Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Navboxes

See also Template talk:CVG Navigation

Comments

Looks great so far. -- Ned Scott 00:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The majority of it I support. However the err on the side of exclusion of unreleased is something that I can’t support. Otherwise it look ok. El cid the hero 11:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See also Wikipedia:Article series, a MOS page that seems related. (Radiant) 16:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I'm not entirely too sure about the navigation proposal. Sometimes, the navigation templates just become an eyesore to read when you string the links together into a navigation template, such as the Megaman Series (which explains why it has to be split up into franchises) and other series such as the Castlevania one are fast catching up.

We need proper guidelines for such templates, where shoving them into one section just won't do. Also, practically every other Wikipedia template under the sun utilises the exact same shade of blue that's being proposed here. Frankly, I'd much prefer it, if we agreed on a different template colour to distinguish our project from others. How's about the below sample?

Example Broken Link Example

The blue hyperlinks stand out far more on a background that isn't already blue and it sets this project's templates apart from other templates, such as Template:Viacom.

Apart from these issues, I'm all for standardised template guidelines and this is shaping up to be a good idea.

Wolf ODonnell 14:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea with a standardized templates, but that unreleased games shouldn't be included is just plain stupid, as they often contain very interesting information. --MrStalker 00:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there actually a consensus on this guideline? From this talk, I can't see any consensus, yet the template that it's the guideline appears on the project page, and I see it advertised as guideline. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 09:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere in the talk archives of WT:CVG. If I get a moment I'll try to look myself. -- Ned Scott 10:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was no proper consensus, as far as I could remember. AMIB barged on to the scene and started changing templates how he saw fit. To boost his authority, he created this Navbox Guideline and ignored input from any users. Wolf ODonnell 20:17, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can find absolutely nowhere where the guideline was agreed upon by the majority involved. All I can find is AMIB mediating everything and not listening to anyone else. So please, if someone can find where this guideline had a consensus, please show us. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 22:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/archive19#Navboxes yet again. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, this was discussed at length. Raise it on WT:CVG if you've got a problem with this. Removing disputed template. JACOPLANE • 2007-03-4 02:26

What was supported was to clean up the mess, but that doesn't mean that the method has that same support. It has some support, for some situations, but I'm seeing things being taken a little too far. -- Ned Scott 03:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What happened is that there was no vote for individual clauses within the guideline. Most people who showed support were supporting the entirety of the project, but not even the color scheme had a clear consensus, from what I'm reading, much less what to include (as many people found that the guideline made things too narrow and didn't include a lot of important subjects).

What needs to be done is get a clear and wider consensus of individual clauses, as well as remembering that the guidelines bend when the consensus says so, which are the two points that are causing all the problems. Maybe votes are in order. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some form of RFC might be in order. -- Ned Scott 15:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I have been wanting to RFC it since a few days ago when I mentioned it on the Template talk:Tekken series, since AMIB is adamant on going against the 8 people reverting his edits. I've been led time and time again to the discussion that showed this so called consensus on the guideline. I have compiled Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/archive19#Navboxes_yet_again at my sandbox, which clearly shows no such thing as a consensus on some issues AMIB is adamant about and violating 3RRs with (see here and here where he was blocked from violating 3RR in the latter.

I must add something more though. I'm not against a standard for the CVG navigational templates. I'm just doing this because people are upholding a guideline that doesn't have consensus, and even going as far as going against consensus when specific templates have clear consensus against it.

What I propose is a rewrite, separating style issues and format issues, with subsections, and only the subsections that receive consensus can go on the guideline page while the rest are debated, with a strong note that individual page consensus can take priority. If people agree, I will start whipping something up based on what I have observed and what exists. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 21:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion / exclusion of non-released games

There is a discussion going on about the {{Resident Evil series}} template, whether or not to include Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles.
A Man In Black says they shouldn't because they haven't been shown in playable form yet, and have no releasedate. He links to this guideline as if a policy to strengthen his statement.
Most, if not all, other editors disagree with him. Both games are officially announced games, they're big games with a lot of buzz, and Umbrella Chronicles has somewhat of a releasedate (2007). There is no doubt whether or not they are official, whether or not they will be released, or whether or not they will be significant at it's release. They are part of the series, without a doubt. As such, there is no reason to exclude said games because they are yet unreleased.
Any ideas and feedback? JackSparrow Ninja 00:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at Template talk:CVG Navigation#Discussion about the CVG templates. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 03:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

wouldn't everyone here agree that the purpose of having wikipages for games not yet released it to make it easier to find accurate info on upcoming games. and if that is true then why make it hard to find a very useful and relevant page by not allowing them to be on nav boxes? Chardrc

This is an excellent point, and I would have to agree. Even though we shouldn't be willy nilly and updating every time someone farts at a gaming company, we can be reasonable with information we know readers are going to be looking for. -- Ned Scott 01:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ya so there should be like a reasonable guideline to pervert having a lot of links to stubs. but allows links to upcoming games with enough credible info to have a decent page about it. Chardrc

Not a guideline

This page doesn't seem to be "generally accepted" by most editors. In fact, there is constant warring over this "guideline" at many template pages. --- RockMFR 20:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Which is why I put up a {{Disputedtag}}. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 09:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, this is a very poor standard to have been set. This "guideline" has, more or less, entirely crippled what were once functional and useful navigation tools into things that appear to be completely beyond repair (or at least one advocate refuses to allow them to be). MarphyBlack 12:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a start, if even anything. For one, not all VG navboxes contain only information about the video games and their in-universe information. Some navboxes cross different forms of media, with almost no way of showing what media each row of links belongs to. This "guideline" needs a good going over and fixing up, at the least. -th1rt3en 23:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, but it shouldn't be enforced as a guideline when there's consensus against applying it. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. -th1rt3en 00:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've replaced the guideline tag with the proposed tag, as this page is clearly not "generally accepted among editors". Also, if there's a seperate template guideline for video game articles, why aren't there any for other subjects? And if video game templates are standardized, wouldn't that mean other navigational templates must be standardized as well? --TBCΦtalk? 09:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please open up some sort of centralized discussion and advertise it before changing the status of this page. I've seen a disputed tag, with no real ennumeration of what the dispute is, here. The discussion at Template talk:CVG Navigation is ongoing and hardly resolved, and the only point of contention seems to be whether upcoming games should be included. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Even if by one person, it is still disputed. JackSparrow Ninja 23:56, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hence the {{Disputed}} tag, which should probably somehow direct people to the actual conversation but I guess that's a technical issue.

I don't see a dispute over USING {{CVG Navigation}}, using non-breaking spaces, shortening game names for space's sake when necessary, omitting in-universe topics or making infoboxes specifically for them, etc. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um. Did you think I removed {{Disputed}}? I didn't; someone removed {{Guideline}} and I reverted that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe another point of contention is that a giant and ugly mix of seemingly random titles such as this isn't particularly helpful or useful when compared to something along the lines of this (I suppose the repeated "Resident Evil" titles could be removed, but this is just a past example, not the perfect candidate). The latter template far exceeds the former both in its functionality and aesthetic value by quite a wide margin. MarphyBlack 00:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, TBH, if that template were edited to conform with this guideline, it'd look like this. Not quite as ugly, mixed, or random. I'll admit sections work better when you're trying to cram a lot of links into a template, but if you have so many links you need sections, you probably have so many links you need multiple templates. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:15, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And this seems to be where the "What games should be included?" conundrum comes in (And I'm not talking about the unreleased game conundrum with all that "Does the game have a name? A release date? In playable form?" stuff, either. That's a whole other can of worms). To me, it seems that arbitrarily deciding that certain games in a game series are not worthy enough to be included in such a template is inherently POV. I see you have even removed the films as well. I can't particularly think of any reason why not to include the massively well-known and established films in the template, since at one time this template did cover the entire series (It's even in the template name). I think this is another ideal instance depicting just how far too narrow and useless these navboxes are being made (Incidentally, your most recent edit to this Resident Evil template does, quite literally, make it totally useless on the movie pages, like so. Doesn't make much sense that a video game-only template for the series would be appearing on the film's page). MarphyBlack 00:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any reason not to include the massively well-known and well-established films in a template. It doesn't have to be this template. Consider how the Mario and Sonic templates have been split; RE, the example in question, would probably benefit from the same division, and it wouldn't be any more arbitrary or POV than the sections you propose. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, I've gone ahead and split that template, fixing the links to templates in each article. This is an example of how these template should be split, and I've been negligent in fixing transclusions in the past. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait wait wait, the nav template used for the Resident Evil movie article doesn't contain a link to the game article... If you don't want to use nav templates, that's fine, but that is just stupid. Nav templates for things like this should be per topic, not per media. -- Ned Scott 04:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It has a link to the Resident Evil series page. What's it missing? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A guideline must receive consensus among the majority of the entire Wikipedian community, not just among CVG members. As such, I'm removing the guideline tag.--TBCΦtalk? 05:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, see my comments on Wikipedia_talk:Navigational_templates#Video_Game_Template_Discussion.--TBCΦtalk? 05:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see one single dissenting opinion there: yours. It's not unreasonable to form a consensus at WP:CVG for pages that fall under WP:CVG, especially when all interested editors were directed either there (or, later, to this guideline.

Again, before changing the status of this guideline, please form a centralized discussion somewhere (I don't care where) and finish that discussion. This isn't a looking-for-support proposal; this proposal had support at WP:CVG, and I still think it does. If you don't think it has broad support, we can gauge that support and either leave it as is or tag it {{rejected}}. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And even the discussions you keep linking to have no consensus. Thus, it is obviously not a guideline. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For crying out loud, MAKE A DISCUSSION SOMEWHERE AND FINISH THAT DISCUSSION. This is already labeled {{disputed}}, and it's not a proposal for a new practice; it's an existing practice. (Look at Category:Video game navigational boxes if you don't believe me.) It did have broad support at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/archive19#Navboxes yet again. I checked twice on talk to see if there were still any outstanding issues, and got only support (save for a disagreement with El Cid (talk · contribs), who proposed the final name/release date/playable form standard for upcoming games.) Now, if you don't think it should be current practice, or if you think it needs to be changed, or if you don't think it has consensus support any more, fine, but this isn't a proposal in any sense of the term. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not the one that's leading everyone all over the place, so don't look at me. I'm just following whenever someone leads somewhere else. And fine, if you say it's not a proposal, it's no way that it's a guideline. So either removed both completely, or leave the proposal one there. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This had consensus support. I believe it still does. You may disagree. THE WAY YOU RESOLVE THIS IS TO TAG IT DISPUTED AND OPEN A CENTRALIZED DISCUSSION. I've linked, repeatedly, to the discussion that led to the formation of this guideline, and I can link you to any number of cases where it has been implemented by any number of editors. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:01, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look at my last comment on the Comment section of this talk, where I clearly show what you linked to NOT HAVE CONSENSUS. And any other cases you cite is biased, because there's no way to tell that editors followed it only because you listed it as a guideline. Like I said, prove that there's consensus in the discussion you linked and I'll concede. You won't be able to. I went through it three times. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um. If you look in that discussion, nearly every point met with unanimous support. The only ones that didn't end up meeting with support were the color (which is adjustable in the final template) and excluding unreleased games (which was resolved later).

Now, I don't disagree that some of the parts of this guideline need to be reviewed, be it a renewal of the arguments and ratification of their results or a change in consensus. We've had a centralized discussion, though, and overturning the results of that discussion deserves at least as wide and as thorough a discussion, and to wait until the completion of that discussion. (Note that this wasn't tagged {{tl|guideline until months after that discussion was complete.)

In any event, tagging this as proposed is inappropriate, because it's not a proposal. It does largely describe current practice, and has been ratified through lengthy discussion. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

tagging it as guideline for even the style when the color isn't agreed upon isn't appropriate either. Nor is your constant reverting of the page. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WTF? Who's disagreeing about the color? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

at least for me the reason why i don't like ti was that it almost restricts too much. its a good idea but it goes to far on some points like upcoming games, and for example the half life game series's nav box used to have everything but was also organized so that it was all relevant and easy to use and find everything you needed. Chardrc

Please stop edit warring

Constant additions to the proposal category are screwing up the category watchlist Javascript. Discuss it. -Amarkov moo! 05:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sections in navboxes

(Starting note: since the other sections were getting long, I decided to make this new one). Why does it seem to be so bad to section templates off? I'm not asking for much. An example of a template that need sections: Resident Evil. For Resident Evil: main games, then spinoffs (or other games), and a section for characters and other articles. Calling the template "video games" and jamming the articles all together isn't helping alot. Then a section for films. I've seen versions of a template with these sections: and it looks fine (but has been reverted due to "standard appearance"). Comments? Thoughts? RobJ1981 06:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you seen how the template was split into multiple templates? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you in reference to Resident Evil or another game? I don't think I've seen it for Resident Evil. Or are you saying sectioning makes it look like multiple templates? (If that's the case): I still feel strongly a cluttered bulleted list in a template isn't helping to navigate. Even with the words "film" by the Resident Evil movies, it's still a jammed in cluttered mess. RobJ1981 06:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am referring to the Resident Evil template, which was split earlier this evening. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok my bad then. I checked it: I still don't agree with the listings of characters and creatures. They are related (and for the games): but wouldn't it make more sense to just have the complete name of the list article in the template? It's a space issue somewhat, but not a huge extra amount would be used. RobJ1981 06:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Be my guest. I don't know who started everyone doing that. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ya that was one of the big resons why i am against this guidline. for example the Half life series nav boxes had all the games important characters and other useful info that made it great. but now its just a clump of games at the bottom of the page that isn't all that useful.Chardrc 12:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Centralized discussion

This is going on in at least three different places, so let's focus. WT:CVG#Navboxes III: Son of Navboxes seems like as good a place as any (since it's visible and relevant), so let's all go there. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 07:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]