Talk:Sabacc

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:06, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

• Sabacc
• Dejarik

)

• ... that neither of the two Star Wars in-universe games, dejarik (aka holochess) and sabacc, have a single, definite and canon rule-set despite several real-world licensed releases? Source: For d: "actual gameplay rules developed but never publicly released", "there's at least one fan-made set of rules", "no official licenced home version of holochess has yet been issued. However, fans have written rules for the game". Note that the first part of this sentence is no longer true. For s: "Like the holographic strategy game Dejarik, Sabacc appears onscreen without an in-depth explanation of the rules...Various tie-in books and games have offered their own take on Sabacc... Within the new canon, you’ll find a semi-official (albeit simplified) version of those rules... If you want to play Sabacc yourself, Wookieepedia has a guide to the rules...We won’t be surprised if Disney releases a more canon-specific version of the game later on. But if the “official” rules turn out to be different from the ones you learned from Wookieepedia, don’t get sweat it", "pecific rules can vary depending on who's playing"

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Don Savage and Template:Did you know nominations/Maritime Republic of Eastport
• Comment: This double-article nom superceeds my recent Template:Did you know nominations/Dejarik (where I linked the second QPQ) unless there is a good argument to have two separate hooks. Also, Star Wars Day is... today, if anyone wants to help speedying this up.

Created by Piotrus (talk). Self-nominated at 06:04, 4 May 2021 (UTC).

• Both articles are new enough, long enough, QPQs done, no image, pass earwig. Hook is okay, though it is somewhat wordy. Can we strengthen the hook? --evrik ^(talk) 03:28, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• Evrik, Strengthen as in shorten? I guess we could remove the adjective definite as mostly repetitive? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• When I read the hook, I shrug and say, ehhh. I know what you're trying to say ... it's kind of boring the way it's written. --evrik ^(talk) 04:19, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• Evrik, I am open to seeing more "cooler" hooks; for better or worse that's the single most interesting fact I was able to come up that connects both entities. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:34, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

• Alt1 ... that neither holochess nor sabacc, two games featured in the Star Wars movies, have a definitive real-world rule-set?

Here is my take. --evrik ^(talk) 15:21, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

• Evrik, Shorter - I like it, but I'd quibble that the games are not just featured in the movies, the even 'cooler' fact is that the Star Wars movies (media...) invented them in the first place. How would you go about clarifying that in your proposed hook? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:26, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• Any updates on this? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:29, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Narutolovehinata5, Don't look at me :) Ping User:Evrik. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:06, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Evrik hasn't edited in a week so we many need a new reviewer. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 01:42, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Popping in here. I like the sound of a compromise:

ALT2: ... that neither holochess nor sabacc, two games invented for the Star Wars films, have a definitive ruleset despite several real-world licensed releases?

Clarifies the 'invented for' and also gives the reason you'd actually care why they don't have definitive rules -- because they have actual real-world licensed releases. Also switched 'movies' to 'films', which is subtle but frees us up a couple characters (important with the length!) and sounds better encyclopedically in more or less anything that's not a direct quote. Vaticidalprophet 14:08, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet, Thanks, I am fine with the ALT2. Now who'll check it for GTG? :) PS. Check Alt2a below, which adds the alt name dejarik to the hook. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:12, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

ALT2a: ... that neither holochess (dejarik) nor sabacc, two games invented for the Star Wars films, have a definitive ruleset despite several real-world licensed releases?

• Anyone like Alt 1? I'm not thrilled with Alt2. --evrik ^(talk) 20:56, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem I have with ALT1 is the "who cares?" element -- I wouldn't expect a fictional game to have a definitive IRL ruleset in the abstract, but I might if it were given real-world releases. I think it's important to preserve that element of the original hook. Vaticidalprophet 04:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

I think the more interesting thing here is that they were games created in-universe that have also been played in real-life. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:10, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

• ALT3: ... that holochess (dejarik) and sabacc, are games invented for the Star Wars films, that gone on to have several real-world licensed versions? --evrik ^(talk) 00:10, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 06:42, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Narutolovehinata5, I favor my own ALT2 but I am not objecting to ALT3, it's pretty much subjective which facts we find more interesting. Being a board gamer I find the clashing rulesets of interesting but I fully admit this is a subjective POV. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:40, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

• New reviewer needed. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:22, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
• I spot-checked both articles for issues (since they've already been reviewed). Approving for ALT2a.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 00:02, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sabacc/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 10:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Will review this one shortly. —Kusma (talk) 10:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Progress and general comments

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• Broadness: I don't think the real world versions are adequately covered. There must be some reviews and reception for them at least in specialised gamer magazines/websites. Have there been any tournaments or similar? Do people play this at conventions?
  • Trust me, I looked far and wide. If something exists, it's not google-able as far as I can tell. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • Hi there! Have you tried this with the following citation:? BOZ (talk) 13:28, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

      Nice, I didn't see it. I'll add the review to the article soon. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:07, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

    • It isn't easy, I agree. Even community sites like Boardgamegeek only have this. On WP library, I found this odd piece of PR: [1]. On how notable Sabacc is among the SW fam community, I can offer USA Today with "Everybody's known for a while that Han won the Millennium Falcon off Lando playing the card game Sabacc." This Den of Geek source [2] seems pretty decent too, and the image of Donald Glover as Lando playing Sabacc there could be a good choice for the article. —Kusma (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

      Good find with the DoG source, I expanded the article a bit. I also added the ref to UST although it is not strictly necessary. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• Images: Either a screenshot of the game being played in universe or a picture of real world cards would help, for example to show that the Galaxy's Edge cards have a unique shape.
  • Copyright is an issue, per commons:Commons:Copyright_rules_by_subject_matter#Board_games. I am unsure if fair use would be acceptable here, but we could try? It would likely allow us to use only a single image - do you have a preference from what Google Images gives us? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • Fair use should be fine, say, anything with the hex cards "for identification" like here: [3]. —Kusma (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

      Hmmm, arguably you could take an in-minimis picture of SW fans, even cosplayers, playing Sabacc, without zooming on the copyrighted components, so I am afraid any fair use here would be deleted eventually. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

      I'd probably go for the image of Donald Glover playing Sabacc. Could work as a {{Non-free film screenshot}}. I'll check and comment on the other things later (hopefully before the weekend); real life was more intrusive on my wikilife than usual in the past couple of days. —Kusma (talk) 09:21, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

      @Kusma There are a number of film screenshots, but this artist rendering might be even better. Any chance you could upload and tag it with the right FUR rationale? Or if you still prefer the movie one, chose the one you think is best? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:48, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

      I am not sure who the artist/owner is for your suggestion. This one as {{non-free board game cover}} is also a possibility? But if you don't want to break your WP:VEGAN vows, maybe we can go without. —Kusma (talk) 14:08, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Content and prose review

• Lead: Some cites in the lead can be ok (MOS:LEADCITE, but this is overkill
• primarily-fictional better without hyphen
• Mention real world versions in lead?
  • We do, unless you mean the titles of individual releases? But not all of them have unique names, for example the first one doesn't have a name I can see in sources - presumably was just called sabacc - in the Crisis on Cloud City book... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • I think "Han won the Falcon from Lando in a game of Sabacc" should be in the lead as the central reason for notability. —Kusma (talk) 14:08, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
• History: perhaps you could do this chronologically, and consider separating in-film/book information from the real world sales of games?
  • Hmm, right now the logic is 'film/book media first, then games'. I've adjusted the paragraphs and added subheadings to make it more clear. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  Works for me. —Kusma (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• I take it that the "sabacca" didn't make it into the final version of the screenplay? Is this a primary source or is there commentary in the screenplays book?
  • I'd think so but I don't have access to the source outside Google Books snippet view which allows me to confirm the spelling of sabacca but I can't get the full context. I AGF this claim from https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sabacc . It doesn't explicitly say this was dropped, so I don't want to risk OR by saying so. But I'll ask for the scan on of that page at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange/Resource_Request#Star_Wars_:_the_annotated_screenplays_(one_page), so in a few days this should be resolved and verified/clarified, although I have my doubts - the snippet does seem to say, only, that "In the secnd draft of the film.... Hans says his friend Lando Calrissian won the gas mine in a "sabacca game".". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • The syfy source says "In early an early draft of the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back, Han mentions that he won the Falcon in a "sabacca” game, but that obviously never made it into the film." Also, that source mentions sabacc as one of the re-canonised features after Disney threw away half of Star Wars history, and Dailydot also has this, so you could mention this bit of real world history of sabacc. —Kusma (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• I had to check Wookieepedia to learn that fictional Sabacc has some high-tech "shifting" features. Is it correct that the name wasn't trademarked until 2018?
  • Re shifting - I don't even know what it means after reading woookieepedia, and I think their refs are an offline rulebook? Not very clear. As for trademark, good call, here wookiepedia has some more content and RS, I'll add it to our article shortly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • I think you have enough about the rules and trademark now. —Kusma (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
• The citation overkill makes me worried (more than three citations for a single sentence are usually a sign that something is wrong).
  • It's mostly that I tried to collect all RS on the topic, there aren't that many. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • If they all say the same thing, and are otherwise similar, WP:REFCLUTTER would still probably tell you to cut them down to two or three, or at least to combine them into fewer footnotes. —Kusma (talk) 14:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

      The problem is that some of them may be used for a minor fact in the sentence(s), not repeated elsewhere... too much pointless work to check which is redundant, IMHO. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:08, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

      At least sort the multiple ones in ascending order so people with CDO (you know, like OCD just with the letters sorted alphabetically) can die happy. —Kusma (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

      Fair enough, will do it soon. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:49, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

• the first mention of the game at which tables Han won his starship is disentangle the prose
• Can you try to discuss the different real world versions a bit more separately? I'm a bit confused as to what is what and how they differ. For example, this Galaxy's Edge Sabacc seems to include dice? What are the dice for?
  • The problem is that there are next to no RS for this, reviews are few and not very reliable, and I am not fond of using manuals (primary sources) - plus some of them seem not even available online. Differences between editions would be good to discuss but I am afraid we are crossing into fancruft/OR territory given that most differences are not covered by RSes. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • Well, I was kind of wondering whether we're getting into notability questions here. The real-world importance seemed to me to be mostly shown by the real-world games, but if we can't say anything about them other than that they exist... —Kusma (talk) 14:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
• Rules: I find it confusing to have an "original ruleset" mentioned: which one do you mean as there is no "official" ruleset? Do players draw cards to improve their hand? There seem to be two betting pots in these rules. What is the object of the Galaxy's Edge Sabacc game if there is no betting?
  • I mean, there is no one official ruleset. And yes, some stuff is unclear - blame the lack of sources, reliable or otherwise. Like, I can't even find out which year the Disneyland's Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge-themed area was released, exactly. The game is notable, but the nitty-gritty details about it are very hard to dig out. Like, when you ask "What is the object of the Galaxy's Edge Sabacc game if there is no betting?" - I don't know, the source doesn't say, although the object is likely to win :) How, the source doesn't say, we could try to find the rulebook - although if it's not online, it's not going to be easy - and then we could describe the rules but PRIMARY is the problem. Also there are some copyright concerns as to whether we can reproduce the rules on Wikipedia in detail, plus WP:NOTAGUIDE/how-to/manual. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
    • Here's a little bit about the game. [4] [5] The dice apparently introduce quite a bit of randomness. We're trying to get as close to zero as possible. And then win, yes, with various special ways of breaking ties on zeroes. As for unreliable sources: this (and the entire blog around it) looks pretty cool. —Kusma (talk) 14:07, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

      @Kusma I've added RS to the article. Shame we can't use the blog to add some more details... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I think there's quite a bit of work to do here. I'll come back later to assess sourcing quality a bit more. —Kusma (talk) 11:02, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

• About some new additions/other things I found:

  Sabacc was also used as part of the movie promotional campaign before its official launch a bit mangled, c/e this sentence. (I did some light copyediting here and there, you may want to look through the article again)

  A reviewer for the Games International drop "the" or add "magazine" or something

  players can fold - but have no reason to do so choose something other than the hyphen per MOS:DASH. Comma, spaced endash, unspaced emdash, whatever.

  Double check for typos, I found several.

  BoardGameGeek isn't a reliable source, and you don't need it?

• I think I'm mostly through reading this, happy to look at further edits. Will put on hold (mostly for accounting reasons). —Kusma (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Kusma All done I think, except the fair use image. I am having trouble choosing the best one and I am still uneasy about fair use in general. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:21, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: See comments above for image. I think a little more in the lead about the importance (just add the Han/Lando game) could help. Then we're probably done. While this just about passes "broadness", we're quite a bit away from "comprehensiveness" so please don't FA nominate this before finding more on the reception and covering how the game passed out of canon and back in. —Kusma (talk) 14:08, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Kusma I've expanded the lead. I'd rather not add the fair use image as the more I think about it the more I am concerned such a use could be disputed :( _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:17, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Piotrus: OK, fair enough. I think fair use on enwiki is a bit more relaxed now than it was 15 years ago, but perhaps that's just me. I'll do the paperwork and promote this now. —Kusma (talk) 14:39, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Unreliable but interesting fan analysis

See https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1SEbTVki7Fji70U8UVr3k_uIyeDQ9a8hlhYlhPNWEmCk/edit#slide=id.g3c214fa683_0_10 . Pretty solid work, but not really something we can cite. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)