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GameSpot robots.txt?

It looks like GameSpot might have enabled robots.txt. Hopefully a false alarm. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:18, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Could you list why you believe this and since I don't know what a robots.txt is can you mention why this would be a problem?--67.70.140.89 (talk) 21:39, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

(robots.txt) It prevents web crawlers (robots) from indexing a page either in part or whole. This would likely mean that GS is preventing web archivers from archiving its content. This said, GS is working fine for me in WebCite. czar ♔ 21:50, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. WebCite still works fine, but the Wayback Machine has stopped allowing GameSpot searches. Every article with an archived GameSpot link now has to be fixed. This is going to be a serious problem with content that GameSpot no longer hosts, such as its "Behind the Games" and "TenSpot" features. And every article that uses Computer Gaming World links from the late 90s will have to be updated, as these were hosted on cgw.gamespot.com--which is blocked as well. I suspect that WPVG is going to be cleaning up this mess for years. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:46, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

So its come to this. Can we contact GameSpot and ask for this change to be reversed? It's destroying potential history and the validity of thousands of Wikipedia articles, and I imagine the writers don't want their work to be so easily lost. --Nicereddy (talk) 04:00, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I've emailed GameSpot via their Contact page, I'll comment again if they reply with anything. I really hope they fix this, I hate to think of the damage this could do to thousands of articles :( --Nicereddy (talk) 04:30, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

If GameSpot goes down, I think Wikipedia will need to reconsider its policy on archiving copyrighted materials. Tezero (talk) 04:35, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Wait, if Wayback indexed content before robots.txt was on, does Wayback wipe the archived stuff out? It'll make recent stories more a problem, but the archives not so much. --MASEM (t) 04:54, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Just checked the Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat pages. It looks like all GameSpot archives were wiped D: --Nicereddy (talk) 05:03, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Well this is a blow, but I guess it shows us the value of getting things archived by a third party like WebCite which works fine (I'm guessing) because GameSpot hasn't yet affirmatively opted out. If GameSpot wishes, it can presumably pull the plug on the WebCite archived versions of its pages too. For all we know WebCite may not yet know about GameSpot's decision. Does anyone know WebCite's policy on the grandfathering in of material now under robots.txt? -Thibbs (talk) 10:46, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

A nice alternative if a web crawler doesn't work is textmirror.net, which will make an archived copy of prose only on demand. I used it a couple of weeks ago with 1UP when we were afraid it was going down. It can serve as a nice backup if needed. Red Phoenix ^{let's talk...} 12:53, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

# New additions. April 3, 2014.
# Too many bots, being bad.

— Gamestop's robots.txt, https://www.gamespot.com/robots.txt

☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:31, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

• Gamespot has had multiple redesigns over the years and is not terribly good at keeping archived material available. At the Dishonored FAC which closed only last month, I suggested the inclusion of Gamespot's GOTY 2012 series, which despite only being a year old were already 404ed from their current website. A search for "Gamespot. Archived" returns just over 300 results, some results may not use Archive.org, but this does not catch the cases where it was used without following the standard {{cite web}} parameters. It's a fucking disaster.

There's some mitigation in that WebCite still works (and its already-archived links should continue to work even if Gamespot want to exclude it in future). But our default behaviour when we find a deadlink is to go to Archive.org, and without competitors, we can't really change that. We can however, prevent deadlinks from appearing in the first place, by using WebCite. But manually archiving every link is a massive chore that should be automated. And it is automated, with User:WebCiteBOT, but that only runs once in a blue moon when User:ThaddeusB is active. How is it that the only automated webcitation bot is on the Russian Wikipedia? Can we kick up some sort of fuss about this? - hahnchen 19:30, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I see no reason why we can't have a bot to handle sites that meet two criteria: employ a robots.txt to avoid archiving, and have "flighty" content policies (frequent redesigns, known breakages of URLs, etc.), that when they are added via a standard template to have the material tossed to webcite and the archive link added. This is a much smaller task than archiving every reference, particularly to sites that are less a problem about content retention. --MASEM (t) 19:44, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd love it so much if could put an {{archiveplease}} inside of a ref and have a bot come by and archive it later; right now I try to archive my stuff with a local script but it's flaky and non-scalable. --PresN 20:42, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

User:Hellknowz, you're a botter and VGpedian, what needs to happen for a replacement Webcitebot? - hahnchen 12:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I am actually pretty active now - thanks for reminding me to get WebCiteBOT back up and running... If there is an immediate need to archive GameSpot URLS, let me know and I can do a special run like I did for GeoCities and Encarta. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, I had long planned to add an archive on demand feature to the bot - the "archiveplease" template idea is a very good way to implement it. --ThaddeusB (talk) 13:56, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

User:ThaddeusB, good to see you back. Is there any reason why Webcitebot is not running right now? Is it to do with your capacity, Webcite capacity or other server issues? - hahnchen 02:18, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

The computer it was running on died. I have a new one ready to go, it is just a question of puttign aside the copuple hours necessary to set everything up. I hope to have it up and running within the next couple days. --ThaddeusB (talk) 19:16, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to http://textmirror.net -- good to have a army of tools available (as I've found sometimes Webcite can choke on certain page layouts and archive crud instead of the content.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:39, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I realize I may have given the wrong impression when I talked about Wikipedia's policy. I was referring to the policy against linking to direct image scans of copyrighted sites rather than its policy in favor of web archives. Tezero (talk) 20:48, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

• It should be mentioned that some of GameSpot's work from the late 90s and early 00s is still available: portions of the site were hosted on ZDNet during this period. I've already salvaged a few links from this cache relevant to the Looking Glass Studios topic. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:58, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm late to this, since I've been horrible at checking discussions these days, but does adding robot.txt actually wipe the archive or just make them unviewable? Similar instances to this have led me to wonder if the Wayback Machine could change their implementation to only disallow archives from the point after robots.txt was first encountered, unless of course this is their intended behavior. At least in this instance it's the same website, but this behavior seems particularly wrong when a domain name completely changes its owner and focus. —Ost (talk) 17:46, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

There have been comments here about what a pain it is to archive. The following bookmarklets will cause the page you are currently viewing to be archived (copied from WP:Citing sources/Further considerations#Archiving bookmarklets):

Bookmarklets to create an archive of the current page
(all open the response form the archive site in a new tab or window)

Archive site	Bookmarklet
Archive.org	javascript:void(window.open('https://web.archive.org/save/'+location.href))
WebCite	javascript:void(window.open('http://www.webcitation.org/archive?url='+escape(location.href)+'&email=YourEmailAddress@Here.com'))

Note: WebCite requires that you provide an email address. You will need to substiture your email address for the text "YourEmailAddress@Here.com" in the WebCite bookmarklet above. In addition to displaying the archive URL, WebCite will email you confirmation that the archiving has occurred.

Bookmarklets which will search for archives of the page you are currently viewing are available at: WP:Link rot#Internet archives.— Makyen (talk) 21:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, though this doesn't really address the robots.txt problem or older pages that weren't archived. It doesn't help casual readers and also requires editors to look at the links to archive them. I'm much more in favor resurrecting a bot that makes those archive requests, ideally adding the archive into the references that are using the citation templates and setting deadurl=no. —Ost (talk) 15:38, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

• Considering Archive.is has a vast collection of working GameSpot archived pages, I think VG should get behind the growing consensus to have it removed from the edit filter. One bad sockpuppeteer spammed valid links with a bot and the site was edit filtered after some fearmongering over ads or malware (both utterly false). Currently every GameSpot link I check seems to be good with it - Archive.is apparently made a snapshot of the links back in 2012-2013. And they do not disappear just because of the current Robots.txt as Archive.org does. There is no "spam attack" or anything since that one incident 6 months ago - I think its time to stop purposely adding to the linkrot problem and cite it again. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:46, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

• I'm currently arguing with someone who has removed archive.is links from a game related article, killing one of the links. I'd fully back any movement for this. Archive.is works faster than the other two. If archive.org removes even archived pages based on robots.txt then it has no more longevity to it than the original site and its worthless. DWB / Are you a bad enough dude to GA Review The Joker? 22:38, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

• Is anyone a Gamespot forum member? - If so, could you please start a thread on their feedback forum pointing out the issue with archive.org, and refer them to this thread? I don't think there's any better point of contact. - hahnchen 22:32, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Similarly, I'm having trouble archiving http://www.1up.com/reviews/saints-row-the-third-pc-ps3-xbox360 and [1]. Any ideas? czar ♔ 02:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Archive.org links working for Gamespot right now

Although I can't see any update to Gamespot's robots.txt, the Internet Archive is displaying Gamespot's archive up to and including today. https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.gamespot.com I have no idea whether this is a bug or by design, so if you are relying on any Gamespot references, send them through WebCite even if they're already archived. - hahnchen 13:52, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Assessment tables for task forces and possible task force consolidation?

Assessment tables

Intelligence task force assessment statistics Articles Lists FA 12 FL 0 A 3 AL 0 GA 41     B 160 BL 2 C 413 CL 7 Start 907 List 15 Stub 123     Total 1,659 Total 24 Other pages Category 214 Disambig 2 Draft 1 File 13 Portal 0 Project 1 Redirect 34 SIA 0 Template 18 User 0 Total 283 Unassessed 0 Statistics ω 7,599 Ω 4.515 category

Do we have a resident template guru who can add {{Task force assessment}} templates to our task force pages (e.g., how MILHIST uses {{WPMILHIST Task force assessment}} on pages such as Intelligence TF)? I would find it helpful and it looks like it just needs a little setup.

On another note, is there interest in a possible task force cleanup/consolidation? I have some ideas for how this could go (broadly, removing small, inactive series and keeping/adding main platforms/companies and genres, etc.), but I wanted to get a temperature read first czar ♔ 18:10, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

You mean adding class and importance ratings to task force markers? I'd be okay with that, I guess. Regarding task force cleanup, I have indeed noticed that most of ours are inactive and would be okay if, after we ask on their talk pages and receive few to no responses, we either merge them back here or relegate them to a separate "old, dusty task forces" subsection alongside our active ones. Tezero (talk) 18:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I added an example to the right czar ♔ 18:59, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a template guru, but I'd gladly add one of these to the Valve Task Force sidebar. It was something I meant to ask about but forgot. --Nicereddy (talk) 21:41, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Splitting this into two sections to keep the different discussions from merging into each other. As far as templates go: So, MILHIST is a bit messy since it doesn't use the WP Banner Meta template, but it looks like we don't need {{Task force assessment}} at all. If you create all the categories (i.e. for Indie games the Category:Unassessed_Indie_game_articles etc. cats) and name them all consistently (category:TYPE_Indie_game_articles), then the only thing you need to do is add "|TF_9_ASSESSMENT_CAT = Indie game articles" to the {{WikiProject Video games}} template. We already have that for the Adventure game task force, but not the other ones- e.g. King's Quest is rated start and tagged as an adventure game tf-supported article, so it's in Start-Class video game articles, Start-Class Adventure game articles, and Adventure games task force articles categories. Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Adventure game articles by quality statistics gets built automatically off of those categories, then. Looks like you tell the bot to make those templates by following the instructions at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Using the bot.

Summary of above: Any task force that wants to have their own assessment tables needs to create the assessment categories with a common name structure, and add one line to the banner template. Tell the bot to start running, and you get a table. --PresN 22:35, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@PresN: Thanks for the explanation. I put an edit request on the {{WPVG}} talk page so we can try it out. czar ♔ 23:18, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Done, let me know if you need any more. --PresN 23:45, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@PresN: I appreciate what you've done (actually, what have you done here? Something, I know...), but I notice that the Sega categories, at least (technically they're redlinked, but you know), are massively underpopulated. For example, it says there are only five Sega FAs. Do you know of a way to fix this? Tezero (talk) 01:54, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

(I made the code work and looked up how to set everything up for the categories/bot table) Yeah, I don't quite know why that happens- if you look in a category, it has a link that will tell you that it can take hours/days/weeks for things to show up sometimes if the category comes from a template on the page. You can force it to populate by doing a "null edit" on the talk page of the article (hit edit then save immediately), and I did that for a bunch of Indie articles, but other than that I guess you just have to wait. The indie categories seem to be adding a dozen a day, which means it will take a while. --PresN 02:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I fixed the main Sega redlinks. I also think the 1.0 bot is down or something, which is perhaps why the template tables aren't updating. czar ♔ 03:20, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Task Force cleanup

Also, I have a few suggestions on how we should go about doing this renovation of our task forces.

First, here are all our current Task Forces:
Adventure games Arcade Atari Atlus Bethesda BioWare Call of Duty Castlevania Command & Conquer Devil May Cry Dungeons & Dragons eSports Gears of War Grand Theft Auto id Software Indie Insomniac Mega Man Mortal Kombat MUD Nintendo PlayStation Retro games Sega Silent Hill The Sims Soul StarCraft Valve Visual novels Warcraft Xbox

We need to combine or just get rid of a lot of these. My suggestions:

• Deprecate Atlus, Command & Conquer, Devil May Cry, D&D, id Software, Insomniac, MUD, Silent Hill, Soul, and The Sims.
• Probably get rid of the Call of Duty and GTA task forces as well.
• Warcraft and StarCraft should be merged into a Blizzard task force.
• Merge Atari, Mega Man, and Castlevania into Retro games (or delete them).
• Merge Mortal Kombat into Arcade.
• Merge Gears of War into Xbox.

If these changes were made, we'd end up with the following:

• Adventure games
• Arcade
• Bethesda
• BioWare
• Blizzard
• eSport
• Indie
• Nintendo
• PlayStation
• Retro games
• Sega
• Valve
• Visual novels
• Xbox

This is extreme, but we really need to clean this mess up. As far as I can tell, all the TFs I suggested have been mostly unused for a while and serve no real purpose. Many of them serve only as a means of organizing a collection of articles in a single place, and I think we should create a system to serve that use-case and transfer these lists to a new system. Would it be possible to utilize a system similar to the current "Featured Topics" but with a more "casual" approach, wherein articles are just organized by editors as a means of tracking quality for all games by a single company, games in a series, etc. This would replace the functions of a lot of task forces and clean up the project a lot. --Nicereddy (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

czar task force cleanup proposal

This is what I had in mind for later proposal: Template:Blockquotetop Platforms & companies

• Blizzard (merge StarCraft, Warcraft), Nintendo, PlayStation (merge Insomniac), Rockstar (merge GTA), Sega, Valve, Xbox

Genres & types

• Action & adventure (Is "action-adventure" okay? merge adventure, Castlevania, Devil May Cry, Mega Man, Mortal Kombat, Silent Hill, Soul), eSports, FPS (merge Call of Duty, Gears of War), Indie, MUD, Retrogaming (merge arcade), RPG (merge D&D, not the separate project), Strategy (merge C&C), Visual novels

For discussion

• Merge Atari with retrogaming or leave standalone?
• Mark the following as inactive & historical: Atlus, Bethesda, BioWare, id, Sims, Ultima?
• Add Platforming genre TF? Fighting? Sports?
• Merge Rockstar Games WikiProject?
• Redirect all TF talk pages to the main talk page like MILHIST (otherwise messages can get lost)?
• Separate projectsTemplate:Blockquotebottom

Any feedback? czar ♔ 22:38, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

How would we deal with the ones of WikiProjects under our jurisdition, like the Pokémon Species TF? Leave those up to the individual subproject? (Sorry for not commenting on any other proposal, organization's far from my strong suit) Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:49, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Pokémon species is under the Pokémon WP and outside my proposal's scope (WPVG TFs), unless of course they wanted to merge. czar ♔ 23:12, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@Czar: Alright, that's what I figured, thanks. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:40, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@Czar: I like this solution, and I definitely agree with the Talk pages redirect idea. The Valve Talk page doesn't real get any traffic and discussions don't receive many participants. Why do the Pokemon and Square Enix projects run outside of ours? Seems a bit silly, really. --Nicereddy (talk) 22:56, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It's their prerogative to organize as they'd like. I'd recommend setting up TF tags for them in the banner (which would save us time later if we need to merge), and redirecting our task force page to their main page. czar ♔ 23:12, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@Nicereddy: I dunno about Square Enix, but I know there's so much stuff about Pokémon that, even having been so trimmed down since the old Pokémon test days that the Book:Pokémon is a 1083-page-long PDF, and I'm pretty sure it's incomplete (Needs to be split up, but that's an issue for another day). I personally would be against a merger due to the scale and extra layers that would confuse things (Pokemon Species Task Force under WikiProject Pokémon (Pokémon Task Force?) under the Nintendo Task Force under WikiProject Video Games). Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 23:40, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd discourage merging the Pokémon project here since there's so much outside the canon of the games (anime, manga, TCG, etc.). They can if they want, but... Tezero (talk) 23:45, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Square Enix gets its own because we've been historically as active as all of the task forces/projects combined. We also have ~390 articles, with none lower than Start (and 71% C or better) and over 150 GAs, FLs, and FAs, so we actively support enough content to stand alone. --PresN 23:51, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I've always been impressed by how active WP:SE is considering it's comparatively narrow scope. Definitely don't mess with that. Sergecross73 msg me 02:25, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed; they absolutely maintain enough vigor to stick around. They fit much more neatly into WP:VG than the Pokémon project would, but plenty of independent WikiProjects exist that are wholly nestled inside other project's umbrellas. Tezero (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Trying to un-derail this conversation (re-rail?), I like Czar's proposed organization scheme. As to the questions- merge Atari with retro, mark those 6 as inactive, redirect the talk pages, and do not add new ones right now- without a basis of support right now there's no point. --PresN 19:54, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

• I'm about 60% on redirecting the talk pages; it would ensure messages get read, but possibly clutter up this one. (And not everyone's interested in what the Sega TF is doing.) Tezero (talk) 03:14, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I should probably point out that the visual novels TF is a joint TF with WP:ANIME, so just simply redirecting its talk page to over here might not be the best idea.-- クラウド６６８ 05:04, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I second this. The talk page for the visual novel TF, while less active than it used to be, should probably be kept because it is a joint task force and deals with content from both WP:VG and WP:ANIME.--十八 08:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

The proposal looks good overall, but I'm not sure about the inclusion of Mortal Combat and Mega Man within Action & Adventure, especially if we were to hyphenate it into "action-adventure" since that's a distinct genre that doesn't match those games. I would support creating a Fighting TF (merging Mortal Combat) and Platforming TF (merging Mega Man) as was suggested in the discussion in order to solve that issue. I realize there are a few spinoff games in each series that don't match those categories, but given that the projects are inactive anyway, I don't think that's going to be a problem. I'd also support hyphenating "action-adventure" in order to match the way it is spelled on the Wikipedia article for the genre. -Thunderforge (talk) 05:43, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll second Thunderforge's thoughts above. I'm wondering, is there a precedent for happy, co-operative overlap between task force groups?BcRIPster (talk) 06:07, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not so sure how I feel about redirecting all of the talk pages of the task forces here. Working over at WP:SEGA, I know that we happen to use the talk page quite a bit to coordinate activities and discuss articles. The space allows us to really focus our efforts as a team, and we used it in putting together the Genesis featured topic. I'm not really sure what's left to allow a task force to work if that's stripped out; the main page only really serves as a repository of links and listing of information at that point. Red Phoenix ^{let's talk...} 13:52, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

You're right. I realized that not long after I posted. Perhaps task forces aren't needed, but if they're around I say we should keep the talk pages. For me, for example, the Sega talk force talk page has helped me get input on various possible GTs. Tezero (talk) 14:26, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

TFs without talk pages are also a grouping to track article alerts in a subtopic. I don't think anyone would want to force talk page redirection for task forces that really want them. Here's an updated proposal, accommodating the suggestions above:

Template:Blockquotetop Platforms & companies

• Blizzard (merge StarCraft, Warcraft), Nintendo, PlayStation (merge Insomniac), Rockstar (merge GTA), Sega, Valve, Xbox

Genres & types

• Action-adventure (rename adventure, merge Castlevania, Devil May Cry, Silent Hill), eSports, Fighting (merge Mortal Kombat, Soul), FPS (merge Call of Duty, Gears of War), Indie, MUD, Platforming (rename Mega Man), Retrogaming (merge arcade, Atari), RPG (merge D&D, not the separate project), Strategy (merge C&C), Visual novels

Other

• Mark the following as inactive & historical: Atlus, Bethesda, BioWare, id, Sims, Ultima
• Redirect all TF talk pages to the main talk page (like MILHIST) except Sega, visual novelsTemplate:Blockquotebottom

czar ♔ 14:42, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

As the founder of the Atari task force, I have to say merging with "retro" would be completely inaccurate as the brand covers all the modern titles published under Atari SA (Infogrames) as well. Titles like the Roller Coaster Tycoon series, Riddick, Test Drive series, and many more modern titles. We went through this the last time this was discussed when people mistakenly thought the same thing. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 04:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Marty Goldberg; Atari is a good Taskforce as a company-based topic; "Retro" taskforce is by definition subjective (where does retro stop, NES, SNES, N64, NGC, Wii?), I'm not sure it serves a purpose. I say we should merge the D&D taskforce towards WP:D&D, not as a TF of WP:VG. Classifying by genre, again, introduces subjectivity and potential disputes. eSports, Arcade, MUD and Visual Novels are generally unambiguous and have more to do with topic than genre. Company taskforces are also good. I'd be in favor of merging WP:SE as a Taskforce but don't feel too strongly about it, especially if they don't want to. I'd like to see the Sims taskforce and the Ultima be kept alive instead os marked historical because it encompasses a topic broader than a single company (as opposed to Atlus/Bethesda/id). ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:49, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Wouldn't genres be clear enough by what the article uses as its main genres? The idea is to group by topics that would encourage participation. Marking Sims and Ultima as inactive wouldn't be a big deal because they can always be brought back. We can change it if you feel strongly. I'd be fine with scoping Retrogaming as the TF so wanted, either everything fourth gen and before, or at least the more clear-cut third gen and before. (In this way, there wouldn't be too much pruned from Atari if merged, but I'm fine with keeping it unmerged if insisted upon.) Thoughts? czar ♔ 21:10, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

@Salvidrim!, ping czar ♔ 02:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

You should consider referencing Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Inactive project cleanup, which is probably where this piece of the discussion should have been held. :) --Izno (talk) 02:27, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

...that page's talk has had no activity in three years, so I don't know about that czar ♔ 01:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

moving forward on task force cleanup consensus

Okay, I'm going ahead for now with the consensus on (1) merging the company taskforces, and (2) redirecting the talk pages of all but Sega and visual novels. Looking for feedback on what Sal said above because I'll be getting to that next (i.e., does anyone agree with him that we shouldn't make genre task forces? I still think they'd be a good idea and the genres are distinct enough as to not be subjective) czar ♔ 01:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Articles on Generations of video game consoles

Fourth generation video game consoles for instance. All eight of them have had their names changed with no consensus that I can find. They've all had the "s" removed from the end of the title, and I feel like this is not accurately representative of the articles content.--SexyKick 18:15, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I didn't make the moves, but I kind of support it. According to the MoS, article names should be singular whenever possible, and this move enforces that. Can the article be logically updated to reflect a singular subject? If so, it should be singular. Otherwise, I guess it should be plural. But whoever did it should have left the plurals in place as redirects AND reworked the leads so they reflected the new name of the article. They also should have discussed it first too. So, I support the move, but not the way it was handled. — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 18:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Ugh, he did this before and they had to be reverted and was told to cut it out. BcRIPster (talk) 18:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

These articles have been moved twice in the last month or two, both times with no discussion that I'm aware of. Always possible I missed something though. -- ferret (talk) 18:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

He did this move after trying to get an consensus back in 2012. Unilaterally made the changes, they were changed back. It looks like he just sat around waiting for the dust to settle and did it again with out discussion. BcRIPster (talk) 18:36, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Sneaky. Who was it? — Frεcklεfσσt | Talk 18:40, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

InternetMeme. I already posted a complaint to his Talk page and moved them back. I noticed he also changed their templates from VG History to Video Game. Not sure what to do about that yet. BcRIPster (talk) 18:52, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

He actually did re-writes of the tops of the pages as well, for more than just "grammer" as he indicated in his comments. Can someone simply apply a bulk revert to these pages back to before his renaming pass or does this need to be done manually? I mean, I guess, we're only talking 8 pages, and I've already started undoing... BcRIPster (talk) 18:57, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Still working on 4 and 7, other people slipped edits in while he was making his changes and I need to pick through the diffs. BcRIPster (talk) 19:13, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Harizotoh9 moved the paged on April 20th, from the original "History of video game console" format to the current "x generation video game consoles". I may have missed a discussion but didn't think there was one. -- ferret (talk) 19:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Harizotoh9's edits just fell in the middle of this, this has been going on since 2012. If you look at InternetMeme's talk page you can see he did this twice before, at the least (without scanning his contribs), going back to 2012 and was asked to cut it out. There was also an attempt to work it out at the time on this page but he didn't seem to want to participate from what I can tell. BcRIPster (talk) 19:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

These articles should be at "History of video game consoles (x generation)". We've established from the past that the current industry scheme for generation numbering is, in part, influenced by how we called it, so its a very inform system. As such, breaking them up as parts of a larger History narrative is better representation of the generation concept noting how it does lack any official means or designation (as well as how we include handhelds and other developments). --MASEM (t) 19:51, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

That's may be the case but that's what he changed them to the first two times and they were reverted. This latest move didn't even follow that form so I'm not sure if that's relevant at the moment. There were also major changes made to the head of each article changing templates and and removing referenced date spans from some of the articles. Note that the second complaint from December 2012 also featured him being told then that this was rising to the level of WP:ANI. I just reviewed his history back to where he started doing this in November 2012 to try and understand what is going on. MASEM Can you point to where this decision on "History of video game consoles (x generation)" was made? BcRIPster (talk) 20:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

There were these edits as well in conjunction with the above. --Marty Goldberg (talk) 20:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Just took care of them too. BcRIPster (talk) 20:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I have been reviewing this users past some. It seems like he does a lot of blasting through, changing things as he sees fit on pages, not following conventions, etc... when he feels the current versions don't make sense to him and generally upsetting people along the way. I was a bit frustrated to see him fishing for support and in my eyes, miss-characterizing what he's been doing in his message on Smuckola's Talk page. I've invited him both through his and Smuckola's Talk pages to swing over here and engage the community on the subject. I guess we'll see what happens next. BcRIPster (talk) 22:55, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

help Can someone help unravel all these template changes he made?

• Template:Video game development
• Template:VG Industry
• Template:VG History

BcRIPster (talk) 23:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I find this rather irritating. I've given InternetMeme 2 formal, stern warnings against changing these very article titles unless he discusses and finds consensus first. He should absolutely know better. Sergecross73 msg me 00:34, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I changed VG History to correct the reverted links. Video game development looks like it as a test stub he built, them merged to VG Industry. The VG Industry changes seem innocuous but should of had some kind of discussion. I left that one alone though for now but honestly it probably needs revisited. On a secondary note, has anyone looked at all of his WP:EASTEREGG edits? I read a dozen or so and it's no wonder he's getting heat from other editors. I've never run into something like this before and I'm not really convinced he's really making valid choices with this sweep he's doing and he's push back on people who revert his changes. I hate being this way, but someone probably needs to escalate this for review by a higher power. I'm going to sit on this overnight and may write up a complaint to WP:ANI for review but I'm really interested in hearing from everyone else. Anyone else have thoughts here? BcRIPster (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You don't need to enter the chaos that is ANI, I've already blocked him for a week. Per WP:BRD, you're all within your rights to revert his changes if they're disagreed upon. He still has talk page access, so you can discuss on his talk page if he actually decides to use it. Sergecross73 msg me 13:07, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

That's fine then, Sergecross73, I'll follow your lead on this if you think that is adequate. FWIW, I just saw Mr. Gonna Change My Name Forever just changed the titles to insert the word "of" then changed them right back. Not sure what that was all about. BcRIPster (talk) 19:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I did that because I want to create redirects. }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 20:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You know you don't have to move a page to create a new redirect to it though, right? BcRIPster (talk) 21:53, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

So why aren't these sitting at "History of video game consoles (x generation)" again? They shouldn't have been moved without consensus czar ♔ 20:27, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Harizotoh9 moved those page titles from "History of video game consoles (x generation)" to "Xth generation video game consoles". Did he ever post a comment about that? }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 20:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Czar, I personally support putting them back, as did Masem above. I was just hoping someone else would do it, I'm a little short on time at the moment. Sergecross73 msg me 20:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

You should tell Harizotoh9 why did he move the names of articles on generations of video game consoles. You should do that here. }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 20:46, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

@Sergecross73: I'd do it myself, but it's a technical move and requires the bit. Here's my draft edit summary, if you'd like: "article was moved without consensus, replacing per conversation at WT:VG—please discuss on talk page before unilateral action on a WPVG top-importance page" czar ♔ 20:47, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

@Czar: Did you respond to my comments yet? }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 20:56, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Harizotoh9 has already been pinged about the conversation, if that's what you mean. Any other admonition would be beating a dead horse—the users involved know by now that page moves that have the smallest possibility of being contested should be discussed on the talk page first. Otherwise, this is standard bold, revert, discuss. czar ♔ 21:00, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Czar! I'm happy! (=D) }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 21:13, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, so where does this leave us and why is there a hold/block on the old redirect pages preventing the move back to that title? I'd also like to get them back to the original state as well and I've got some time to do the fixes today. I'm surprised that Harizotoh9's changes didn't get caught until now as well. BcRIPster (talk) 21:50, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Either an admin performs the technical move (over the redirects that have edit histories), or an admin approves the {{db-move}}s I have set up and I do the technical moves. It'll be done soon. I think this thread is more or less wrapped up, no? czar ♔ 22:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that should about do it then. Thanks. BcRIPster (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Titles like History of video game consoles (first generation) are just bad... It doesn't follow the "Naturalness", "Conciseness" and "Recognizability" aspects of Wikipedia:Article titles. --Nouill (talk) 20:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

@Nouill: I agree with you. (=D) }IMr*|(60nna)I{ 05:09, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

While these titles are a bit clunky, using more precise ones would require use to strip us the info on handhelds and other facets of non-console hardware; with the present format, this is more apps for use to break out the history of all VG hardware, which includes those handhelds and others. --MASEM (t) 05:43, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

What about appending them by years like on {{History of video games}}? So History of video game consoles (first generation) would be History of video game consoles (1972–1980). Also, I noticed that the talk pages for these history articles didn't get moved. History of video game consoles (first generation)'s talk page is still at Talk:First generation video game consoles, as are the others.--十八 05:48, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Watson uses WP content to debate violent video games

FYI http://io9.com/ibms-watson-can-now-debate-its-opponents-1571837847 czar ♔ 07:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

• Reposted at Talk:Video game controversies#Item of interest since I'm 99% certain that's the article Watson was consulting. Thanks for the interesting article, Czar. -Thibbs (talk) 10:16, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok guys, let's talk about this. "List of commercial failures in video gaming"

Some background first: The page List of commercial failures in video gaming has been around forever starting out as a battleground where people commonly posted failure entries for whatever systems and software they wanted to bash (eg, Microsoft vs Sony and everything from Nintendo was a failure, sigh). Given that many of us felt is was a truly viable topic for expansion, there was a significant clean up that also introduced a scope statement to constrain the hardware section of the list. Since then, the hardware part of the page has been pretty stable but ten years later, the software section still doesn't have a similar scope statement.

In light of the recent discussion that was triggered on the talk page on the subject, we've had a couple of opinions, initiated by a complaint from an IP user that did nothing more than post the complaint (sigh). In the ensuing conversation the concept of comparing this to a list of movie failures set me to thinking and I went over to see what the comparable movie pages look like (eg, Box office bomb / List of box office bombs ).

I know we don't have the same level of raw financial data as easily on hand for video games as the movie guys seem to have but I'm inspired by how they've tackled the topic. So, if you're inclined, please stop by and join the discussion. I'm not suggesting some super star go build out a comparable set of pages. I'm just looking for a larger input pool to see where this goes and if we can improve the page quality. Thanks for your patience in reading through this and I'm eager to read everyone's thoughts. BcRIPster (talk) 19:08, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

The list is determined by arbitrary editor standards rather than any set criteria. There's not a single MMO on the list, yet pretty much everything Tim Schafer has touched is on there. Okami's "least commercially successful winner of a game of the year award" doesn't actually equate to commercial failure. Nor do MadWorld's disappointing sales, or EarthBound's not-homerun. The sources are poor too, I don't think any of the Earthbound sources are good enough to deem the game a "commercial failure". I'd keep the list to obvious stuff like APB, Hellgate: London, Glitch and Udraw, where a game's failure can be clearly sourced and so can its outcome. A game falling short of publisher expectation is not strong enough a criteria for listing on the page, or it'd be absolutely full of them. - hahnchen 22:28, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, that's exactly the point I've been trying to make myself. Please feel free to replicate your comments in the discussion over there as I think it benefits everyone to have consolidation on this feedback. My worst fear is that too few people participate on this discussion and end up leaning towards a definition that has been worked to fit the current list of titles instead of the other way around. BcRIPster (talk) 22:38, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the article is way too general. We seriously need to trim it down to what we can actually verify are "commercial failures." - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 00:49, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Notability of Sonic characters

Hello all. There is currently a discussion at Talk:List of Sonic the Hedgehog video game characters regarding the notability of individual Sonic the Hedgehog characters, and whether or not certain articles should be merged. The thread is "Notability". Best, Mz7 (talk) 20:40, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

More input would definitely be appreciated, as both main conversations are basically split around the 50/50 at this point.

1. The discussion of merging various side-characters of the Sonic series is here.
2. The discussion of merging an article about a singular level from a Sonic game, the "Green Hill Zone", is here.

Thanks to anyone who can help. Sergecross73 msg me 00:06, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Too bad discussions that actually address WP:N in detail seem to scare facilitators into quick-closing. I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up. Tezero (talk) 19:00, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

It was open for a week. That's pretty standard practice... Sergecross73 msg me 19:25, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

But it's not standard practice to close something if critical discussion is still ongoing. Artichoker^[talk] 19:59, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

I can kind of understand closing, say, Gamma's, Omega's, and the Rogues' anyway, as there was a pretty clear consensus that wouldn't likely have been helped by Niemti's and my points about what WP:N actually says. As for the rest, though, I'm really not happy. Tezero (talk) 20:26, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

If people from outside here were invited to participate in this discussion, you can bet they would tell you're being absurd with your memetic misunderstanding of Wikipedia and the articles are perfectly okay. Go and see some average non-VG character article on Wikipedia, randomly. For example, when I purged Bond characters (there used to be like over 100 of the articles there), I wasn't even allowed to do it with Le Chiffre because reasons (the tags are mine, and one article that I created instead of merging is Wai Lin for a comparison) and a quite typical reaction looks like that (but at that point I've already stopped caring). Nobody acts like that, outside of here. That's just a ridicalous level of overzealousness, and a lack of respect for some people's hard work of trying to make proper articles. --Niemti (talk) 04:12, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Tales of characters

I created an article for Luke fon Fabre as I've been playing Abyss and found enough real world information about him. What surprised me is that this is the first Tales character article. There are lists but no articles. Still, I can't work in any other since I don't have much knowledge about the series. Regards.Tintor2 (talk) 21:53, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, WP:VG may be in for a drastic downsizing of its character coverage, if this notability discussion ends in some kind of formal precedent. (Well, I'm being optimistic: it could also be that people here just hate Sonic and the discussion is never spoken of elsewhere.) Tezero (talk) 22:00, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed this too; I saw you added Luke to a somewhat awkward part of the tales template, and was going to change it, and then realized that you had done that because there wasn't a character section to put him in... Sergecross73 msg me 00:25, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh boy Talk:Luke fon Fabre#Notability.Tintor2 (talk) 00:42, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

One other character I believe could have his own article is Yuri Lowell from Vesperia. I keep hearing how outstanding the character is a MC and even the staff acknowledged it. However, I'm not really good finding articles (that are not reviews) about the character. I wonder if User:New Age Retro Hippie is familiar with the series or has collected a group of sources knowing how good he is.Tintor2 (talk) 18:41, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I've got a couple of references from an acceptable site for both Yuri and Luke. They are interviews with their English voice actors by RPGSite (I have checked and it seems admissible as a reference site for GA and FA articles). This is the interview with Yuri Lowenthal (that has a slight titbit about the character Yuri's name in there), and these two are a two-part interview with Troy Baker, Yuri's voice actor. Does that help with the western side of the story? I can also scout around for references on Yuri Lowell. I'm quite good at finding things like that. --ProtoDrake (talk) 18:53, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the interview.Tintor2 (talk) 22:56, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know much at all about Yuri or Tales of in general, but I do know that I have seen Yuri mentioned a few times in my journey. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 19:12, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I would think there's enough out there for Lloyd too, between the popularity of his game in English sources, and its recent HD re-release. Just speaking in general terms though, it's an untested theory... Sergecross73 msg me 19:18, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Had a thorough look-round, but I can't find anything about Yuri. That interview is the only thing about him. The Tales series as a whole, whether it be games or characters, hasn't gotten as much close attention as things like Drakengard, Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:19, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

This may sound hypocritical coming from me, but I think it'd probably be best for us to improve as many existing characters and merging/redirecting ones that fall short. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 22:53, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

It's not hypocritical at all. It's sound common sense. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:57, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

What I found about Yuri is that he waas voted seventh best character by Famitsu readers. I wonder if reviews of the game mention the character a lot.Tintor2 (talk) 22:59, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

@Tintor2: look at the #36 here. Gabriel Yuji (talk) 02:37, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I made a Google doc listing all of the characters that may or may not need help improving their notability. I left off some that were rather obvious (and included some that were rather obvious), and I think that interested content creators should assist in the effort and take a break from creating new content like I am going to do. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 17:50, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

@New Age Retro Hippie, did you intend to link said gdoc? czar ♔ 18:20, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I just want to organize it better before I link it. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 18:23, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is the list. I tried to organize it, though I left the "Others" section of characters kind of disorganized. Anyone who participates in the cleanup/review process will be granted access to edit the document if they want. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 19:03, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I know you're not saying they're not notable but I just want to point out what I think, and of course everyone can help to decide if they are good enough to stands on its own, right now. I may note that I improved (or tried to improve) some of those so you can't say New Age Retro Hippie was so much strictly. I disagree (more or less depending o the character but) regarding (all) the following characters:

• Agent 47: GamesRadar 47th "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in video games; one of the most notorious anti-heroes according to IGN and The Daily Telegraph; Empire's 21st "greatest video game character"; WhatCulture isn't that good but...
• Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad: 24th best character on 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, and 4th best Xbox character by The Age. IGN's "Stars' 2007 Badasssss!" award; IGN said he is "more realistic and efficient version of the Prince" (with sure a classic character), and also listed him as one of the most overrated character (through by possible fail thought to be overrated implies he is considered by many a great character).
• Captain Olimar: The Observer's "The 10 best video-game characters". Expected to appear in Super Smash Bros. and praised for its appearance on it (and criticized too). His omission in Pikmin 3 was also commented.
• Captain Price: included in Game Informer's "30 Characters Who Defined a Decade", 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, 8th on The Age's "The Top 50 Xbox Characters of All Time", GamesRadar's "Best game characters of the generation" and 8th "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in video games.
• Daxter: except for Cracked.com, MSN Entertainment, WhatCulture, and the Ready At Dawn's president, all 8 other sources are listed at WP:VG/S (I would say those are reasonable sources and they are used in several of our articles, though). And, they're not merely mention or something like that... Best character of 2002 by GDC. IGN, GameSpy and Game Informer consider him one of the best sidekicks in video games.
• Ezio Auditore da Firenze: included in the 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, GameSpot's "Best New Character" in 2009, an award and a nomination at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards. Seventh "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in games according to GamesRadar, which also placed him among the 4 best game characters of the generation.
• Frank West (Dead Rising): Popular in the West, says Seth Killian, Capcom community manager. Among The Age's "The Top 50 Xbox Characters of All Time", UGO Networks's "Top Heroes in Entertainment", GameDaily's "Top 25 Capcom Characters of All Time", GamesRadar's "100 best heroes in video games, "The 30 best Capcom characters of the last 30 years", and "Best game characters of the generation".
• Garrett (Thief character): except for Blistered Thumbs and Cheat Code Central, all other sources are excellent. GameSpot's "Ten Best Heroes in Gaming", GamesTM's "The Greatest Ever Game Characters", Empire's "The 50 Greatest Video Game Characters", GamesRadar's "100 best heroes in video games", PC Zone's ninth best character in PC gaming history.
• Navi (The Legend of Zelda): the "Reception" is fairly decent enought although it mainly focus on her nuisance (but after all it isn't her main role haha). There's praise from The Escapist and IGN, too. (Wow, and it's incredibly to see how Ganon's article was neglected in comparison to other Zelda's characters)
• The Nameless One: maybe there's some undue-weight on Kasavin's review, but it's valid. Both Empire and GamesRadar called him one of the best characters of video game history, as well as did RPGFan declaring him "as a character, The Nameless One exceeds every video game protagonist to date." Eurogamer's best Male Lead Character in 2000.
• Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank): comments regarding his intial attitude, with both praise and criticism, and then his devolpment. (It's interesting to see that Clank (Ratchet & Clank) is somewhat better than this one even Ratchet is the protagonist)
• Sam Fisher (Splinter Cell): 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, The Age's "The Top 50 Xbox Characters of All Time", GamesRadar's 37th "most memorable, influential, and badass" protagonist in video games, PC Zone's eighth worst character in PC gaming history.
• Sweet Tooth (Twisted Metal): GamesRadar, PlayStation Official Magazine and Joystick Division (not sure about the latter)'s best clown lists. Among IGN's most notorious anti-heroes, Entertainment Weekly's coolest videogame characters, UGO Networks's "Best Twisted Metal Characters and Their End Game Videos", GameSpy's top villains in games. Icon/mascot of the series (according to reviewers, not me).
• Tommy Vercetti: a project of "Influences and analysis", and excellent reception: IGN and CraveOnline listed him as one of the best GTA characters, and The Age as one of the best Xbox characters. GameDaily, The Daily Telegraph, and PlayStation Beyond (the latter probably not good) list him as one of the best anti-heroes.

--Gabriel Yuji (talk) 22:58, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

• • This is not just a matter of notability or verifiability, it's also a list of characters based on work needing done. A lot of these are a matter of strong reception, but limited reception. I'm not trying to imply that these articles aren't going to have the sources that they need, I'm saying that they need to be stronger. Also, the Olimar justification is kind of weak. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 23:33, 19 May 2014 (UTC)
    • They DON'T "need to be stronger", seriously to hell with this stupid meme. I just skipped through your list. You know where Heather has more of the "lack of" sources? Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Heather_Mason (and more). You know what Garrett (Thief character) ACTUALLY needs? EVERYTHING BUT THE RECEPTION. And so on. Jesus. --Niemti (talk) 04:45, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
      • Niemti, you're clearly not in this discussion to provide a valid contribution to the discussion, so do me a favour and don't reply to this unless you're prepared to treat this as a discussion and not some kiddy GameFAQs flame war. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 04:51, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
        • In conclusion: this farcical meme must die already. --Niemti (talk) 05:34, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
          • Niemti, I'll ask again: please choose to participate in an even remotely civil way, or stop trying to troll this discussion. (PS: only one of these constitutes a valid choice) - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 06:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
            • It's not 'trolling'. Ask basically anyone not infected with this meme and they'll tell you how it works for the whole rest of Wikipedia (where people don't have such invented 'problems'). You don't even see such discussions ANYWHERE else. Also, the people like me and Gabriel Yuji are already policing the character articles and actively merging/redirecting these that actually do fail the standards (one recent example: tagged by me, redirected by GY). We also work on these articles. So you can leave it with us. --Niemti (talk) 07:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
              • • WP:CIVIL, WP:OWN - I do not leave articles with someone who flagrantly violates both of these guidelines. Further, I should hope that if I left the act of creating, merging, and/or redirecting articles (which you seem to think this is a key component of the list or the discussion) with you, that you would stop using really, really bad sources as you are want to do.
                • So again, Niemti. I invite you to perhaps what is literally the first response in any discussion by you that isn't about you being snide, condescending, insulting, and/or disrespectful. If you can't do that, then I'll tell you what any other member will: you could contribute the best content to this project, and your absence would be a blessing if you can't even respond to others without acting like a self-righteous ass. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 09:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
                  • What are these "really, really bad sources", you not-"self-righteous ass"? Okay, yes, I am guilty of sometimes using Kotaku (but remember their motto, "at least we're not Rock Paper Shotgun"). --Niemti (talk) 10:06, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
                    • As I said, the below. I went through and cleaned out around seven articles for untested and flat-out unreliable sources, of which you had contributed to all of them. Anyway, congrats Niemti. As per usual, your participation in a discussion caused harm to Wikipedia. I will no longer be replying to you in this discussion, as you have made it clear that you will not make a single valuable reply and will do nothing more than the typical troll behaviour that should have gotten you permanently blocked from editing Wikipedia months ago. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 10:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

PlayStation Universe, YouTube, Tekken fansites, Gaming Front, Screw Attack, Joystick Division, Blistered Thumbs. Trust me Niemti, you're on way too high of a horse considering how many flaws existed in articles that you've put so much effort into. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 10:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Contrary to another popular but false meme, there's nothing wrong with "YouTube" (Wikipedia:YOUTUBE), it all depends on the uploader and the content (and the same goes for the social media such as Facebook and Twitter that are also included in the same meme). As for ScrewAttack, there were some user blogs posted but I think we've removed them all by now (a recent example: [2]). "Tekken fansites"? But thanks for the dose of insults, threats, and this cute "harm to Wikipedia." --Niemti (talk) 10:30, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

User:New Age Retro Hippie, User:Gabriel Yuji ProtoDrake. I managed to create Yuri's article but it still needs work to expand appearances and it would be in great need of character creation information.Tintor2 (talk) 21:33, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, since I suspect that Niemti will seek to destroy any attempt at conversation on the subject, @Tezero:, @Czar:, and @Gabriel Yuji:, I'd like to at the very least work with you all at tightening up the articles. Especially considering how many bad sources exist on a number of these articles. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 10:41, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Uh-oh, "destroy any attempt at conversation" (next goal: to "destroy Wikipedia", after "harming Wikipedia"). I'd like to assure you I only seek to "destroy" false memes that still continue to spread. And GY and me are actually working together. (Tezero not but only because I have no interest in Sonic.) --Niemti (talk) 11:12, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

@New Age Retro Hippie: I'll help if you want, but I'm going on Wikibreak (albeit a somewhat short one) as soon as all the discussions and candidacies pertaining to articles I've worked on close, which could be in a few days. Tezero (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Cathryn Mataga

Would anyone have any reliable sources to add to this about Cathryn Mataga (born and most often credited as William Mataga) who worked as a video game programmer for more than 20 years for Broderbund, SSI, and more? BOZ (talk) 17:24, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I searched and found nothing in reliable sources outside of this mention in a Gamasutra article. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 17:39, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I added that, thanks. BOZ (talk) 18:22, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Computer and Video Games website faces closure

Future are reorganising their web properties, C&VG faces closure.[3] We have around 3000 links to the site. - hahnchen 18:10, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

A quick check shows we do have archive.org available for a few spot-checked links. --MASEM (t) 22:09, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh, dear. Don't we have access to a service that archives things proactively? Tezero (talk) 22:48, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I mean, unless CVG pulls the robots.txt that Gamespot did, we can use archive.org links for archiveurls just fine should the CVG site go down permanently . We should still consider archiving the links we do have via webcite for example. --MASEM (t) 14:34, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject Sailor Moon merge

Hi everyone. An RfC has been started a couple of weeks ago regarding the possible merger of Wikipedia:WikiProject Sailor Moon. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga#RfC. Your input on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 06:34, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Thinking about infobox release dates

In considering an extreme case such as the present Telltale episodic games (like The Walking Dead: Season Two) where there are multiple episodes and multiple platforms (and arguably multiple regions, NA + EU), I really would like to see if we can find a way to limit how much we have about release dates in the infobox in favor of pushing as much of the excessive (but still verifiable) data to the article's Development section even if this means carving out a table for the most complex cases. TWD may be atypical, but even for a normal multiplatform game, you've got 2 axes: the platform and the region, that can create anywhere from 4 to 12 different release dates, depeneding.

I'm personally one of those that feels that a release "window" is how the industry considers dates - that a game that releases within the same week though not necessarily on the same day across multiple platforms/regions is still being released, for all purposes, "simultaneously", which as such should simply things as they work in the infobox. Rarely is the difference by a day or so going to make a big difference (and where it does, this can be highlighted via sourcing elsewhere). But how to define this to be simpler in the infobox with a set of consistent rules-of-thumb is where I can't easily draw a line. If I had my optimal way, I'd consider the first day of release on any platform in each region to be the primary dates to present, with all other dates summarized later. For remakes (like the resent number of HD ones) that would be appropriate to mark as a separate date step, but things like Apsyr ports of PC games to Mac (as one example) would not be.

The reason is two fold - first, to simply the data in the infobox in the first place. Second, this is to avoid having release date inline references flooding the infobox (look at the source for TWDS2 and you'll see what I mean). Lead sections - including infoboxes - don't need sourcing as long as the sourcing exists elsehwere, and we should always be mentioning the release dates in the Development section, so the sourcing can be offloaded there. --MASEM (t) 14:47, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with this sentiment. I think when you have a hammer infobox every release date looks like a nail. It would be enough to mention either the first date (especially if they're close enough) or I'd say even to use just month+year (e.g., December 2013). Main thing with TWDST is that it has those citations, but ostensibly those can/should be offloaded into the prose anyway. Even without the refs, that infobox is the epitome of unwieldy. Didn't we come to some local consensus along these lines recently? Don't remember where czar ♔ 16:23, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

L Final Fantasy Dimensions uses the initial release on the infobox, while Final Fantasy IV: The After Years uses the first and last. Both however use a table to list every single episode release. Perhaps that could be a happy medium. Lucia Black (talk) 16:34, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

A table in the article body is perfectly fine, and again, we should have the accurate dates in the dev section regardless. --MASEM (t) 16:52, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Also, I do like the idea for episodic games that the release dates should be the first to last episode release period within the infobox, offloading other dates to a table. --MASEM (t) 17:05, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Replacing to do with announcements

I've been working on a replacement for the to do box that graces the top of our pages because I find it kind of ugly. I modified a version of the MILHIST announcements board (and sprung a new template in the process). I think this gives us some room to grow and is generally a better template for this stuff. Also you'll notice that I have two different listings for GANs—that's because I tried two different methods of adding GANs: the current manual system of adding commas or bullets between items, or the flatlist system of making a bulleted list that is converted into a nice listing. I think the latter is a little nicer and much easier to update, but the trade-off is that the bullets are a little less bold. I'm looking for your feedback on this. You can see how the list would be updated in either format by editing {{WPVG announcements}} (as you would Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/to do). And voilà:

Summary of Video games WikiProject open tasks

AfDs

• List of Epic Games Store giveaways (1 participant)
• Lola Panda (0 participants)
• Amiga Active (0 participants)
• Kiboy (gamer) (4 participants)
• Goodboy Galaxy (2 participants)
• Double Eleven (company) (1 participant)
• Backflip Studios (2 participants)
• HLSW (4 participants)
• Vii (4 participants)
• Small Worlds (presentation) (4 participants)
• Petpet Park (2 participants)
• List of Android games (9 participants)
• Avimator (1 participant)
• Spaceballs (demogroup) (1 participant)
• A Date with Death (6 participants; relisted)
• Giant Squid (company) (2 participants; relisted)
• The Wizard Sniffer (6 participants; relisted)
• Melon Dezign (1 participant; relisted)
• The Wayward Realms (3 participants; relisted)
• Haytham Kenway (10 participants; relisted)

Merge discussions

• Minecraft – Volume Beta (discussion)
• Ornstein and Smough (discussion)
• Monster Hunter World: Iceborne (discussion)
• Forge (level editor) (discussion)

Other discussions

No major discussions

Featured content candidates

• Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (nom)
• Teardown (nom)
• Mario Party DS (nom)

Good article nominations

• Setzer Gabbiani (nom)
• Talim (Soulcalibur) (nom)
• Sobble (nom)
• Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome (nom)
• Pikachu (start)
• Fallout Online (nom)
• Donkey Kong (start)
• Horizon Forbidden West (start)
• Surround (video game) (start)
• AirCars (start)
• Laura Matsuda (start)
• Puff-puff (Dragon Quest) (start)
• Sorceress (Dragon's Crown) (start)
• Yume Nikki: Dream Diary (start)
• Hyper Duel (start)
• Fortnite Festival (start)
• Jacksepticeye (start)
• Snorlax (nom)
• Bonfire (Dark Souls) (nom)
• Raymond (Animal Crossing) (start)
• Gengar (start)
• Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel (nom)
• Laika: Aged Through Blood (start)
• Leifang (start)
• Megamania (start)
• Barry Burton (start)
• Tina Armstrong (start)

DYK nominations

• Barry Burton
• Jacob Geller
• Goodboy Galaxy

Reviews and reassessments

• The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (nom)
• Pokémon Channel (nom)
• Rain World (rev)
• Amiga Format (rev)
• Kim Kitsuragi (rev)
• Undertale (rev)

Articles that need...

• assessment (2) (2)
• reassessment (0)
• cleanup (10)
• infoboxes (7)
• cover art (237)
• screenshots (8,794)
• photos (64)
• translation from japan (185)
• creation
• merging

My question: Are y'all interested in using this as a replacement for "to do" in the {{WPVG}} banner? Open to feedback, czar ♔ 01:01, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

In either case I've modified Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Good content to use the GAN link template. I like the new format, and I support the flatlist. Any reason why the FACs aren't using an FAC link template as well? --PresN 01:53, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Since I was making it from scratch, wanted to test it and get feedback before making the rest—done czar ♔ 04:04, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

It's better this way. Tezero (talk) 04:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

It looks great. My only concern is that it might not look as good condensed inside {{WPVG}}. Otherwise, go for it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 17:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

All right—it's up. I did some fancy stuff to make it play nice with the banner, so I think you'll like it, Jimmy. As for this page, are there any thoughts on removing the project banner up top (wasn't it added only somewhat recently?) and just having the announcements in its stead? It's a lot of wasted space for a high traffic page . czar ♔ 15:21, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Awesome. It's a huge improvement. And yeah, I'd agree with removing the banner and replacing it with announcements. I always thought it was kind of strange to have both of them up there. MILHIST only has announcements on their talk page, so it should be fine. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:33, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Sega-16.com

Most Sega-related articles seem to use this site, I've used it myself, part of me wishes it were reliable, and it would take some work to remove all references to it; but I just don't feel good about Sega-16.com. I accept that Ken Horowitz is a published journalist, and maybe my judgement is affected by my personal opinion that most of the articles on the site are horribly written and poorly informed, but there is no evidence whatsoever that Horowitz fact-checks any of his work or that of his staff (none of whom have any credentials outside of being Sega fans). Just as a random example of the quality of this above-average fansite, take a look at this article on Eternal Champions, a 16-bit fighting game series generally remembered as a mediocre attempt to copy Mortal Kombat with even more over-the-top violence. Horowitz's opinion that Eternal Champions was actually far superior to Street Fighter II and Virtua Fighter is pretty far out there, and his logic is often nonsensical (claiming that the very prospect of a Saturn Eternal Champions might have been "the best 2D fighting game ever made", arguing that "Sega's eventual decision to farm out the development of Virtua Fighter 3tb on the Dreamcast is proof" that Virtua Fighter "would not be able to compete with Eternal Champions" in the US, and most bizarrely asking why Sega cancelled Eternal Champions while approving "Criticom, Rise of the Robots, and Zero Divide"--in other words, a random collection of third-party games that happened to appear on Sega consoles), but what is particularly jarring is that the four sources cited in the article include the thoroughly unreliable Eidolon's Inn and even a plea to "Save Eternal Champions!" from "Dave's Sega Saturn Page". I've heard that the site has improved in recent years, but the more I look at Sega-16, the more I feel guilty of taking the easy way out for having used it to source things few RS cover. What do other editors think? Even if it is a RS for interviews, or has become a RS in recent years, we need to have some criteria for when it is acceptable rather than it being officially unreliable yet still widely used.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:30, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so let me make some points of order here: Horowitz' opinion is strictly that: his opinion. That doesn't diminish his credentials; it just means he offers a different opinion. It's important to consider that. We know Horowitz is an established journalist; when he cites clearly unreliable sources, it's clear the facts in the article are unreliable. Contrast that with this article, which is a core source of Sega Meganet, a little-known internet service of the Sega Genesis before Sega Channel came to fruition. With the exception of the Sonic Eraser bit, all of the sources he's listed can be considered reliable by our standards (Lost Levels Online is written by Frank Cifaldi, who contributes to 1UP.com and is also an established video game journalist). There are certain spots that really need to be looked at case by case, and I think some agreement could be made to the following:

• Interviews with Sega staffers are reliable.
• Horowitz' own opinions are reliable as opinions and reception given his history as a published video game journalist. It's important to keep in mind they're opinions, though.
• Feature articles posted by him need to be scrutinized and ensure that content does not come from unreliable sources.

I think it's a bad idea to stick a brick on it and call the whole thing not reliable. Some selectivity is probably the best answer because Sega-16 has a huge wealth of information and extremely useful content. They've been cited by Retro Gamer as well. IMO it may not be an easy source to be with it, but careful care with each feature will be the best resolution. Red Phoenix ^{let's talk...} 23:25, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Notability of Individual Pokémon

I have created a new discussion on whether to merge several Pokémon to their respective List of Pokémon articles. I understand that some people may feel reluctant to participate since we just finished the Sonic characters discussion, but I think that this is the optimal time to discuss these articles that come up time and time again in notability discussions. Jucchan (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Scratch that. Jucchan (talk) 21:16, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest

At over three and a half million words, this Super Smash Bros. Brawl fanfic is the longest of its medium ever written and surpasses numerous works of "real" literature well-esteemed for their loquacious nature. I'm thinking of creating an article for it, but I can only find four sources that look like they could be reliable - they're all (except the last) rather in-depth, though:

• BuzzFeed
• Kotaku
• Daily Dot
• Gamnesia

The only one of those I know for sure will be reliable is Kotaku... Perhaps there's more out there I just haven't been patient enough to come across. Tezero (talk) 03:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

That sounds to me like it would be well-placed at Super Smash Bros. Brawl#Reception and legacy. --Izno (talk) 02:44, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

That works. Despite the stereotype, I'm not wedded to things having their own pages if it really doesn't look like there's much of anything out there about them. Tezero (talk) 03:04, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Pokemon navbox mess

There current organization of the pokemon navbox templates is a mess. Considering that there is Pokémon (video game series) and Pokémon (anime), i propose keeping anime/manga information separate from the video games by merging template:Pokémon spin-offs with template:Pokémon and splitting the anime/manga info into template:Pokémon anime and manga. Thoughts? Lucia Black (talk) 09:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it may be worth while having a chat with that @Niemti: fella. He's our resident navbox cleaner-upper. - X201 (talk) 09:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm not knowledgable in anything Pokemon. --Niemti (talk) 10:03, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I meant in a provide tips sense. Things you've done to get other big navboxes under control. - X201 (talk) 11:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Pok%C3%A9mon is so huge it's too intimidating to even look at it. I say you've certaainly got to change it into several sub-templates, it alone exceeds 7 kb which is ridicalous. Then you have links to the other templates at the bottom. I once did something like that with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Games_based_on_Arthurian_legends for example (notice the 'see also' links to the novel, film, music etc. templates that I also made). This inter-template linking also can be made better as in https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Virtua_Fighter_series&oldid=571745968 (look at where "characters" was). Maybe: Main template - video gmes (including spin offs) - other media. Or just everything else - manga & anime like LB said. Whatever works better. --Niemti (talk) 13:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Never heard of such a title to such a user in this wiki project. Nonetheless Everyone can do navbox cleaning, but because this involves making more drastic changes and involving more than one navbox, i thought it would be best to ask the whole wikiproject before making the bold edits myself. Lucia Black (talk) 10:12, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Add The Escapist to Template:Video game reviews

Consensus reached here on reliable source. Objections or comments on including it in the reviews list? Zero Serenity (talk) 16:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think they should go on the reviews template, or at least as a dedicated entry. For one, as we are saying that Escapist as a situational source means using reviews from them should not be automatic, and thus I would be very wary of having a line that would be easy to include them. Of course, if the review is legit we do have the additional extra lines for which the Escapist could be added if needed. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Seconded, for the same reason. Sergecross73 msg me 17:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, it was promoted from situational to reliable. That's what the discussion was all about. Zero Serenity (talk) 18:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Whatever you put in the template encourages people to use that field. The template should only be highlighting choice reviews, and I don't think The Escapist's content rises to that threshold. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:10, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Not that, at times, Jim Sterling nails something ("Earth Year 2066", I think it was, Jim's take on that was picked up by many basically saying what others really couldn't that the game was an insult to the Steam Early Access process), but most of the time I find the Escapist's reviews by anyone on the staff to be on par (not an outlier) from the main 6-8 that we usually defer to. --MASEM (t) 20:07, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

• Well, it's not like there are only a dozen reviewers in that template; there's about 50 and I see no objection to adding a field for The Escapist; I mean, if it's reliable, people are gonna use it as a custom field anyways, so might as will make life easier for everybody. I requested the template edit. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 03:43, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

@Niemti: and sources

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

---

User:Niemti has recently gotten into a dispute with me over the validity of certain sources. Instead of attempting to have them listed on the video games reliable sources page, he has declined to even defend them on their own merits. This, on top of Niemti's characteristic bad attitude and behaviour, strikes as Niemti yet again doing the things that got him in trouble in the first place. I'd like to open a discussion on the user and what to do about the behaviour. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 19:56, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

• Oh sweet lord a new Niemti thread. This is gonna hurt. GamerPro64 19:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
  • A reply like this really helps to demonstrate my point. Honestly, Niemti has been getting away with this kind of behaviour for a really, really long time. I don't want to have to not work on an article just because he will harass me if I do something that isn't to his liking. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:01, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, then since you brought up the issue here in WP:VG< what you could do is bring up the matter yourself on what makes these reliable/unreliable. If we all deem it unreliable and he continues to disrupt the process, then ask for administrative action. Lucia Black (talk) 20:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
    • This is one possibility, but it's far from ideal. Sure, I could go for administrative action if he continues to disregard the findings by WP:VG, but it would be another case of Niemti getting away in his attempts to not work with anyone else and for us having to go through that much effort just to get a user to stop. It wouldn't be the first time people have had to go to great lengths to stop Niemti from doing something. Honestly, if Niemti were to continue the way he is, I would recommend a permanent block or a topic ban for video games. No one should have to avoid articles that he works on, no one should have to take his pretty constant incivility and personal attacks, and he should not be able to so consistently ignore the community opinion on so many things. It is a net gain for him to no longer be working on the subject of video games. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:15, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
      • I don't feel strongly about Niemti one way or the other, but, like Salvidrim! (talk · contribs), I would discourage discussing a user vaguely rather than on specific, easily identifiable issues. Tezero (talk) 22:05, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Niemti#Mileena This thread is pretty hilarious. My favourite parts is how my rhetorical proposal to delete almost all Amiga references was taken seriously like if it was a proper thing to do, and how Ada Wong's article from 2010 (with "no" fansite sources! nope, no sir!) was GA-worthy stuff but then I came and "made the article poorly". --Niemti (talk) 20:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

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

Notability of video game characters in general: one more RfC, possibly the last

Here's a link. Per suggestions, it's on a new subpage of the project's talk page so no one has to dirty their eyes. Tezero (talk) 03:36, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Siglemic

I'm biased because I'm a fan, and I definitely do not want my name involved with this to avoid revenge by the fandom. Please take action as needed, probably an PROD, followed by an AfD with a "not a vote" banner. If you delete/nominate this, please make sure to have your user and talk page semi-protected for a month, and hopefully your Wikipedia account isn't linked to anything off-site. Siglemic's fans are currently posting this in chat (guess how I found out about it?), whatever happend to it WILL be noticed. Take care! ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 06:02, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Werster for a similar recent situation. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 06:05, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

What about Cosmo Wright? He created popular website SpeedRunsLive, which adds a bit more notability, but otherwise he would be in a similar spot. If anything, I would search for sources for them and expand the article before trying to delete, but I assume you have already tried this. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 18:15, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

As mentionned before, Cosmo is probably the only speedrunner who can make a strong claim of notability on Wikipedia; there have been numerous articles about him and his work in reliable, independant media sources (which is not the case for practically any other speedrunner). I'm thinking maybe Trihex could stand at AfD due to his many sponsorships and all but that's another matter. Siglemic sadly doesn't have any significant media coverage. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 19:02, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Q2 article competition/drive

I was digging around in the WTVG archives for another discussion and I came upon this discussion about a WPVG content creation competition, which sounded interesting but didn't get off the ground for want of organization. Would anyone be interested in something similar? Or a summer ("Q2", for X201 ho ho) competition? I was thinking something like restoring demoted FAs and GAs instead of something full blown like a GameCup, but I wanted to take a temperature read. Thoughts? czar ♔ 05:36, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Q2/Q3 actually. :-P -X201 (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Half-Life 3

Hi all, looking for some opinions. There is currently no article for Half-Life 3, likely almost entirely because of WP:CRYSTAL; there is no official announcement from Valve that the game is coming out or even being worked on. That said, there is a huge amount of reliable source coverage of the potential game, with every speculation, interview, and rumour getting a story on sites like IGN, Kotaku, and PC Gamer. After a fresh rumour of the game being worked on I thought I'd try writing an article to see how it went. The result of my efforts is here and I wanted to get some thoughts on it. Though I definitely haven't written everything that could be, do you think it's sufficient as an article considering the large amount of reliable source coverage, or is it all too speculative? Sam Walton (talk) 20:13, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I emphatically support the creation of this article. Chrono Break exists because of a trademark and people responding to it, there's no way that this can't be at least as strong as that. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 20:22, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think it can hold up on its own. Duke Nukem Forever has been an article since 2004. However, I expect there to be so much vandalism if it gets made. GamerPro64 20:24, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Vandalism shouldn't be a problem, I'm sure we can manage, after all that we've come across this far. --benlisquare_T•C•E 20:26, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I can see the rumour mill going into overdrive every time a vandal edits in a release date though ;) Sam Walton (talk) 20:28, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I would personally expand the development section of the Half-Life series rather than creating a new article. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm with Niwi3. Go summary style czar ♔ 20:41, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

My vote's here too. 99% sure its coming, but I'd dare not create the article until we've got confirmation on its announcement and expected ship date. This is far different from DNF as it was always known as a project in the works, but here everything for HL3 is rumor. --MASEM (t) 20:48, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I understand that sentiment, but on the other hand I feel that the idea of "Half-Life 3" as a subject to gamers and even to the occasional non-gamer is a very real thing, regardless of whether it gets confirmed or not. I mean, we've had developers suggest certain things, such as a deaf character which would involve the use of ASL, as well as many many mentions and requests and discussions. Heck, there's also a joke about Half-Life 3 in the employee manual. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 21:06, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Certainly it should be a search term. Certainly we should have more than a passing mention and in fact at least 2-3 paragraphs describing the known history (as based on RS inclusion). The reason a full article now doesn't make sense is that it does invite excessive rumor mongering and duplication of material from the Half-Life series page which should stay there until we can go into more detail on what HL3 is. --MASEM (t) 21:35, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, look at OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire. How much is there on those? I haven't seen any proposals to delete that one, but more information is likely to become available soon, as is the case with this. Tezero (talk) 21:51, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Once Nintendo revealed them, that made it fair game for a standalone article (though here's more where I would have kept the details with the original games until we could write more than a few paragraphs). HL3 fails all existence tests that apply, so until Valve announces it formally, creating an article would be a problem. --MASEM (t) 21:57, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I dunno about "all existence tests"—there have been several reliable published articles about the informal release of information about it, which have claimed that everyone knows about it (whatever that means)—but I guess I can see why publisher acknowledgement helps. Tezero (talk) 22:28, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Although they are reliable sources, their content is useless. A few random rumors don't warrant a new article. Also, keep in mind that sites like IGN like to build hype to attract readers. --Niwi3 (talk) 22:38, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

@Masem: I disagree with adding it to the Half-Life series article, as the article is already horribly bloated as it is. The article covers way too many topics and needs to be cut down, not added to. A mention of Half-Life 3 is fine, but not in place of an entire article on the subject. I think there's enough to be covered that warrants its own article, and a single section wouldn't do it justice. --Nicereddy (talk) 18:31, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

We can't yet write a full article on HL3 - literally only a few paragraphs when you distill down to RS. Once Valve announces it proper, that's different. --MASEM (t) 18:38, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Not all the content is useless, there are plenty of sources discussing the lack of official word on the game. I also just found an 'official' confirmation from Valve from 2006 that the game would be released, by the way: [4] Sam Walton (talk) 10:20, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

If you want to make it a standalone article, make it at Development of Half-Life 3. That way, it does not imply that it is a confirmed existence. We have been working at the Film project on this idea, for high-profile films that have substantial info out, but have yet to enter production. Just a possible idea if going the article route. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 22:17, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

If it was a brand new game without any existing IP to build on, I would agree with this. But we have a clear target for anything about the series that's not specific yet, the series page, so it makes better sense there. --MASEM (t) 23:09, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Just a suggestion if going the article route. But if it is better as a section somewhere, by all means. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 23:43, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

• Fully support its existence. There's enough coverage, much like Kingdom Hearts 3, which has existed for years, and still does t even have a release date. (It's also survived multiple AFDs. Sergecross73 msg me 01:37, 24 May 2014 (UTC))

• I support the article, but are we definitely doing it on HL3 and not, say, Episode 3? I'm sure no one believes Ep3 is ever coming but wasn't the last word from Valve that Ep3 would be the next title? Яehevkor ✉ 14:39, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I ended up including both in the lead for that reason, but considering that most sources refer to the game as Half-Life 3 went with that for my title. Sam Walton (talk) 14:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it worth starting an RfC for this? It seems to me that there are arguments to be made on both sides and a more formal process for this discussion might help, along with outside editor's input. Sam Walton (talk) 15:41, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd be fine with an RfC, although I don't think this is controversial enough to really require one. I'd expect that this page will eventually be split from Half-Life 3 itself (assuming the game is actually announced and released at some point) as to avoid an overly long History/Development section, and we may want to do that prematurely to avoid turmoil when the game's article is under heavy viewing and editing. I'd suggest something like "History of Half-Life 3" or similar? Not sure.

I'd also recommend we get the page protected before moving it out of draftspace. I've already gotten protection added to Half-Life 2, I can only imagine the vandalism we'll have to deal with on Half-Life 3. --Nicereddy (talk) 18:22, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Anna maree manciet

Does Anna maree manciet pass GNG? I don't know what sufficient coverage is for a gamer, but Icepheonix5 is creating the page on behalf of her and it has been CSDed per A7. Thanks. James^x12345 08:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

You can find her website here http://www.annamaree.com/ Icepheonix5 (talk) 09:01, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Marking Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Deletion as historical

Is anyone still using Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Deletion? I think it's being maintained for no one since article alerts supplant its helpfulness, and AA are automatic. Any opposition to marking it as historical? czar ♔ 17:36, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Some people prefer to be able to see the AFDs all on one page (not that I do). I don't believe there is anything similar and automated. --Izno (talk) 17:40, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I have it watchlisted to monitor WP:VG AfDs - prefer to just watch these than the whole load of article alerts. Plus it updates as they come in rather than once per day. Sam Walton (talk) 17:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I still monitor/use it. Sergecross73 msg me 18:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I exclusively use WP:VG/AA and didn't know there was another way to track these. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 18:48, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I use it as well. --MASEM (t) 18:53, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

I am not a member of this project but I like to keep tabs on video game related deletions so I use it quite regularly.--70.49.80.26 (talk) 02:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Pair of TFD discussions for Infobox modules

I'd like to request feedback from the quorum at the TFD for Infobox StarCraft character and the TFD for Infobox Metal Gear character. They are modules used only in video game articles. A TFD for a similar template, Infobox Sonic character, closed as delete. --Izno (talk) 17:53, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Change "This month in gaming history" to "This day in gaming history"

I think "This month in gaming history" should be changed to "This day in gaming history".106.38.250.210 (talk) 00:40, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Sega CD needs a source review

It's at WP:FAC, and just needs a source review for reliability to pass. Spotchecks shouldn't be needed. Thanks to whoever can snag it. Red Phoenix ^{let's talk...} 02:27, 25 May 2014 (UTC)