalent of a 40-hour film. I actually haven't even been editing most of these strategy game articles, I am speaking more as a reader. And I very much feel the same annoyance with that nonsense "delete gameguide & gamecruft" rationale. --SevereTireDamage 09:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I split this section off.

Should we be describing the gameplay in game articles? Absolutely. How could you possibly cover a game in a comprehensive way without gibing an overview of what's involved in playing it?

That said, what's showing up on AFD is overly specific, trivial nonsense. While we do need an article covering the gameplay of a game, no game (chess included!) needs a dozen, or dozens, of articles describing the gameplay. AFD is reigning in excesses. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

For the most part, I agree. Dozens of individual units from games like Starcraft and C&C don't need their own pages (with special exceptions, I suppose, like Pokémon). But I especially don't enjoy the callous attitude of the recent AfDs. I don't particularly want to read through 30 individual RuneScape articles, and I'm imagine most people don't either. And to be fair I'd have to scrutinize every one of them to vote Keep or Delete. Sometimes you do change your mind, it's possible. The nominators pretty much depend on voters to briefly skim the articles, or not (in one recent case a couple of voters more or less proved they didn't even bother reading the article) and vote delete on them becuase they're obviously cruft. And true, most of the Runescape articles probably ARE walkthrough information. But I don't know if all of them are. Same thing went for the WoW instances, since those strongly tied into the Warcraft fictional universe, which, as mentioned before, is generally considered OK for the encyclopedia as long as game guide info is trimmed out.

But then there are the borderline cases, which are treated just as badly. I'm not sure the "Starcraft units and structures" article deserved deletion, since it was an objective overview, encyclopedic in my opinion. (I did vote for deletion on the recent specific units massive AfD.) The justification for deletion was unverifiability, which made no sense since (and I even stated this in the AfD) the information could easily be verified by the Starcraft Official Strategy Guide or the manual on Blizzard's site, or instruction manuals, or reviews, etc. etc. The cruft argument was side-stepped altogether here by the admin, but in the actual AfD it was the focus.

The Afd on individual Counter-Stike maps also bothered me. Sure, the list of weapons and equipment pages, those were excessive and deserved to be deleted (because of their content). However, that AfD was just to determine if any single map should be covered. Predictably, it was very contentious. My argument was that most maps were not notable and didn't need pages, however, at least one deserved it, de_dust, by not being a guide, and having a relatively historical purview of arguably the world's most played FPS map. A few agreed with this sentiment (that most maps were bad, but at least 1 or some were notable). But of course, every single map got deleted for convenience. --SevereTireDamage 09:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Proper categorization

I have a few category related inquiries here. I'll split them up to make it easier to respond separately. First up, what kinds of subcategory pages are appropriate? For instance, is it proper to have subcategories for genre categories that are not just for subgenres, but for individual series? This also applies to gameplay elements and related issues. I say no, because there's always the possibility that some games in the series will be different genre (Resident Evil: Gun Survivor games, etc). There are also subcategories for some consoles for exclusives, eg Category:GameCube-only games. I oppose both of these on the grounds of the guidelines in Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes. It hardly seems right to not list a game in the main gameCube category just because it's an exclusive or to not list the individual Gradius arcade games in the co-operative gameplay category because all of them (so far) have it. Any other thoughts on this? Ace of Sevens 04:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, is Category:Computer and video games with multiple possible endings a proper category? It obviously needs work, but I would think that it would have to include an explanation of what does and doesn't count as multiple endings, which makes in non-obvious and dubious. Ace of Sevens 04:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

As an example, Final Fantasy X has exactly four categories: its two year releases, PS2 games, and Category:Final Fantasy X, the last of which is a leaf of a large and very well organized category tree courtesy of WP:FF, which I think would work well elsewhere. Nifboy 04:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't Category:Computer and video role-playing games be in there as well? The Final Fantasy X designation doesn't really cover it. As I said earlier, I'm opposed to series sub-categories of genre on principle anyway and there are numerous Final Fantasy games which aren't RPGs. Ace of Sevens 05:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

The FFX cat is part of a FF games cat, which is part of the CVG RPG cat, which is actually 100% true since the spin-offs (Tactics, etc) are given a separate category in the main FF cat. Like I said, big cat tree. Nifboy 05:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I'm generally okay with the sub-cat trees, i.e. Animal Crossing being under Category:GameCube-only games which is under Category:GameCube games. Also amazed there's a category just for Final Fantasy X, but it seems there's enough relating articles to justify it. As far as genre goes, I see that as a sideways hierarchy, not vertical, so I don't see the problem with adding it as an additional category. The main problem with it is that not every game clearly fits in one category and that ends up confusing.

As for Category:Gradius, several non-Gradius games and non-game articles are covered, so each game had to be tagged individually anyway. However, in series were every game has co-op, it's probably a moot point anyway- might as well just put the cat in. (Though even Contra has a couple of non-coop games, as a non-example.) I figure anyone actually browsing by category is going to delve into the sub-cats.

The multiple endings thing sounds like it would be better off as a list, because it doesn't sound like an alphabetical, non-informative organization will be very helpful, since it's so subjective and varied.

Side note: I noticed FFX is cat'd under 2 years. It that appropriate? I doubt a foreign film that had a delayed American or worldwide release (as many do) would be considered under both years. Shouldn't video games only be referred to the year they came out in their original country like films? How about if there was a major difference between releases besides language, like say, the J/US versions of Jet Set Radio (which is currently listed under US date)? --SevereTireDamage 06:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with two years. On the other hand, if Lemmings (video game) had cats for every year a port/"rerelease" was released, it'd go from 35 to 1 on Special:mostcategories. Nifboy 06:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Arcade box conversion

Someone point me in the right direction. We'll coordinate here. --mboverload@ 10:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess Category:Arcade games is a good place to start. Thunderbrand 15:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

No, actually, it's not. More below. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Here's how to convert an arcade box to the new CVG infobox.

1. Find an article on Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox Arcade Game.
2. Subst {{Infobox Arcade Game}}.
3. Find the game on MobyGames (since you'll need the extra info).
4. Follow the instructions in the commented-out portion immediately below the infobox code.
5. Remove the commented-out section.

Then you're done. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, this category exists to keep track of infoboxes only partially converted to {{Infobox VG}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

We're ready to rock. Anyone who wants to take on this task can dive in and get started. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:27, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to stuff all this into the display section, still I consider it relevant information (otherwise I wouldn't have added it to pretty much any article I've started/worked on):

• resolution = 304 × 224, 4096 palette colors
• monitor = Horizontally oriented

(example taken from NAM-1975) --elias.hc 22:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

How does "Horizontally-oriented 304x224 monitor, 4096 palette colors" not cover that? I'm willing to be convinced on this on; I didn't condense those fields myself. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

• The problem is - like someone else pointed out sometime ago - that the resolution has nothing to do with the monitor…
• I personally find this too much information for a single field, that's why I'd prefer splitting it up like it was done in the AG template - although monitor and screen resolution might not be ideal captions. --elias.hc 01:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

...and does this not remedy your previous concern about placement of information? OSP 23:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I also raised that concern on another page, where I even got an answer. I was very dissatisfied with the way information about the monitor, resolution and colors was stored in the infobox, I do not see how a single display section could solve the problem, though. --elias.hc 01:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The monitor will display what it's instructed to, so technically it's regulated by the arcade hardware/system - same for colour. The term 'Display' covers a larger area than monitor and allows for all relevant details to be stored there until we have a better implementation. Combination 09:20, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, perhaps said information would appear less confusing by implementing a variant of the 'In-Universe' approach of {{General CVG character}}? Combination 12:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I actually think using an additional arcade-specific template under the CVG template would make things even more confusing. We might as well just go back to the old arcade game template then. --SevereTireDamage 00:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. For some reason the arcade-specific fields (cabinet, display, monitor, etc.) on Infobox VG aren't displaying for me at all. Can anyone else get those fields to work? --SevereTireDamage 10:15, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, presto. It was just a case of some code gone astray. Combination 12:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

There's... a lot of weird stuff going on here. First of all, while most of the arcade fields work, display still doesn't. Second, due to the self-references, it seems every page using the old Infobox Arcade Game template, whether it has been subst'D or not, is already in the "partially-converted" category, so I gather most of them haven't actually been converted. --SevereTireDamage 00:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Display isn't going to work until the template is converted, unfortunately, because those fields have been condensed and renamed. And, no, the conversion isn't done until the template is substed and cleaned up. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Any reason why this is being discussed here and not at the Arcade game Wikiproject? — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Empires: Dawn of the Modern World

Hi. I'm not a member of the wikiproject computer and video games, but I probably should be and will be. I started working on the article Empires: Dawn of the Modern World, a forgotten RTS game. I've added a lot onto it (even a few times as the anon 71.194.70.153 because I was too lazy to sign in), but I'm not really expiernced with writing computer game articles. Who should I ask or where should I go to find out how to improve it? Thanks to whoever answers this. --Clyde Miller 20:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh by the way to anyone who reads this, I joined the wiki project--Clyde Miller 20:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest to add an overview section, and generally sections with more narrative style about the game, including gameplay, campaigns, and so on. CP/M (Wikipedia Neutrality Project) 20:49, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Solid Snake infobox

Could someone please help me over at Talk:Solid Snake? The Bread (talk · contribs) and a newly-registered user are tag-team edit warring over any attempt to put any image but a promotional render from MGS4 in the infobox, arguing that we should use the newest design no matter what. I've tried arguing that we should use the most recognizable design, I've tried arguing that we should use the design used in nine games now, but no luck.

Can someone help me out here? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hang on a minute, I was always for the MGS4 image, i didn't tag team you and have only changed the picture one, ever. It just happens that you don't have the popular support.

Just so you know

(The Bread 08:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC))

So far, four users (including myself) have expressed a desire to have some variation on the MGS/MGS2 design in the infobox. Likewise, it's supported by longstanding infobox convention to use the image most commonly recognizable, as well as the fact that vast majority of the article is about minor variations on the MGS design.

Against this, there's an edit warring anon/newly-registered user and your argument of "I like the Old Snake design" and "OLD SNAKE IS SOLID SNAKE", which is more or less a straw man because nobody's arguing that Old Snake isn't Solid Snake. It's just not the most recognizable appearance, as it has only appeared in a handful of minutes of promotional video, whereas the MGS Snake or a minor variation (slightly different suit, addition of stubble, etc.) has appeared in a dozen games now.

This is why I'm asking for further input, because I'm fairly sure you're the crusader and I'm the voice of reason on this one. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've commented for you. Personally, I believe that the image of "Old Snake" ("Old Spice"?) should be placed in the article text as an example of his character's revision, while the infobox should include the more common image of "Young Snake." I'd advise all parties to avoid edit warring and potentially violating 3RR (you're pushing it pretty close, guys). RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 08:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The Old Snake image was going to be in the article either way; that much wasn't controversial. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, quick reply (I saw this on RC patrol :O ). Agreed, but it seems like a very silly argument when the best compromise I could think of wasn't really a compromise. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 08:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Bread is still arguing that we should use the MGS4 image after that game comes out. I don't know how much more clear I can make "It's a variant design that only appears in one game." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a farce. I suggest that, if this situation isn't defused reasonably soon, that it be taken to RfC regarding LiquidSnake's behaviour. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 09:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Proposed FA's

Can someone create a template-thingy like we have for game articles AfD'd on the main wikiproject page for articles proposed for Featured Article status? I have no idea how, but seeing as there are currently 4 up (WoW, Chrono Trigger, FF6 and FF8), I think it would be cool. --PresN 18:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The most appropriate place to notify people is probably the CVG Noticeboard, though it hasn't gotten much use lately. Alternatively, this very talk page seems to attract some attention nowadays. --SevereTireDamage 15:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I think bringing it up here is probably the best course of action, at least for non-AFD stuff... there are so many AFDs we might as well just keep them all to the Deletions page. But yeah, the Noticeboard would be a great place to keep stuff like that (FAC, FARC, maybe DRVs). -- gakon5 19:18, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Sega hybrid name

There has been a proposed move to move Sega CD to Sega Mega-CD/Sega CD, and the issue of the rather awkward hybrid name has been brought up again. After a protracted war on the Talk:Sega Mega Drive page, the article was finally moved to Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. I wanted to bring the issue here because it shouldn't exist - we should pick one name and stick with it. How awkward is it to type Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis and having to pipe that link in? I would rather do [[Sega Mega Drive|Sega Genesis]] so I would only have to write it out half the time. Same with the Sega CD. Hbdragon88 07:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

That is pretty ridiculous. Unless I missed it, though, no one actually cited hard numbers to determine which "system" was actually more popular worldwide (though I strongly suspect it was Mega Drive). Not that I want to open up another can of worms, but was this ever taken to RfC or other arbitration? --SevereTireDamage 11:34, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Well yeah, the Google test has problems. And while the Mega Drive probably is more popular - as it was the name in all territories except the U.S. - I think the "Genesis" defenders made a persusasive argument, saying that just naming it the Mega Drive would confuse U.S. readers. This resembles the gasoline title war, except that it appears that that war was solved without RFC or Arbcom involvement (but I'm not sure). Hbdragon88 16:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Super Metroid

I'm making a strong effort to greatly improve the Super Metroid article and I wondered if anyone might be interested in helping. I've done a lot of work on it in the past, but it had become very jumbled up and full of stuff that was totally off-topic both for the article itself and for Wikipedia. It breaks my heart to see this article with a B classification; my goal is for it to be in tip-top shape.--QuasarTE 09:57, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Resident Evil

There is discussion ongoing at Talk:Resident Evil about the role of dab pages when disambiguating between a game and the series named after it. A third opinion would be appreciated. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Bulbasaur

Bulbasaur 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 14:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

What?! It's been what, two days since it appeared on the front page? Hbdragon88 16:50, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

True, although it's been featured for at least a month or two now, right? It's succesful, drawn-out 3rd nom was made back in February, so it was a bit of a delay. Which also means that's several months worth of change to the article. It's had a rough life it has. Three FACs, two peer reviews, and now it might end up on the chopping block if it doesn't pass it's Review. Heck, if it doesn't pass it's review, it seems like a guarenteed removal, considering the whole community worth of Pokemon haters out there. -- gakon5

Wario

Wario has been nominated at FAR, here. Please leave comments. Highway ^{Return to Oz...} 18:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

An online peer-reviewed ludology journal

People here might want to check out gamestudies.org, which appears to be a peer-reviewed scholarly game journal. Browsing a bit, I was able to find articles on The Sims, Grand Theft Auto, Halo: Combat Evolved, Lara Croft, Counter-Strike, and others. The CS one is particularly interesting in that it covers behaviors during multiplayer — the type of stuff that traditionally has not been well-sourced or has been outright deemed unverifiable here on Wikipedia. There's a lot of interesting material to use. — TKD::Talk 00:26, 30 July 2006 (UTC)