Talk:List of GoldSrc mods
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Unreleased mods?
Is is O.K. to post unrelease mods? Danm36 16:18, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Other mods..
So I take it once a mod is released retail it's not considered a mod anymore? -- Kflorence 04:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
I guess so Danm36 16:17, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
It's a mod if it can't run standalone. If it can run standalone, then it's a game.
With Steam this is difficult to decide. You can for example purchase Counter-Strike without buying Half-Life. Steam will then download Half-Life (the game on which CS is based), but it won't allow you to play HL, only CS. This is because Steam has a content management system, controlling which software the user has access to. --Pizzahut2 19:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
There is still a strong concept of mods in Steam. The cited example of Counter-Strike has been stand-alone for a long time and I would not consider it to be a mod any more. However, I still think it should remain in the list due to it's origins as a mod and that it is probably one of the most significant, influential and popular mods. --AJanuary 10:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Azure Sheep?
What about azure sheep. good game. i played it.
Here are the awards:
- [ ten four ] Silver : http://tenfourmaps.telefragged.com/php/review.php?gameid=hl&levid=azure
- 3D Action Planet: Any way you look at it, Azure Sheep is a great, top notch, single player experience that any Half-Life fan should try out. If you are tired of all those single player episodes that are too easy, you have another thing coming : http://www.3dactionplanet.com/features/reviews/azuresheep/
- Hanger16.com: 5/5 , Gold Award. http://web.archive.org/web/20050530005344/www.hangar16.com/Features/Reviews/AS_revu.htm
Quite a few here: http://halflife.multiplayer.it/azuresheep/reviews.asp
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Brontos (talk • contribs) 16:39, 18 November 2006
Sounds good to me. --Pizzahut2 18:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Deletion logs of mods listed in the article
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pizzahut2 (talk • contribs) 11:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
To do list
- Adding the mods listed at Category:Half-Life mods.
- Somehow categorising the page, according to the current AfD discussion. (Any suggestions?)
- Writing a mod article for Sven Co-op.
--Pizzahut2 23:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
This might be good to know when editing the article: Wikipedia:List guideline#Purpose of lists --Pizzahut2 19:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I added the standard to-do list thing at the top. Hope that's OK --WikiSlasher 02:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Ehhh
You people are getting rid of a lot of mod pages. Uber555 12:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is very strict when it comes to notability, however deleting Sven Co-op was a bit over the top imho. --Pizzahut2 13:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
What the!?!?
Your deleting some of the greatest single player mods for some unknown reason. POV and Azure sheep are excellent finished hl1 mods so why delete them? 88.104.45.235 18:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
The reason for a deletion is given in the deletion log, see the links above.
- Azure Sheep: The deletion is the result of a discussion amongst Wikipedia editors, which can be viewed here.
- Point of View was deleted because no one contested a proposed deletion. The reason for the proposal was "Fails WP:V, WP:RS, WP:OR."
--Pizzahut2 19:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Those were the reason to be deleted the page. Cant they just be listed? (without a page) --Snewerl 10:00, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe, but wouldn't it be best to start adding mods everyone agrees with? That's the ones in the Category:Half-Life mods. --Pizzahut2 13:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Shouldnt the mods be added because of notability instead of agreing with? In Azure Sheep case, it was reviewed by the above sites and it was reviewed by a magazine also. Shouldnt that make for notability? Snewerl 20:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
They got removed from the list because someone thought they aren't notable enough. So instead of adding / removing / argueing, why not add the mods where everyone agrees they are notable first, and *then* add other mods or argue. --Pizzahut2 01:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Whatever. I gave up on trying to add/fix stuff in Wikipedia. It is wasted time. You try to do something and it is deleted just because some admin decides it. Waste of time. Snewerl 08:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Gunman Chronicles?
Gunman Chronicles is listed in Category:Half-Life mods, however I don't think it was ever released as a mod, so not sure if it should be in the list of Half-Life mods. --Pizzahut2 13:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
I would say it fits the wikipedia definition of a mod for all but made by the public, which I would contest with. Unless you can find another suitable name to give it (I'm sure there's one rattling about in the back of my head but I can't think of it) I would suggest it stays. --AJanuary 10:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
- Gunman Chronicles used the Half-Life engine, but it is not a mod because by definitions Half-Life mods (or total conversions, in Marathon parlance) require the original Half-Life game to run. It is a stand-alone game, and thus not a mod. If it is still listed I'm going to delete it. --Edwin Herdman 23:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a directory
This article concerns me, it seems to be a list of external links, but Wikipedia is WP:NOT a directory. I was going to go ahead and remove the entries with no article of their own, but saw that there are some references that attempt to assert notability for a few of these externally linked entries. Does anyone want to have a crack at making some proper articles for these entries before this list is cleaned up? Marasmusine 11:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree, mods without their own article should be deleted from the list, and same for the Half-Life 2 mods. If the mod is oh-so-notable, someone should go ahead and write an article and see if it lasts. --Pizzahut2 15:20, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Better, thanks. Marasmusine 15:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
- Notability is not a requirement for inclusion of information in an article. It only restricts the possible topics for articles themselves. 67.9.148.47 (talk) 18:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
- If a mod doesn't fully satisfy the general notability guideline, but otherwise has some other claim to importance, then go ahead and add it to the list. Verifiability policy still applies, so the entry will require citations from reliable, independent sources (so something other than press releases or user-submitted directory entries). Marasmusine (talk) 19:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Afraid of Monsters
http://mods.moddb.com/6145/Afraid-of-Monsters/ I want to add this to the article, because there's only one game in the horror category currently and this mod is more than worthy of attention, but I can only find a bit of "notability" on it. A google search for the name in quotes gets 60k hits and the creator got an award from Moddb for it. According to that google search it was already listed here but removed. I doubt the same standards of notability for articles apply to individual things inside a single article. I don't know, it's at least a s notable as the four mods listed under "Based on or related to the story of the original game", anyway. Anyone have a good reason not to mention it? 71.175.116.83 10:29, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- To avoid this list becoming a directory (per WP:NOT), entries ought to have their own article. To have an article, it needs to be notable, the guideline to which is here: WP:N. The important bit is: A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
- If the award is 'reliable', that is there is some editorial control over the way it is issued (and not just based on user-submitted votes) then I suppose you could have a go at making an article. Marasmusine 12:01, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
- This might help you, good luck. --Pizzahut2 12:27, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I think I'll start with your stub, pizzahut (which means I'll have to sign up an account on that wiki, something I've refused to do in months of editting here. Ironic! :P). Should be easy as cake to make sections on the monsters and effects used in the mod, the creator, the development, and the awards from moddb. 71.175.124.112 18:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
- I'll be glad to help, drop me a note if you go ahead with this. Marasmusine 19:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
So apparently I need to have a PC copy of HL2 and it's SDK in order to make an account on their wiki. I have HL2 DM and Lost Coast thanks to their latest ATI promotion, but that's it. Hm. I guess I'll have to spruce it up offline or something for now. 71.175.124.112 19:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Fair use rationale for Image:NS screenshot gorges hive.jpg
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/f7/Nuvola_apps_important.svg/70px-Nuvola_apps_important.svg.png)
Image:NS screenshot gorges hive.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Who the hell wrote this, a 6th grader?
"This excellent single-player mod trilogy begins..."
"A team oriented first person shooter mod, that was designed to be fast and furious."
"A team-based, tactical FPS that requires teamwork, and strong communication between players. This is probably the greatest Half-Life 1 mod that nobody has heard about. It is based strongly on realism. for example, you do not have a health bar, nor are you given information about how much ammo you have left. When you are reloading, rounds don't just magically transfer to another clip, if you didn't use them, you loose them."
Wow, these are astoundingly terrible descriptions. Extreme amounts of opinion and POV, and what seems like a bad advertising campaign for Hostile Intent. This is just amazing.
Not surprised though, this is probably a less visited article so not too many people will notice anything like that. I'd edit it if I knew anything about the games, but I'll leave that up to the pros.
Someone else please notice this for crying out loud. Vicious203 17:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
- This article needs constant maintainance to remove promotional material. You can help by removing promotional material where you see it, you don't need to know anything about the games. Marasmusine 19:12, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Hostile Intent
Hostile Intent is a mod. This is a list of mods. Thus, it is perfectly relevant. See the website: http://www.hostileintent.org/. It has a forum. There are 1000 members, and keep in mind not all players will use the forums. I'll create the article shortly, so hold your delete buttons until I do that. --Huo Ma Ke
- This is not a list of all Half-Life mods. Wikipedia is not a directory. All mods listed here should assert their notability, using independent references, like any other subject. If your article can show this, then add it to this list. Marasmusine 06:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
- THAT IS WHY I HATE YOU. I used this article as a reference! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.125.20.130 (talk) 19:32, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see any other mods using references to prove anything...but apparently, Wikipedia sucks a *lot* more than I thought it did, so I'm just gonna leave now.--Huo Ma Ke 12:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
- Challenge all unverified material wherever you see it. When I made my previous comment, I hadn't yet looked at the specific mod articles. I have now, and they are mostly all appalling. It's a shame you are leaving, when you could help whip this whole subject into shape. Marasmusine 16:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Did I miss something?
I was under the impression that video game modification articles aren't allowed. If it's not too much trouble, can someone fill me in on the current stance regarding modification articles? MastaFighta (talk) 02:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Afaik they are allowed if the mod is notable. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 20:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I see. Thank you for the reply. MastaFighta (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Paranoia / award
Paranoia got a Mod DB award (editors' choice 2007), not quite sure if it should be added and which category it is though. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 17:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Wanted!
Wanted! was originally bundled with the commercial (retail) version of Counter-Strike, see Counter-Strike#Sierra. According to an archive of the official website, it was reviewed in PCGamer UK and PlanetJeux. [1] It was reviewed at tenfourmaps, it didn't get an award though. [2] PHL content: featured mod, review by Jabberwocky featured mod, review by Stylez --Pizzahut2 (talk) 17:30, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
In reply to Operating's edit summary ("wanted was created and released by valve software, not a third party"): It was created by Maverick Developments (3rd party) and published by Sierra (as part of a bundle, see above). This bundle isn't available anymore. Apparently Valve was involved as well, since the archive of the website says that Maverick Developments had a contract with Valve. [3] As for the mods (Absolute Redemption and Wanted!), afaik they were originally free, then made commercial as part of the CS deal, and then they were made available again for download. The developer's website expired, but the official download place still exists, although it went through two name changes. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 18:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- It's notable. And nothing in your comment above changes that. It was a high quality mod, commercially produced and released with cs. Operating (talk) 12:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
- I meant the discussion located at #To-do: references. Sorry I should have given the exact location of the discussion in the edit summary. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 14:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Earth's Special Forces
I added Earth's Special Forces to the list. MastaFighta (talk) 13:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Why Was Earth's Special Forces Removed?
Since no explanation was given. MastaFighta (talk) 20:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
- Mods in this list should "be notable" (i.e. it should be possible to verify their notability using references in
eitherthe listorand in the mod's article) and ideally have their own article.Either waySuch mods should have references to reliable sources. If the mod has its own article,thesereferencescanshould be provided there as well. See Wikipedia:N#General notability guideline for definitions of notability, reliable sources etc. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 17:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)- Thanks for the reply. MastaFighta (talk) 14:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
To-do: references
Article needs references, so I'd suggest following: look in the mod articles for references, check which of them acknowledge the short descriptions in this article. Remove what is unsupported, or at least add a {{fact}} where no reference can be found. Example edit for Absolute Redemption. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 21:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
- Fixing Wanted! might be a good start - need to find a reference for its inclusion in the Counter-strike bundle and perhaps the redlink can be fixed with a redirect to a subsection in that game's main article. Marasmusine (talk) 21:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think it's not notable anymore because it's unavailable. Vivendi Universal, who bought Sierra, stopped publishing Valve titles after a legal battle, also affecting the CS bundle. The official website of the Wanted! mod is gone, too. The mod is mentioned in the article about Counter-Strike including a reference as well. Operating kept adding it to the article, so there is an edit dispute. You may want to review this and the next following three edits. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Oh yeah :> Zap it. Marasmusine (talk) 22:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
- Fixed (after zapping didn't work [4]). --Pizzahut2 (talk) 10:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
- I think it's not notable anymore because it's unavailable. Vivendi Universal, who bought Sierra, stopped publishing Valve titles after a legal battle, also affecting the CS bundle. The official website of the Wanted! mod is gone, too. The mod is mentioned in the article about Counter-Strike including a reference as well. Operating kept adding it to the article, so there is an edit dispute. You may want to review this and the next following three edits. --Pizzahut2 (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Merger proposal
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
- The result of this proposal is to redirect Amxmodx geronimo and AMX Mod X into List of Half-Life mods. First, lack of discussion indicates lack of opposition to said redirects, and both mods are almost identical to Poke646, which has just been redirected per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Poke646. MuZemike 23:52, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I propose that Amxmodx geronimo and AMX Mod X both be merged into List of Half-Life mods. I do not believe that either mod is able to establish notability as independent articles. However, the content can be easily placed here in the context of the list of mods. The plan would be to merge both into a new section of server mods. Please discuss below and indicate whether you support or oppose the merge. Thank you, MuZemike (talk) 22:11, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Sad but true / or how the whole "Wikipedia is not ___ " mentality killed it
By strictly (blindly ?) enforcing these rules on what should figure in the article, Wikipedia is completely missing the mods and their history, and the same applies to any "underground" culture, not selling t-shirt of its own references yet for hipsters.
There's an article on Counter-Strike only because it's one of the most played FPS in the world, the only criteria is the popularity.
- - -
"Wikipedia is not a directory". Oh well, with that skeletonish article, it's not a directory, it's a popularity certification website !
Seriously, if I want the top5/top10 most played mods, I don't need Wikipedia : such top list are everywhere online on hundreds of website. This is not the first article to suffer from that narrow-minded mentality : "I don't know it myself and the top 5 newspaper (NYT & similar) never made a paper on it, IT ISN'T NOTABLE ENOUGH FOR WIKIPEDIA = REJECTED, problem solved".
I saw this happens on more than 20 articles about mods, website dealing with mods, events dealing with mods. Wikipedia keeps on deleting everything, all the time. Despite the specialized press articles about their importance, despite the well-known awards, despite the amount of players that played them, despite the stand-alone commercial sequels which spawned from the original mod. Even the article with more than 5 Wikipedia important articles linking to it got deleted.
Same point all the time : "I don't know it, so it's not notable enough".
-
Some case are extremely funny : Wikipedia deleted several times an article about a community-base news website (= not living off advertisers = not classified as "notable" by Wikipedia standards). Then, after 4 or 5 years, that website grew so big it spawned other specialized websites, several projects, got several thousands visitors per day and was making cash. Suddenly, Wikipedia became perfectly okay with it, just by looking at the big numbers it changed everything. Of course, people from that website gave up on Wikipedia several years ago, so the article remains poor and inaccurate (a simple copy-pasta of the About section). Another victory for the "notability" criteria.
-
Another example : there's an article on Natural Selection 2 (because of the bazillions articles and awards it received, it's one of the most promising indie dev coming from the mod community), but Wikipedia repeatedly deleted any articles or additional informations regarding Gloom, the Quake II mod that spawned Natural Selection on Half-Life 1 (one of the most important mod of Half-Life 1, in terms of gameplay, graphics, level design, strong community)(funny to note Natural Selection was not accepted on that "list"... the game was such a success they made their own studio for the sequel and already sold (LOOK, THERE'S MONEY, IT MUST BE NOTABLE !) more than 20 000 pre-orders of the game - still not on the list, he he). The Gloom mod also spawned Tremulous, a Q3 Engine spiritual sequel to Gloom, still receiving updates and patches. But no, Gloom is still not notable enough.
What are the consequences ? People are living in TOTAL IGNORANCE : in the Youtube comments, on the blogs, on the forums, they're saying that Natural Selection is a rip-off of Tremulous, some say it's the other way around, some say we can't know, etc... All that ignorance, simply because some Wikipedia members refused to let the Gloom article exist, and the mod very chaotic development history (one of the reason of the existence of Tremulous and Natural Selection) doesn't help with that total lack of information.
Once again, only because the topic was the "game modifications", so most Wikipedia members don't know anything about it, an enormous part of the modding History was removed from Wikipedia.
-
All these articles on modding are now a total joke : there's AT LEAST 15 excellent singleplayer mods out there, that "list" only shows 3. Where is Paranoia, with its modified OpenGL that allows near-Source engine quality graphics and many exclusive new feature to HL1 modding ? Where are Azure Sheep and Poke646 ? And I'm not talking about the inter-linking desert created by that "CHASE THE NONE-NOTABLES" crazy witch-hunt.
Again, just look at Natural Selection 2 : not a single mention of Gloom and the Team Reaction devteam. So the concept of Natural Selection/Tremulous appeared all of a sudden, from nothing, by magic ?
Imagine a second an article about the Gaza trip without an article about the History of the state of Israël (especially in 1948/1950' era), an article about the USA without the American Civil War just because "it's too old and no one talks about it nowadays, it's not notable enough for the Wikipedia standards", or an article about the Internet without an article on the early dialup connections and BBS. This is EXACTLY what is happening with the "game modifications" : the early and extremely important projects and mods that shaped and are shaping the future of gaming for the next 10 years are discarded, only the latest "big hits" are kept on Wikipedia.
-
Also, that witch-hunt of the "not notable enough" is strongly against the art in video games. Many students or artists projects are made as "mini-mod", exploring a short but very original concept.
Of course, less than 50 000 people played these mods. Of course, these mods never reached the traditional newspapers - (because they don't care at all about new art form). And Wikipedia still refuse to talk about that art form, it wants to shut it down, "until" it become pretty useless to add it on Wikipedia : once everyone in the street is fully aware of it and there's enough documentations on mainstream medias to get that knowledge, Wikipedia role became very secondary : it's just a deposite of badly copy-pasted articles written by newspapers. Is that the objective of Wikipedia ?
-
I never thought Wikipedia could close itself to the outside world that much. I would have more chance to have an article on modding published in a generic newspaper running on ads money in their "Technology Art" section, rather than have an accurate article on Wikipedia. It's a shame.
-
Oh, and don't bring out the "rules are necessary, we have to deal with them, you can help us build a better article by discussing [ed: for months for a freaking mod addition]" BS again, it's written nowhere you have to enforce every single rule blindly like a crazy Inquisitor, even in civil law legal system the judge has to interpret the law, rules without conscience is a terrible error. Instead of adapting the rules for each case, you're using a set of necessary rules to turn a constructive elaboration of an article into a bad faith and hypocrisy contest to clean such articles, and I'm tired of such never-ending "debates", here just to dress up a respectable list of important Half-Life 1 mods.
-
So the complete list of important mods will be kept outside Wikipedia (I started doing mine, will complete it with 2 other bloggers I found using Google), on fans website, in the "underground" world, while Wikipedia will keep on spreading ignorance about mods with its inaccurate articles full of missing informations. Be assured I won't bother Wikipedia with that content, you'll never ever see a bit of it.
It's kinda sad that anyone wanting to get accurate informations will have to find former mod-players, digg the WebArchive database, simply because Wikipedia refuses game modifications.
-
Not true ?
=> "I was under the impression that video game modification articles aren't allowed" MastaFighta (talk) 02:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
If a passerby have the strong impression mods aren't even allowed, it might indicates the criteria are way too restrictive and hostile to that topic, nope ? think about it
-
The notability criteria was made to prevent anyone putting its own personal original content on Wikipedia (like their own garage band), in the case of mod it would be a "2 maps 3 reskins" mod. Sadly the zealots of article "cleaning" are using that rule to keep true masterpieces away from public knowledge...
Wikipedia, I am strongly disappointed :/ --88.177.158.231 (talk) 09:47, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- Thanks for your comments. Let's look at some of your specific claims, then I'll see if we can come to some arrangement about the mods you'd like to see written about here.
- "There's an article on Counter-Strike only because it's one of the most played FPS in the world, the only criteria is the popularity."
- No, there's an article on Counter-Strike because it has received significant coverage from multiple reliable publications.
- " "I don't know it myself and the top 5 newspaper (NYT & similar) never made a paper on it, IT ISN'T NOTABLE ENOUGH FOR WIKIPEDIA = REJECTED, problem solved".
- A straw-man argument. We don't ask for the top 5 newspapers. In the case of mods, any of the dozens of computer gaming print magazines or reliably published websites are sufficient.
- "Even the article with more than 5 Wikipedia important articles linking to it got deleted."
- If you feel this deletion was unjust, perhaps you can tell me what it was so I can look into it.
- "Some case are extremely funny."
- What article are you talking about? You say it's just a copy-paste of the website's "about" page, but also say its inaccurate, but also say that its "perfectly okay" and meets our notability guidelines. These three states are mutually exclusive. It would help if you can link to the article.
- "All that ignorance, simply because some Wikipedia members refused to let the Gloom article exist, and the mod very chaotic development history (one of the reason of the existence of Tremulous and Natural Selection) doesn't help with that total lack of information."
- You're saying that there is a lack of information about Gloom because Wikipedia doesn't have an article on it. I'm sorry, but that's not our burden. We don't have an article on Gloom because there's a lack of information about it. We are a tertiary source.
- "Imagine a second an article about the Gaza trip [sic]..."
- All the examples you mention here are not in the slightest a fair comparison. Each can be verified by thousands of high quality, independent sources.
- "And Wikipedia still refuse to talk about that art form, it wants to shut it down, "until" it become pretty useless to add it on Wikipedia : once everyone in the street is fully aware of it and there's enough documentations on mainstream medias to get that knowledge, Wikipedia role became very secondary : it's just a deposite of badly copy-pasted articles written by newspapers. Is that the objective of Wikipedia ?"
- So here I think is the crux of your misunderstanding. "Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe." - It's not required that "everyone in the street is fully aware of it", and yes our objective is to summarize material already printed in newspapers, books and other media. So by definition if a mini-mod has not been written about, then we don't write about it either.
- "I would have more chance to have an article on modding published in a generic newspaper running on ads money in their "Technology Art" section, rather than have an accurate article on Wikipedia. It's a shame."
- From what I've said above you'll hopefully be beginning to understand the difference between an article in a newspaper and an article in an encyclopedia.
- "So the complete list of important mods will be kept outside Wikipedia"
- That's a good idea, since we are a general purpose encyclopedia, not a specialist one. I've done the same myself with a list of Chaos remakes.
- "The notability criteria was made to prevent anyone putting its own personal original content on Wikipedia"
- No, the No original research policy was made to prevent that. The notability guideline was made as a filter to determine if a topic merits its own article.
- Finally, I'll offer to look into any particular mod you feel should be written about here. You mentioned Paranoia, Azure Sheep and Poke646. Link to me the best secondary sources and I'll do what I can. Marasmusine (talk) 13:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
- The lack of a reply for your comments should give you a idea of what is happening about Wikipedia and MODs: NO ONE CARES ANYMORE
- Wikipedia and their moderators managed to kill the interest of all the potential MOD related content writers. snewerl (talk) 14:40, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- Or, reliable publications don't care enough about the these mods for us to include them. Marasmusine (talk) 18:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- NO ONE CARES ABOUT WIKIPEDIA AND THE MODS NOT BEING LISTED HERE ANYMORE, more clear now? ;) snewerl (talk) 13:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
- Got it. No-one cares about the unnotable, unverifiable mods not being listed. Good. Everything is in accord, then. Marasmusine (talk) 13:43, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
- lol, whatever, your replies only shows what the original author of this entry was talking about snewerl (talk) 15:30, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
- Got it. No-one cares about the unnotable, unverifiable mods not being listed. Good. Everything is in accord, then. Marasmusine (talk) 13:43, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
- NO ONE CARES ABOUT WIKIPEDIA AND THE MODS NOT BEING LISTED HERE ANYMORE, more clear now? ;) snewerl (talk) 13:42, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
- Or, reliable publications don't care enough about the these mods for us to include them. Marasmusine (talk) 18:39, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
- ...
- Why mods can not be notable:
- I am the original author (88.177.158.231) of the "wall of text" (wrote that entry almost 1 years ago :D), after I didn't found informations on tons of mods and found out (and THAT made me mad, felt like being truly betrayed, a real stab in the back, like you rarely feels like) that such information EXISTED and were OFTEN MORE COMPLETE on Wikipedia (small personal website being rarely saved by WebArchives), when a ex-developer or a ex-player took several hours to dig through his memories, contact other ancient devs and players to verify his information, and provided us some invaluable information about that important mod. And Wikipedia killed that information, undone that effort, burned that book.
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- I do hope the people who deleted such contents didn't knew what they were deleting, otherwise it would scare the hell of me, seeing such modern destruction, the library of Alexandria all over again.
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- Now, I can hear you from miles away : HOW IS THAT IMPORTANT AND NOTABLE FOR WIKIPEDIA ?
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- To answer that question, I'll have to explain what were mods inside the gaming landscape ("were" => they're basically dead right now, with less than 50k downloads in 2011 for any of the top ModDB mods that's pretty clear) and how they were propagating, regarding the content creators and the content users.
- You can skip the whole thing if you already know moding was a small underground phenomenon (and therefore, can't become notable enough to meet Wikipedia current criteria).
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- There was a minority of people capable of developing various elements (code, arts, models, maps, etc), some task (like coding) having only a handful of members, while other task had a much bigger communities (like mapping). Many of them ended up getting IT-related jobs, and some of them ended up being full-time game developers. The important part is : people CREATING content were a SMALL community (nb: there wasn't much true mappers), many of them worked on several projects and "knew" where to contact each others. It STAYED a small community and NEVER reached a size big enough to affect "common people". "Mod developer" isn't in the list of recognized social roles of adolescents and young adults.
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- The creation was driven by creativity, curiosity and experimentation. It wasn't driven by money, fame or power.
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- => Modders never reached "super-star" status, 99% of Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike:Source players don't know who is "Minh Le" (protip : he co-created CS with Jess Cliffe, worked on CSS at Valve) even after the "big" news regarding his new game in development, or who is Jess Cliffe (protip : he co-created CS with Minh Le). Modders stayed in the shadows because they never wanted fame, and this is EXACTLY why modding worked and was what it was. Modding with fame/money/power wouldn't have worked. Modding ISN'T compatible with money/fame/power.
- => Then, if modding isn't compatible with money/fame/power, how this UNIQUE art form, can be featured in this encyclopedia ?
- => Does Wikipedia has a special procedure for covering topics that aren't driven by money/fame/power ?
- -
- Now, regarding the players (or users) of the mods. 2 points : first propagation happened without the traditional medias, second users weren't "generic" users.
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- 1) Traditional medias weren't covering that kind of activity, as it wasn't driven by fame/power/money (and traditional medias only cover famous topics to get more viewers/readers, events related to power to inform people interested in power, and money to inform people interested in money, aka "investing"). So mods had to spread through different channels : they were spreading through direct friends of developers first, then their closest community (a forum, an IRC channel, etc), then a gaming-modding community (often news websites, formed around wannabe-mappers), and of course word-of-mouth (most of us started playing mods through this). It remained a socially-based propagation.
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- All these activites were vastly opaque to the rest of traditional medias : when a TV featured a mod in its broadcast, any mod player who could do it would capture the video and post it online ("hey guys, *name-of-the-mod* made it on TV !! at 1:36, for 2 sec you can see the Light class with a SMG! cool :D"), same with movies, radio or newspaper. Very rarely, some specialized magazines sometime made an effort and added a 50-words max entry in their "Various News" part, next to "nVidia could be transfering its production to Malaysia" and "Savefile Editor 0.3.5 for *someRPG* available!", and that was the ultimate consecration any mod developers would dream of. Counter-Strike made it "outside" and reached traditional medias because of its insane popularity, the other mods just stayed "inside".
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- 2) Users playing mods weren't "average" users. Even technically, it required some dedication : it was when not everyone had an Internet connection, when most Internet connection weren't unlimited (in hours/in bandwidth), when most Internet connection were dial-up (theoretical maximum of 56 kbit/s, which mean being closer to 20-30 kb/s), when HDD were smaller than 200 Go, when most people didn't knew a game could have updates (aka patches), when Steam didn't existed, when Google wasn't even the most used search engine.
- ° To get online information, you had to spend hours convincing parents/working to pay the bill/looking for an Internet access (friends, library, town hall, etc) for an Internet access, spend hours setting up your connection (if you were a lucky kid with Internet at home), spend hours searching for the information, and for all the non-americans/non-english users, learn English all by yourself (in my case, I used an enormous bilingual dictionary me and my brother finally got for Christmas). To get word-of-mouth information, you had to find friends who were playing video games on a PC, online (= they had Internet access).
- ° To get a gaming PC, you either had to be rich (and you would buy the most expensive rig), or be a member of the middle-class + find someone who could help you out with the components choice. In my case, my father bought several hardware magazines, spend hours reading through them, and once he thought he knew enough, went to a local computer shop and spend the equivalent of 1999's $2500 (we agreed it was for the christmas and birthday of me and my brother), and got us an aDSL Internet access (we were in one of the first town to get aDSL). I spent months trying to fix the frequent desynchronization of that dodgy 256k modem, screaming at the bugged drivers, the undocumented bugs, etc.
- ° To get the actual files for the mod, you had to find a working download link (which wasn't that easy), that wasn't overloaded, as modders weren't earning cash so hosting was a serious topic to consider.
- ° Also, your connection had to stay up for the whole download (download managers weren't used by the vast majority of people, I don't even know when they actually appeared online).
- ° And it took a while to actually download the file (I still remember one Day of Defeat installer weighting an amazing 476 mb, MORE THAN HALF A CD !). Many of my gaming friends would come to my house to get the files (same with videos and mp3s), and I would burn these files on CDs (I still have them btw ;) ).
- ° Then, you had to know which was the latest version. The big 0.96 you just downloaded is enough ? Or you need to patch it to 0.97 ? Then 0.97a ? or is it 0.97c ? Check the forums/websites, see if you need to change specific settings to launch it.
- ° Then download the latest patches.
- ° Then "install" them if you were lucky this time... Most of the time you would need to replace the files yourself, sometime even editing some existing files yourself.
- Sounds easy ?
- It isn't, most people are STILL not playing on PCs because you sometime need to do some tweaking, and back then most people weren't playing mods because of this. This is EXACTLY why Steam* was created : Counter-Strike devs (after joining Valve) wanted to release updates more often, and noticed the playerbase took a serious hit at each updates (only to slowly climb back and start to grow again), so they worked on Steam. That project then joined the modern-DRM and the self-publishing projects that were floating around the Valve offices.
- * nb : Steam IS notable, 70% of worldwide digital gaming distribution, more than 35% of ENTIRE worldwide gaming distribution, just look at all the money they're making, all the awards and papers Gaben got for it.
- ° Then, you had to launch the mod, and find when people were playing it (with 100 players in the world, you need to find when people are together online). And some players had to pay, set up and fix when bugged all the servers, even if it was perhaps going to be wasted money, with no one showing up, or only once a month (most admins would tell you that even one night is enough if it was a great night).
- ° And of course, you had to deal with the few bugs here and there.
- ° And of course, you had to deal with steep learning curve.
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- Playing mods was an activity for the passionates, you couldn't try it like you try ice-cream, you needed to completely dive into it to finally understand it after spending several weeks in it.
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- That being said, it seems that it's nearly impossible for mods to become "notable" : their creators aren't famous/powerful/rich, and their users are a small community of passionates who couldn't talk about such topics with other "normal" people => how can you talk about modifying the game's files, when people don't even understand the concepts of HDD and files ? now add Internet to the equation, they looked at the ceiling and labelled you "that computer nerd", or immediately said "IT'S ILLEGAL DONT DO THAT YOU'LL GO TO JAIL!" (heard that a LOT).
- That's why journalists, politics, artists and anyone with responsabilities (= older than 25 years old) never heard of mods. They were too old or too busy to be part of the modding community or to hear about it from mods players/devs.
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- Mods not being notable by nature (notability being often an unexpected collateral consequences, like with Counter-Strike), how Wikipedia, being an encyclopedia, plan to cover that kind of topic ?
- Does Wikipedia automatically exclude topics if they don't meet its criteria ? without thinking about its criteria in the first place ? without thinking about implementing new amendments and exceptions ?
- If Wikipedia can not tolerate non-notability, all mods (who never became retail products) should be removed from Wikipedia immediately (if it isn't the case already).
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- I would have only 2 counterarguments :
- 1) If Wikipedia is the only place where some information could subsist, wouldn't a "Preservation of Information" rule apply ? It would have its own sub-criteria of course, but it would be a presumption of preservation, instead of the presumption of deletion as it is right now.
- Modding informations, testimonies and history don't have a single repository, Wikipedia is the ONLY place all mod devs and players know and are frequenting from time to time. We don't ask Wikipedia to host files, videos or even screenshots, even if that would greatly improve the articles, we're just asking for a maximum of 500 text articles (of less than 2 pages for 90% of them), to keep track of all mods, their histories and their creators. And since only gaming historians and ex-devs/ex-players would visit these pages, that wouldn't require a lot of bandwidth. Is that too much to ask ?
- Meanwhile, any specy of mushrooms or mosquito get its own article and its HD photos since their passionates have access to traditional medias. I wonder what would happen if a member of an unknown tribe try to create an article on their language or religious beliefs before all that knowledge is lost (as modern civilisation is taking over), and Wikipedia decides to delete that content, because, you know, no Western citizen with an access to traditional medias (and/or high recognized social status in the ethnology community) one came in time to certificate these "savages" existed and had their own beliefs before everything disappeared, so suddenly it's notable enough.
- Regarding the modding community, it seems we are these "savages", and no Western citizen with an access to traditional medias came in time to certify we existed before modding died.
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- 2) Even if a topic isn't notable enough, doesn't a "the Few that mattered" rule could a apply ?
- Even if modding never reached the mass-media and the entire population, doesn't the fact that it reached many future game developers and many of the most passionates gamers matters ?
- Many mods deeply influenced later big budget commercial games and the video game entertainment industry as a whole, it modernized old gamedesign concepts and brought many new ones, as long as providing a starting base for the independent developers recent growth, both in terms of creativity and audience (many indies began as mods, or were developed in the same way mods were developed few years ago - many modding news websites moved to indies, same with playerbases).
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- The same happened in ALL music genres, with some relatively unknown pioneers greatly influencing future worldwide superstars, with some unknown-at-that-time bars/music venues were all the future "greatest" musicians met and played frequently before becoming famous, with some passionates using what they experienced at that time at these places in later musical works in very different musical genres.
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- Axing that part of the story not only destroy some informations, it's also destroying relevant informations, it's preventing other notable informations from making any sense.
- You can't understand an era, History or a culture by simply looking at the "notable" informations, it's reducing knowledge to its most superficial form, you're only looking at the tip of the iceberg, leaving anyone interested in that topic completely clueless about what's under the sea/notability level.
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- Mods are an important part of gaming (in terms of multiplayer, creativity and gamedesign), it's also an major part of the user-generated content concept (entire games created by "users", that sometime ended up being very successful commercial products), that's why I think there should be amendments regarding such topics which can't meet notability criteria.
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- It's discriminating some topics because of their nature, not because of their lack of importance in their field.
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- And it's a shame Wikipedia runs a presumption of guilt rather than a presumption of innocence.
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- I thought Wikipedia was asking for contributors, not deleters.
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- Sadly, Wikipedia doesn't meet my notability criteria to get my donations, contributions or recommendations.
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- Wikipedia was sterilized, and sadly I am one of those person fixing computers and helping out everyone with their technology problems, and when they ask me about Wikipedia, I have to say what I truly believe : it's great for starting your homework (before university) or checking some facts (birth/death/construction/invention/creation of something or someone popular), useless for the rest.
- Scientifically it just doesn't work (short useless articles, few okay articles, empty articles, or crazy conflicting theories battles), historically it's very random (and many topics are just edit-wars), anything that has to do with culture, sociology, psychology is just a edit-battlefield where everyone is throwing his own opinion in Discussion, while the article is an empty shell.
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- And if you want to change ANYTHING on Wikipedia, be it rules or even a small article, you'll have to spend months, if not years, waging a war against your enemies, plotting against them, trying to push them far enough so they cross the line (insults, rage-filled rants, abuses of power), crushing the weaker ones, making alliances with other Wikipedians (and backstabbing them at the right moment), while trying to seduce the n+1 (and higher) Wikipedia officers, to finally impose your POV.
- I don't have the time nor the nerves to do such thing, my real life is already like this and I don't need to do the same online.
- And it's the same for all other mods devs and players, they won't do that, because they are a specific type of people (at least, online) that won't impose themselves on others (you needed that characteristic to play mods, as it required a special effort of everyone to get things working, leaving the ego at the door).
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- That's why I won't call for an edit crusade on ModDB or Planetphillip, and if even I would did such thing, less than 10 people would join me.
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- This is why we're not on Wikipedia : we don't bite - at least not enough for wikipedia's standards.
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- QFT : "Wikipedia and their moderators managed to kill the interest of all the potential MOD related content writers." (snewerl, 16 June 2011)
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- --88.177.158.231 (talk) 06:31, 31 December 2011 (UTC)