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Whether images look better right or left is not particularly relevant (except, apparently, for properties of the thing being pictured itself, such as a person looking one direction or another). "Knocking the text out of alignment" being bad is an opinion. We have many things that change such alignment, and anyway it can't be guaranteed where the image will end up (see bullet #2). I do agree that images should support prose, but most often that is at the beginning of the section; rarely is it the case that an image will not support the prose immediately coming thereafter in the page source (wiki or HTML).
You (general) cannot assume the size of the reader's display these days. I might be viewing something on a 2k-wide screen right now and a 400px-wide device later; the characteristics of the Things In The Viewport can and will change as a result. (Resolution is not the only characteristic that will change; we have a half-dozen supported skins and I can guarantee at least 4 of them are in wide use, 2 by default and 2 for various power users.)
This pattern most likely emerged because infoboxes are right and would otherwise push the image down below the text where it does make sense. (See also MOS:SANDWICH for some paragraphs of reading.) Things do not need to occur because of some considered consensus; consensus is also generated by the hundreds of editors doing whatever they think looks best, and is just as valid until some consensus-measuring activity (such as an RFC) indicates that practice is invalid. See WP:Consensus.
So, I was doing some research into the release date of Ms. Pac-Man, and came across a strange scenario I wanted some feedback on before proceeding.
While we have reliablesources confirming that Ms. Pac-Man "debuted publicly" on February 3, 1982, this source indicates that this was "in typical showbusiness style at a press conference at the Castle Park Entertainment Center in Sherman Oaks," and clarifies that "[t]he game is expected to appear in many video arcades during the next few weeks." This release date, which is currently used for the article, is neither the date of general availability (GA) nor the release to manufacturing (RTM) date. Instead, it appears to be a post-RTM, pre-GA "pre-release" event for press, which I would argue does not constitute a "release date" per Wikipedia standards. (My understanding is that Wikipedia's preferred "release date" is the RTM date, as searching "release date" redirects to the RTM section of the above article.)
The author of the article I cited above, Benj Edwards, confirms in a blog post that his source for this date was the latter of the two sources I cited, the 1982 article from the Los Angeles Times. He also notes that, as of February 3rd, 2017, Wikipedia listed the release date of Ms. Pac-Man as January 13, 1982. He disputes this, and mentions that he interviewed Ms. Pac-Man's creators, GCC, and they didn't know what that date referred to.
The date of January 13, 1982 was sourced from the US Copyright Office's Public Catalog, which lists the "Date of Publication" as "1982-01-13" and the "Date of Creation" as simply "1981." (Registration number is listed as
PA0000140275, for reference.)
Further complicating matters, Bandai Namco officially considers Ms. Pac-Man's release year to be 1981, as evidenced by the official Pac-Man website's History section and the existence of the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Class of 1981 arcade cabinet, which released in 2001 to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary, then re-released in 2006 for the 25th anniversary.
Given all of this background, which of these dates, if any, is the "release date" that should be used? 1981 (Date of Creation), January 13, 1982 (Date of Publication), or February 3, 1982 (Public Debut)? I'm not confident that any of them is equivalent to an exact RTM date. It's possible that late 1981 may have been when manufacturing started, but that the Copyright Office's Publication Date lagged behind a little (>2 weeks.)
I also asked on the Ms. Pac-Man talkpage, but this seems like the type of niche issue that might be worth bringing up here. Pacack (talk) 21:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the suggestion. I wasn't sure where to ask, but thought maybe this was a matter of simply clarifying what "release date" we formally use. I'll ask over there also. Pacack (talk) 21:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is also consistent with the Film project, which does not include movie ratings for films unless the rating is a subject of commentary. --Masem (t) 03:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion back in 2012 said the rating in the infobox had no meaning since it was different in different nations. Three people voted to remove it so it was done. DreamFocus03:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The age restriction bit is different in different nations, among other things. The advertisement for FINAL FANTASY XIV I keep seeing on Facebook, shows the following rating when I hover over it: ESRB Rating: TEEN with Blood, Language, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence. Visit www.esrb.org for rating information. EU Rating: PEGI 16. The website for PEGI [3] mentions encouraging the use of tobacco as a reason, while the ESRB does not. And of course them mentioning "sexual themes" apparently is just from a camera angle showing a girl's short skirt. So that is misleading since most see that would assume something sexual in it other than some brief upskirts. So no, not suggesting either of these flawed systems be used in the infobox. If they had a single universal standard which actually made sense, be a different story. DreamFocus06:03, 26 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone this is about video game releases.
On the release dates it states games released in PAL, but as countries are no longer using PAL, should this be changed? most countries are converting or already converted? thankyou! EzeeWiki (talk) 03:31, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
