User talk:JudgeGregg

A bowl of strawberries for you!

Hey there Judge. I saw that you're a board game enthusiast, so I thought I'd let you know that I just bought 300 classic board games and toys from the 1950s-1990s in great condition. I took photos and rebuilt this article Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game. I hope to do more in the future as I go through these games. Let me know if you need any help with Wikipedia. — Smuckola(talk) 11:33, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm a fan of the original trilogy, but not well-versed in boardgame history — was surprised they made games with companion VHS-tapes. Wow. Great work on that article, by the way. It was such a mess, now I think it deserves a higher rating. How does one do that, by the way? Can I just go ahead and update it to B-class, or is there some special procedure involved? JudgeGregg (talk) 18:52, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Hey there. Cool, thanx. Here are the criteria for class B (click "show") and here is a detailed example and here is a checklist form. I was thinking that there's insufficient reliable sources, because I don't have access to most of them in "Further reading", and I don't know how extensive those are anyway. The review is not a particularly reliable source but probably situationally reliable I guess. I just wasn't super confident in it. But I'm glad you're so inquisitive on protocol, as am I, so I am glad to easily help on that part. — Smuckola(talk) 09:29, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. It looks like the criteria differ between wikiprojects though (as they should): the examples you list are from Military History and Technology, which both are potential sources of much more controversy and therefore require a lot more attention to sources than tabletop games. The boardgame world is arguably less conflicted and the ranges of possible summaries of gameplay and publishing history are much narrower than for, say, versions of some guerilla conflict's history. For example, Wiz-War and Munchkin_(card_game) are considered B-class, despite relying mostly on primary sources – and only a handful of those too. JudgeGregg (talk) 13:36, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Ahoy there. You're absolutely right! Wiz-War and Munchkin (card game) are not B-class articles. Munchkin had been absolutely dominated and infested by a single insane fancrufting user, and another user has already sent me thanks today for deleting it. Never go on the assumption that one thing is okay just because WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.  :) Two wrongs don't make a right. Even if everyone else is more experienced than you, that doesn't mean they know better or aren't biased or even comprehend policy and guidelines. As seen by policy, your internal knowledge was right and whoever came there before us was wrong. See my edit summary there for all the policies it had violated, most of which are under WP:NOT—what Wikipedia is not. My interpretation of the standard for B is fairly high in part because I have so much experience to know what all is possible out there. As you can see in the list of articles on my user page, I know a lot of standard article structures and ways to encyclopedically explore a subject. You are clearly of a mind for exploring the correctness and robustness of policy and guidelines and overall theory, so please do realize that that mentality is a precious resource. Do read all the docs vigorously, many many countless times until it's almost memorized. It'll absolutely be worth it! The literacy and correctness will give you confidence, and you can cite it instead of taking the blame yourself if needed. The purpose of Wikipedia is strictly to uphold its WP:5 pillars, primarily WP:N notability. We neutrally establish and define and preserve the notability of the subject according to WP:RS, rather than listing everything that we know about the subject. Neutrality, reliability, and notability. So yeah, somebody should make those board game articles more like other types of articles, about movies, books, science, and technology. — Smuckola(talk) 14:39, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Amen, brother. Good work on WizWars and Munchkin! I'll find time to apply similar methods to some other game articles out there. It seems that the boardgame project hasn't been all too active lately. JudgeGregg (talk) 14:17, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@JudgeGregg: Thanks for reading. I care about correctness! And I am really grateful that you do too. By the way, I went looking for something in the Manual of Style to say whether a board game should be italicized. This is all I found. I say yes! — Smuckola(talk) 16:46, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

You just cut the heck out of Agricola (board game) and it *still* looks good. There's so much of that out there with all kinds of games. As it is now, a person can look at that, identify the game, hopefully know why it is notable (sales and reviews), know what the game is all about and why they should pursue it more in their personal lives. The more extensively notable games might have a 10x longer article. Half the article might be about why it's the worst game ever made. Another common thing is incorrect illogical nostalgic past tense. They'll say "XYZ was a game that did this and that". Really? Why did it stop being a game, and what did it become then? No, like a work of fiction in an everpresent TV universe, it *is* a game. I don't care if you're remembering playing it with the eyes of an 8 year old, or if it's been off the market for a hundred years. And there's going to be weird sources for manuals or reviews or whatever, so you should understand WP:RS very well. You can use situational sources for bonus information or for an extra citation for something that isn't likely to be challenged, if everything else is fairly locked down with RS. Games are subject to a lot of ephemeral knowledge out there in the world, especially those published before the heyday of the web. Find some really solid articles to serve as a model for what you should be looking for and compare! — Smuckola(talk) 16:55, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm actually working on replacing references on that page — Agricola is well-covered in special literature on game design. Should be able to add a few solid books/scholarly articles to the list today or tomorrow. JudgeGregg (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

You already have skillz. Do you have background with another wiki? I've been watching History Channel lately so, sadly, I have recently discovered Nazi board games.  :-/ wow. — Smuckola(talk) 08:01, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Nope. But I worked with manuals half my life, so not exactly foreign to systemic presentation of information. Wiki is such a beautiful project, I've slowly come to rely on it as my main source of info over the recent years — and then I discovered that so much was written poorly and sourced even worse... Took me another while to take up editing, you know how you're always in too much of a hurry to fix something you come across. But I think I'm in now, set up email notifications, got a small watchlist going. Let's see where this'll get me in a year or two. JudgeGregg (talk) 12:05, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

As for Nazi boardgames, wow. Speak of 'German-style boardgames' (recently moved to Eurogames at long last)... :) JudgeGregg (talk) 12:19, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia and copyright

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It's very important that contributors understand and follow these practices, as policy requires that people who persistently do not must be blocked from editing. If you have any questions about this, you are welcome to leave me a message on my talk page. Thank you. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 22:36, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Hello and welcome indeed. Great, I can't even see those edits now to rephrase things properly. Thanks a lot, messenger from the gods. JudgeGregg (talk) 01:25, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Would Love Help on Blood Rage

Hello! I just created a long overdue Blood Rage article, but it's just a stub at this point - any help you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks in advance! Nwlaw63 (talk) 16:17, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Nwlaw63: Thanks a lot for what you did there! Very elegant copy. Will see if I can fit something else in. It could definitely use an infobox for starters. As for other info, we'll probably have trouble finding reliable sources since the game is so recent. From what I could google, there's a full review from Ars Technica [1] and a small mention of the game in this Guardian piece [2] along with several quotes from Lang. Both articles could be used to outline Blood Rage's defining features. Thanks again for taking the time to create the thing! Glad to meet another wikipedian who cares for board games and, more importantly, their representation on Wikipedia. JudgeGregg (talk) 17:43, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, those two articles you mentioned are exactly what I was thinking of - a lack of a ton of reliable sources makes these articles challenging, but I think there's enough there for a halfway decent article. Nwlaw63 (talk) 18:25, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I've done a lot of work on this today, but I could still use another eye and some guidance regarding sourcing. At first I was using Google News as a cutoff for sourcing, but is BoardGameGeek considered a reliable source for content? At first I put it up as an external link, but then I used it as a source for awards - not sure if this works. I held off putting up an expansions section for the same reason - it would have to be sourced to BoardGameGeek, which I'm not sure is considered a reliable source here or not. Any thoughts about what you think regarding all of this and the article as a whole would be greatly appreciated. Nwlaw63 (talk) 20:30, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid Boardgamegeek can't be used as a source in most cases. It's self-published and the only way we could use that info is if the info were produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. An alternative source on game expansions or awards could be the publishers/game makers themselves, because from what I understand that would fall under WP:ABOUTSELF for as long as the info is not "unduly self-serving" (so if we cut the marketing stuff, stay neutral, and use predominantly secondary sources in the article — it's OK). JudgeGregg (talk) 17:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

@Nwlaw63: As for the article itself, I think this is pretty much as far as we can get with the available sources. Maybe new texts will be published as time goes by and will give us more material to include. But I'd say the entry is pretty robust for a recently released game. In terms of what could be improved, I think the Gameplay section could still use a little more attention. Things that come to mind: 1) A short introductory paragraph in the Gameplay section that describes the process of the game in more generalized terms. Right now we have the very brief summary in the opening section and the rather detailed process in the gameplay section, but nothing in between. The section could benefit from a full sentence or two that would summarize where you start from and what and how you'll be doing when you play this game before we go on to dealing cards (it could be argued that the exact number of cards to be dealt is not vital for the section). 2) "Battles are resolves without luck - players secretly play a card and add that to the strength of their forces in that region to determine the winner." — I'd say that the luck component is not excluded entirely, it's still luck if you draw a card that doesn't work well against what your opponent has. 3).. sorry, gotta run all of a sudden. I'll get back to this, maybe add some of the edits myself instead of sitting on a hill guru-like and pointing my staff go-there-do-that-style. See you around! JudgeGregg (talk) 17:28, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

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Hehe, I guess I missed that notification... Well, maybe next time. JudgeGregg (talk) 12:32, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Help clean up the Telegram (software) page

Hi, I saw you have contributed some sizeable balanced edits to the Telegram (Messenger) page in the past and was wondering if you might wanna join forces and bring the page to a reasonable state, it's not in a good state right now. Here's a link to the original suggestion for clean-up: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Talk:Telegram_(software)#Messy_state_of_the_article ASpacemanFalls (talk) 17:33, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello. Thanks for the kind words, I'll take a look but can't promise anything – it's been a while since I've done any work on Wiki. Had a bit of a falling out with the boardgaming community last time I tried a major restructuring of a big page, so I can't say I'm very keen on large edits. But I'll see if there's anything I can help with there. Cheers! JudgeGregg (talk) 12:31, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@ASpacemanFalls: OK, I looked the page over. Err, wow. "Not in a good state" indeed. The Page has changed a lot since I've seen it the last time. Sadly, the editors who made the changes don't seem to have ever read any wiki manual or policy doc. It's such a shame that people dedicate a lot of their time and effort – without first taking a look at even the most basic rules which were created to make their life, and the lives of their future readers, so much easier. JudgeGregg (talk) 12:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@JudgeGregg: Thank you for agreeing to help, tech is vital nowadays and info about it needs to be kept pristine. I'll try to do my part as well, though I don't have as much experience, sticking mostly to cleanup. ASpacemanFalls (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

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