User talk:Percy Snoodle/Archive 2

Barnstar

I Angelbo award you this Barnstar for your game and RPG related contributions

Angelbo 16:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Percy Snoodle 17:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Kill Doctor Lucky

Nice amends. Though I disagree with your "advertising" comment. I get no benefit from Cheapass :-( !! It's inexpensiveness is, I'd argue, intrinsic to the product. The whole purpose of Cheapass and their games is their inexpensiveness, as outlined in the company name. If they don't read the article on Cheapass, they still need to know it... and one word hardly seems excessive. Dweller 11:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I see your point.. advertising is the wrong word to have used - sorry, I should have assumed good faith. That said, I'm still not sure it's appropriate to say something's inexpensive, as it's a highly relative term and more of a vendor decision than something integral to the game. Also, Cheapass have a habit of bringing out more expensive full-colour versions. But I don't really mind. Percy Snoodle 11:27, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Your call. You're a heck of a lot more experienced than I. Dweller 11:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Series of books sorting

Here's the post I just wrote on the category's talk page: By using the "*" sortkey, all the sub-cats appear on the first page of the category; from what I gather, this makes it easier to find a sub-cat under which to file an article, as it appears the first time you access the category page. (You can also use a space, as in [[Category:Series of books| Foo series]].) There was some discussion about it at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization#Subcategories. If this annoys anyone, please revert it with impunity, and I plead obsessive compulsiveness. Cheers, ♥ Her Pegship♥ 15:43, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Responded; thanks. Percy Snoodle 08:53, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Categorizing stubs

Hi, when stub-sorting articles, please retain the non-stub categories. Per Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting guidelines, "No stub article should sit in only the stub category as this association is meant to be temporary. If no other category is listed, please add the standard article category that is the parent of the stub category." Thanks. --Muchness 14:26, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Will do. Percy Snoodle 16:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Game

Sorry for all the griping about Template:Infobox Game. Your formatting is growing on me after all and I may just leave it as is. I would like to restore the "=<bggid>" form though, for the reasons I mention in my post in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Games/Infobox. Thanks! AmbientArchitecture 22:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks for the note. Percy Snoodle 08:00, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it intentional that the line at the bottom only appears when footnotes are entered? It makes more sense to me that the line should be there whenever footnots or links to references are present (and that the liks to references should always be below it). Also I think things would look cleaner if "(more...)" was centered below the link to the BGG ID. AmbientArchitecture 02:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean about the line - it appears on every page, whether there are footnotes, BGG links, both or neither. Also, I think having "more" on its own line would be quite ugly. Percy Snoodle 09:54, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

In Internet Explorer, the line is absent unless a footnote is present. I agree about "more": more informative text would be better. Something like "additional references" would be better. AmbientArchitecture 11:41, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like IE's problem, then; the CSS is the same whether the footnotes are there or not. I'm not quite sure what you're agreeing with her - I think it should be "more", and I absolutely don't think it should have a line break. Percy Snoodle 13:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think IE minds. But the large number of people who use it might. Is it Wikipedia policy to target standard, regardless of how the result appears in IE, or to make things appear as intended to the widest audience?

AIUI, both - it tries to be standards-compliant to most browsers, but there are a number of IE fixes in the code; I guess this isn't covered by one, yet.

OK, if it's the policy is to leave the bugs in and wait for the code to catch and fix them, that's fine with me (and makes sense). AmbientArchitecture 15:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "(more)" I think you should experiment with alternatives. As it is now, you've made the internal cross-references only appear visible when a BBG ID is supplied. They should be independent (hence on separate lines) and logical peers (hence something like "Further references" would be more appropriate than "(more...)". AmbientArchitecture 14:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

An interesting idea.. I think when BGGID *is* supplied, it should use "more" - it's really not wasting extra lines on - but when it isn't perhaps a larger note is called for. Percy Snoodle 14:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. AmbientArchitecture 15:08, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, done. When bggxrefs is set but bggid isn't, you get "BoardGameGeek references"; when both are, you get "(more)". Percy Snoodle 15:23, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Carcassonne (board game) External Links

What's the reason for the change? It introduced duplicates and formatting errors, re-introduced an inaccurate subheading, and and put an incomplete rules summary before a complete one. AmbientArchitecture 20:37, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

The content you'd removed wasn't duplicates; it included links to the whole series and the record attempt. I put the rules summary back down the bottom because I was reverting your edit and that was how it was before. Percy Snoodle 09:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Carcassonne (board game) Video Games

Hi, I've noticed you removed from the "Video Games" section of Carcassonne a link to an implementation of the game. In the comment you mention the "unofficiality" of the implementation. Yes, so what? Note that I'm not at all the author of that implementation, but I'm a GNU/Linux user and that's the only GNU/Linux implementation of Carcassonne I've found so far. Leaving it linked there might benefit other users like me which are willing to play an electronic version of Carcassonne ... That's why I'm going to revert your removal. User:Zacchiro 17:50, 8 October 2007

There's a long discussion on this topic at Talk:Settlers of Catan. The summary is: even free games don't get to advertise here; Wikipedia is not an advertising host. If users want to search for software, they can do that at a software search site. Percy Snoodle 15:58, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

RPG

Hello... Why did you delete my lines ? :) Gylfi 15:21, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Most of them I moved to role-playing game, as the section in role-playing about RPGs is meant to be a brief summary. I then deleted the quotes because they were about fantasy, not role-playing. They'd be appropriate on that article, if you fancied adding them there.Percy Snoodle 16:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I've read your message and I thank you :) Tho if You really thought it helped understanding ,maybe You would have left it in the main article ;) just kidding o'course. Fantasy is considered by Hickman not only as middle age scenario but also Cyberpunk futuristic environment and any other time except Contemporary. and Tt just adds to the concept of morality into role-playing. Anyway the idea of keeping this concept as generic as possible being sort of crossroads of psychology ,therapy and politcs is definitely agreeable, I just hope neophytes will go look for the other link, the real one.... but for that You should put a link in the generic article. (forget it ,I found out there is one already) The only problem is that the complete "definitions ring" is harder to find than plain "roleplaying" , I think ? Lastly I hope You would add at least a short phrase in the main article pointing out to "ethics".

This one : -Roleplaying games deal with conflicts between good and evil so that morality is the real protagonist that leads the adventures : during a game players must face ethical dilemmas that modify their characters.-

Please see if You can find a spot ;) Gylfi 17:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

WotG

Howdy, Percy!

Brad Elliott here, the Developer/Co-Author of WotG.

Just wanted to request that you please don't trim my external links on the game-site - other RPGs have at least two, and some have more than mine - and each of the ex-links serve useful purposes. I know you mean well, but I like 'em!

But I know you're trying to be helpful, and appreciate the intent - and concede there's no such thing as a martial arts game category, at least not yet.

--BE.

Brad,

I'm afraid that other RPG articles doing things wrongly isn't an argument to do things wrongly yourself. As a compromise, I've tried putting them in in a different format - how's that for you?

As regards Martial arts RPG categories - I think it would be a good idea if there was one. Perhaps you would like to create and populate the category? Percy Snoodle 08:52, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

3rd Opinion

Hello - per your request on WP:3O, I have offered a 3rd opinion in the "German-style board game" matter. Please see User talk:AmbientArchitecture#Unacceptable_behaviour. Thanks --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 21:05, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Percy Snoodle 07:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 14:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Please help on Astronomy

Posted by →LzyGenius 11:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC) on behalf of the AID maintenance team.

RPG Theory

I'm sorry if I edited the RPG Theory site so much that it no longer deserved the RPG tag, previously it was a very short stub. Should I have gotten permission to use the RPG tag somehow? Bmorton3 18:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

{{RPG}} is intended for use only on those pages it links to. If you'd like it to link to RPG theory, it'd be a good idea to ask on its talk page. Percy Snoodle 06:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The RPG Theory page was created by someone else and used the RPG tag when I found it, although it also had a stub tag which I removed. Should it not have had the RPG tag beforehand, or did my expanding it from a stub change the situation?

It shouldn't have had it before. Thanks for your work expanding the article, by the way. Percy Snoodle 13:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused about roleplaying games vs role-playing games. I had the hyphens then I took them out, then you put them back in. There was a style guide on this at the RPG project, then it disappeared, then I found the fight about it on the RPG discussion board, and it looked to me like nothing approaching consensus. Is there a style guideline about this somewhere I couldn't find? Bmorton3 14:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

There was a long, drawn-out and ugly debate about the hyphen a month or so ago. It was decided - just - that the hyphens should stay. Percy Snoodle 14:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Game

I don't want to get myself in any more trouble, but Template:Infobox Game is now messed up. The font sizes are a mess and spacing and layout elements is all wrong. It looks like it should just be reverted to your last edit. AmbientArchitecture 02:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, good call. The game template category seems a good addidtion, so I'll preserve that; the rest of it I'll revert. Thanks. Percy Snoodle 06:32, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Things look right again. AmbientArchitecture 13:16, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry to bug you again (I'm not sure what to do about a case like this) but it seems that Down10 has again changed the design of Template:Infobox Game for the worse. AmbientArchitecture 20:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

"rv"

Please use more informative edit summaries than "rv". . Regardless of the qualityof the edit or the appropriateness of the reversion, for non-obvious cases, one's edit summaries should be clear and non-ambiguous; the more explanation and elicudation the better. Simply "rv", expecially for non-vandalism is confusing to newcomers and overly curt. Thanks.--SB | T 13:53, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Right you are. Percy Snoodle 14:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandals

Hey Percy, one of the other pages I'm working on is having persistant blatant vandalism problems (adding long strings of nonsense and profanity) and the antivandalbot only gets to some of them. I've started putting warning tags on the anonymous user's page, should I be telling someone about this, or does everybody try to fight vandalism on their own. I looked up Wikipedia:Vandalism but its pretty intimidating, is there some way to ask a more experienced vandalfighter for help? Bmorton3 18:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, as soon as I put a warning tag on the talk page of the anonymous user it stopped, and that user hasn't done anything anywhere since. Bmorton3 14:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Board games

Thank you for correcting some the duplicate categorization being added by one editor. I'm not going to be around myself much the next week, so I hope you will continue to keep an eye on it. The Board games category and subcats are a bit of a mess that need significant attention, but it would be nice if they weren't made any worse. :) 2005 18:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - and you're welcome. Percy Snoodle 18:49, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Reverting my edits

I'd like an explanation to why you keep reverting the edits that I make to Carcassone, which were in the vein of MOS-related changes: titles should be italicized, and lists should be made in actual list structures and not separate paragraphs. I believe that you also reverted out the treatment of princess tiles in the short blurb on The Princess and the Dragon in the article as well. Furthermore, to possibly aid in the expansion of the article, I added separate (red)links so that expansion of individual expansions (or new articles on individual spinoff games) could be added, in a manner similar to the expansions to The Settlers of Catan. kelvSYC 04:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted your edits because they place the game descriptions in block elements rather than inline elements, and so they can't flow around the images. While I agree the titles should be italicised, and apologise for removing the princess blurb, there was too much to change for me to preserve your content edits while reverting your format edits.

Regarding the bulleting of lists, I suggest you read Wikipedia:List guideline#Definition lists. I also suggest you read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), since you had wikilinked the games' release years.

It is probably best not to link to the expansions and spinoffs, as they aren't independently notable. Catan, as the first popular german-style board game is a special case, though it's not clear that its expansions are notable either. Percy Snoodle 08:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem with dls, on the other hand, is the notable lack of CSS formatting for dts, and that dl formatting is frequently abused for other purposes (after all, the colon-indentation is technically dl-abuse...), both of which reduce the effectiveness of their use and make it seem like the work is unpolished. (same thing as captions in tables). The existing dls are not exactly dl-conformant either - there is no colon separting the dl and the dd, and the entire thing is not in one line. The non-dl use is also far more common in WP: after all, votes on AFD use a similar style that we are technically not supposed to use.

There are other games on Wikipedia that are not independently notable - San Juan is not independently notable, it is notable as a card game version of Puerto Rico. The Settlers of Canaan is not notable by itself, it's a biblical Catan-spinoff. Computer and video games also typically have separate games for the base game and any expansions (StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War)

kelvSYC 14:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure we both mean the same thing by "independently notable", but I'd be happy to see all those articles you mention merged into their parent article. As regards the DLs - yeah, they're under-used. I think they're appropriate here, though. Incidentally, they don't have to be on one line, though it is recommended that the internal bit be indented, that may well run us back up against the block-element problem.

Would you be more comfortable with giving the expansions sub-sections? I could certainly live with that. Percy Snoodle 14:28, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The semicolon at the start of a line denotes a dt, and the colon at the start of a line denotes a dd (so this paragraph is a four-nested dl in dds), but IIRC the dd portion wasn't even marked as such. Minor formatting details, really. I'm starting to agree that dls are a better approach, but it will look better if we could actually get in default style rules.

"independently notable" - as in "notable in and of itself", ie. for its own reasons. StarCraft may be a bad example, both the base and the expansion have won awards in the CVG community, but San Juan is only notable as a card game adaptation of an award-winning game - San Juan itself did not win any notable awards by itself. Likewise, Candamir: The First Settlers or Elasund: The First City are neither notable independently, they are games based on the Catan franchise. (And what of the entirely fictional game The Meeples of Catan, I wonder...)

Having said that, at what point do you strike a balance between comprehensiveness and notability? I started articles on Starfarers of Catan and Starship Catan to improve comprehensiveness, but neither are notable on their own, having won no major awards to their own name and being loosely connected to Settlers. To improve comprehensiveness, perhaps the spinoff games should have their own articles.

Having said that, subsections for the expansions, as a middle ground, is probably a good consensus even if it is not ideal - after all, subsections imply some form of meaty content. How much meat could you say about, say, The River, for instance, without resorting to what is basically a treatment of the rules (if you consider that veggie)? In something like Cities and Knights of Catan, each new feature has its own section, in which some are meaty while others (actually, the majority) are not.

Another thought is that we do have Rules of Settlers of Catan which gives a treatment of the game with all of the expansions. While it might be against Wikipedia conventions (the rules of Monopoly were transferred to Wikibooks, then off elsewhere due to the new no game guide policy at WB), it may be the best way to give a treatment of the basic game and all expansions at once. This may allow us to fork out the spinoff games into their own articles, which can then have its own treatment of the rule differences, potentially leading to a comparison article.

This discussion certainly leads to a lot of things that may well have to be referred to by the at-large Wikipedia community - the rule treatment in Mahjong and Scrabble (both of which are lengthy and somewhat unwieldy) will definitely benefit from any consensus about this.

kelvSYC 03:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I'd say "independently notable" means. The question of notability is a long-standing one, and it would be very helpful for a set of game notability guiidelines to be drawn up. Perhaps we should look into getting Wikipedia:WikiProject Games restarted? Percy Snoodle 08:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Reviving the Games WikiProject

Reviving the games WP is a good idea, but I feel that the scope is too broad for its own good. Besides, this would imply that the project would have jurisdiction over CVGs, poker, and chess, each of which have their own WPs. Perhaps the scope should be narrowed down to, say, board games and non-TCGs? Wikipedia:WikiProject Board and table games and Wikipedia:WikiProject Card games could be a good starting point. kelvSYC 00:03, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what prompted the message above, but I'd love to see the Games project revived. We sure need something given that there is no central place to deal with the whole area. I initiated a WikiProject for gambling and stated as clear as possible that it didn't have "jurisdiction" or whatever you want to call it over the Wiki Poker project, even though poker articles are the bulk of the gambling articles in the encyclopedia. It is just meant to cover everything else. Likewise the Games project should not "meddle" with the Chess or Games projects, but should simply cover everything else that isn't covered. 2005 06:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed - a note on the scope of the project should be sufficient to disclaim responsibility for CVGs etc.. - that's how WP:RPG excludes CRPGs. Percy Snoodle 08:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Role-playing vs Role-Taking

Hey back when we were fighting all the RPG history and theory stuff, I mentioned the 1951 Sociology article on Role-playing vs Role-taking, and someone said they wanted to know what it said. Was that you? If not do you remember which page that request was made on, do you? Because I now have a copy of the article and can reply if I can find out who to reply too ... :) Bmorton3 17:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it was me :-) I wanted to know whether it made the distinction between things like Risk or CRPGs, where you play a role only in the sense that your seat has a name, and RPGs where you give a role characterisation. Percy Snoodle 18:09, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Sadly it's dumber than that, it is the distinction between performing a role in the sociological sense, as a behavior (acting out a role), and undertaking a role as a psychological or attitudinal move (with or without visible behaviours). What we call "role-playing" now, was then a third term "playing a role" which involves both behaviour and attitude. I've been charting the changes in terms like role-playing, and simulation game, and such from the 1920's to 1970's. One huge suprise for me were the descriptions of the "simulation game" genre between 1962 and 1968 (see especially Simulation Games in Learning), For example, in 1966, in one study, 220 4H members in groups of 8-11 sat around a table and played "The Disaster Game" a game in which there is a map of a small town and the players are given roles and character sheets and miniatures one the map. They move around the map trying to discover what has happened and help. They spend "energy points" to do things, and relieve "anxiety points" by achieving various goals. Their powers and goals depend on their character sheet. The first time they play, they are not allowed to communicate with each other, and their "role-play" is limited to moving their miniature and declaring various actions. Usually there is a road jam, switchboard failure etc. as everyone tries to find out info that no one has. The second time they play they are allowed to negotiate a disaster-preparedness plan before hand, and are encouraged to role-play the negotiations for the plan. There were dozens of games like this in the 60s including "Democracy," "Life Career," "High School" (which runs on self-esteem points), "Parent-Child", "Galapagos" (an evolution simulation game), "Adman" (A banking administration game for grad students) etc. There are dozens of researchers using these games too. They are squarely in the tabletop boardgame tradition, but consciously encorporate Diplomacy-style in-role freeform interactions. The researchers note than many player enjoy the role-playing aspects so much that they work on these and do a poor job of maximing their scores. I had thought that things like abstract conflict resolution, character sheets, and graded character leveling were all D&D innovations, but all are present over a decade earlier. Also by 1973, education folk are talking about "Role playing cases" which are what we would call larps, and involve assigning roles and goals to students and having them act them out informally without all the rules and props of the simulation games. All of this stuff is going in my OR, but I figured I'd tell you cause it's cool and I'm still excited. Bmorton3 19:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That is cool. Was D&D the first such game (with that style of ruleset) in which players were encouraged to work on characterisation over "winning"? Percy Snoodle 06:42, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Good question! I don't have access to these games yet, so I'm not certain. Certainly the 1973 "Role-playing cases" emphasized characterisation and learning from the results over "winning." Also I'm not certain when it is fair to say that D&D began to encourage "characterisation over winning" the issue is not clear in early D&D or in early Runequest, although M. A. R. Barker certainly emphasized it from 1975 on in the Tekumel stuff. The 1979 DMG, says that it is more important for the DM to reach various gamist goals than to help the players develop rich characterization (presenting varied challenges that have real costs and are slowly woven into the purpose of the world, see p. 110-2). According to Fine in the Simulation games you played a "role" not a "character" in the sense that you might be a policeman, or financial consultant, but name, hair color, idiosyncracies, etc. just weren't part of the play (position within the social structure was important, but not pure individuality). Bmorton3 14:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd separate "characterisation" from "learning" - If the purpose of a game is to learn, it's not really the same sort of thing as the modern RPG, where the purpose is to enjoy playing the charater. It's true that "characterisation over winning" wasn't what Gygax was going for - he just wanted a new type of wargame - but I think it was Arneson brought that to the table; note it says "more important", impying that characterisation is important, just less so. I like your destinction of "playing a role" and "playing a character" - in some ways it's a shame they didn't come to be known as Character-playing games. The point about position vs. individuality is exactly what I was getting at. Percy Snoodle 15:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Games have lots of purposes, and can have several while still being games. Chess is used for teaching, but is still a game. Scandinavians intergrate teaching into even straight-up LARPs and they don't cease to be larps. Just because the game master is trying to teach something among other goals, does not make something cease to be a game. Even modern RPGs have LOTS of purposes. Indeed mismatch between the purposes of different participants is a common problem. Arneson didn't really want characterization either, he wanted a rich fantasy world to imagine. The "roles" in the simulation games were more than "positions," being a policeman was different than being a switchboard operator, further how the "roles" fit into the overall social web, was one of the main points. The simulation game roles where a little more robust than mere position, but they sure weren't all the way to a complex individual. The Psychodrama tradition did portray robust individuals in their full complexity, and that was a big part of their appeal. Some of the early LARPs had pretty robust characterization, too. But yeah, early D&D was the first tabletop game to emphasize portraying a robust character, that I've found (unless you count Slobbovia as tabletop). Bmorton3 15:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

HEHE, It looks like one of my history of RPGs OR papers might wind up in Knutepunkt 2007! Yeah. Bmorton3 14:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Congratulations! Percy Snoodle 14:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Daldøs, tâb and sáhkku

Hi Percy, a while ago you posted this on talk:Daldøs:

Is Tâb related to the tables family of board games? Percy Snoodle 08:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

For your information, I have now written a short article on tâb, and also a stub on sáhkku, both based on a Danish board game book - not the best imaginable source, but I hope others can improve on these articles. Tâb has some remote similarities to backgammon etc., but linguistically, tâb and tables seem to be unrelated. - Where daldøs is fun to play with children, the rules of tâb as detailed in the article seem to make the game awfully complicated. But I haven't actually tried playing tâb... Anyway, thanks for your interest.--Niels Ø 11:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to me - and thanks for the articles. Percy Snoodle 11:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Confederation of Hackers

Confederation of Hackers is now undergoing a vote for deletion. Anton Mravcek 17:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Nin-Gonost

Thanks for having a look at that article. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 20:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Vandalizing

I thought this was not permitted in Wikipedia. I have fixed the following (some, a few times) from your vandalism, please stop vandalizing pages.

• Mirage Online
• vbGore
• Player Worlds
• Mirage Source
• Secrets of Mirage

Shannara

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at here. I did propose deletion of those articles, but ony because they don't seem to meet wikipedia's notability guidelines. I don't see how that's vandalism, but if you do, feel free to let me know. Percy Snoodle 20:47, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Time Cube AfD

As you noted, I removed your comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Time Cube (4th nomination). I'm terribly sorry about that. I certainly did not intent to do this, and I have no idea how it could have happened. Thanks for assuming good faith. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem - thanks for getting back to me on that. Percy Snoodle 07:10, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The 4th Coming restored

This article has been restored after its deletion was contested at Wikipedia:Deletion review. As you nominated the article to be deleted via WP:PROD, you may wish to nominate the article for a full deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:47, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

DDM

Regarding Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures....

Isn't there enough information to be put into a series of articles, rather than a single one?

The Ronin 13:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The individual sets don't pass any of the notability criteria, so it's better to keep the information in a single article, at least for now; otherwise, the information will just get deleted. Percy Snoodle 13:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok then. No problem. The Ronin 17:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Play by * and collaborative fiction

I noticed you started looking at the PbP article and that's good, it was a mess. But you took off the related articles section too without any discussion. I also think you should reconsider the New worlds article deletion in light of the information that was put up there. I know the article looks like self promotion but it just needs to be edited a lot to list more relevant material. I do not work for NWP, btw. I have my own game.

Fair enough. I'm waiting to see what happens with the deletion of NWP; it certainly seems very split.

While you're busy editing away at the general PbP article, please look at collaborative fiction and Interactive fiction. Those articles need a hard handed editor to merge them or change them from a link fest. I've started but you know guidelines better than me. Frugen 16:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a look; it's moving a bit outside my field of experience, but hopefully I can be of some help. Percy Snoodle 16:51, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Canon puncturing

I wasn't around when you redirected the canon-puncturing article to fourth wall, and I think there are important distinctions between the two concepts that should remain separate. Breaking the fourth wall entails characters recognizing themselves as fictional on some level; canon-puncturing is when characters accuse each other of being fictional but assert that they themselves are real. Canon puncturing contains many implications in RPGs that need to be analyzed on the canon-puncturing page and weren't because the page was relatively new (for instance, suspension of disbelief: if Andrew Wells were to meet Superman and either A) not recognize him, thus making Wells act completely out of character, or B) recognize him, and thus take the plot of the RPG somewhere it was never intended to go). I think the articles should remain separate; I've written some about it on Fourth Wall's talk page as well but I don't know if you saw it there/have that page on your watch list. I'd like to discuss this with you. Kimpire 13:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It's my feeling that, at least as the article stood, it wouldn't have passed a deletion nomination, and wouldn't ever have grown into a full article. As such, I think the information is better placed on fourth wall, even though it is a subtly different related concept, rather than being likely to be deleted entirely. I'd welcome an expansion of the topic on that page, though. Thanks for keeping me informed. Percy Snoodle 14:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I suppose if it gets expanded enough over time it could get spun off again into its own article. Constant evolution of articles and all that. I'll make a subsection and rewrite some of the information the article used to contain soon as I have a bit of time, which I don't have right now. Kimpire 11:40, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been thinking about it, and to be honest, I can't seem to do it. Canon-puncturing is so different from breaking the fourth wall; as I've said, breaking the fourth wall involves a character recognizing himself as fiction, whereas canon-puncturing involves two characters accusing each other of being fictional. As the fourth wall article stands, it's incorrect, because it states that the phenomenon is "also known as", which it isn't. I'm trying to figure out how to go into it without making it seem like the article isn't jumping topics entirely and, to be honest, I can't figure out how to do it. I really would prefer to revert the redirect unless you have a suggestion. Kimpire 21:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I've got it. The article is far more appropriate in "suspension of disbelief", under the heading of "related concepts". What do you think?

Go for it. Percy Snoodle 09:46, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Tainted poll?

Hi. Sorry to bother you. You participated in a television episode article naming poll which now lives at this location. Some feel that wording changes have compromised the results of that poll. If you don't mind, could you please take a look at what is there now and add a quick note at WT:TV-NC#Looking for anyone who objects to the last poll to say whether your feelings on the matter remain the same? Of course you can feel free to read over the entirety of both links for more information. Thanks. —Wknight94 (talk) 02:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Ignorance

Any chance you could inform me of the policies you referenced here? And what's "WRT"? — SeekerVI 07:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. Percy Snoodle 11:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! ^_^ - SeekerVI 18:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Strategy and complexity

You wrote: "Strategy and complexity violate WP:NOR. See talk". Which talk? I don't see it. A lot of article have that item populated. Dddstone 14:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, those items have been around for a long time, so they appear on a lot of pages. It was decided recently that since they weren't filled in according to anything stronger than the whim of the editor in question, they were in violation of the no original research policy. I was referring you to the talk page of the article in question, which in turn points to the original disussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games#how is rules complexity and strategy depth calculated?. Percy Snoodle 14:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Mind Games (Mensa)

Heya, thanks for your comment about renaming the Mind Games category. While you're at it, could you take a peek into the original page that spawned it? List of Mensa Select recipients There's a RFD-proposal, and I figure some of the gaming populace should take a look in. Thanks, samwaltz 20:33, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh yah, I meant to mention. I believe the image of the award on the relevant page is normally accepted by the Wikipedia gaming community. Check out:

• Deutscher Spiele Preis
• Spiel des Jahres

If there's no response by the end of the weekend, I'll put the pic. back up. samwaltz 16:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

On the prize page yes; on the category page no. In general content shouldn't go in a category page, but rather in an accompanying article. I've put it there. Percy Snoodle 16:51, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, okay, thanks! samwaltz 16:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Question concerning Game Guides

Hi Percy - I just have a quick question concerning a recent revision to the Emer page and the deletion of proposed sub-headings. Mainly just so I know for future reference as I try to develop the Shadow World page and its associated sub-pages. The text says that "wikipedia is not a game guide," but I was attempting to model SW on the way the Forgotten Realms page/category was set up, and provide information concerning locations, people, timelines, etc. What is the difference betwen that and the information provided on the various FR pages? (other then mine being a complete work-in-progress). Thanks in advance!

Oaxaca dan 20:45, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a good question. Frankly, I'm not sure the that all FR stuff belongs here on wikipedia rather than some other wiki; but I imagine that the people at Wikiproject Forgotten Realms would argue that the FOrgotten Realms are more noable than the Shadow World, and as such warrant a more thorough treatment here. Percy Snoodle 20:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Percy - and yes, I'm sure they would argue the same (because its true!), though its not necessarily consistent nor fair. Especially considering the number of sub-categories under Category:Campaign settings - D&D, FR, Warhammer, Freedom City, etc. - by which I was going to model the SW stuff. I don't really know where that leaves me, though... perhaps I'll have to abandon this dream to have an extensive SW project going. Anywho, thanks for your imput. Oaxaca dan 21:05, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Percy, another quick question, or perhaps a clarification (considering the page in question has been proposed for deletion, which I put an arguement against it on the page's discussion section) - It seems that the "wikipedia is not a game guide" rule pertains explicitly to video games - is there confusion, or is that rule implicitly applied to pen-and-paper rpg system settings? (which shadow world is - it has nothing to do with video games, a game walkthrough, or anything like that.). Thanks, Oaxaca dan 19:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the proposed deletion - I'd actually put it there in the first place, but missed out a pipe. The notice appeared when I fixed myprevious edit. You're entirely within your rights to remove the notice. Regarding WP:NOT, the rule applies to all games - CVGs, RPGs, and board games - but as you point out it's wording is strongly biased towards CVGs; I think that's indicative of a general bias on wikipedia towards computer games, which is probably inevitable given almost all users of wikipedia will have computers. Percy Snoodle 09:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Percy, thanks for the response - I think, within rpg's in general, if I were, for example, providing information concerning how to get through a certain dungeon, etc. (e.g., the sunless citadel), that that would certainly fall within the scope of the "not a gaming guide" umbrella. The page in question will concentrate on geography, history, and culture. Thanks for letting me know i can delete the warning - I was hesitant to do so, because I didn't want to step on anyone's toes, official or not. take care, Oaxaca dan 17:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Lines Of Action

Hi Percy Can you give me a quick rationale about removing the link I added to the Lines_of_action page? Many thanks Martin —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 135.196.50.210 (talk) 11:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC).

I removed your exlink to the computer game - along with the others - in line with the guidelines at WP:EL. Percy Snoodle 11:47, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Combat Storm

Hey Percy. What do you think of Combat Storm? Legitimate, notable miniatures game system or blatant self-promotion? Seems closer to the latter to me... -Jcbutler 03:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm - looking at its entry on BoardGameGeek, I see 0 plays, 0 ratings. Nothing in the article particularly establishes the game's notability. I'd prod it and go from there. Percy Snoodle 13:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Doctor Who

Hi Percy. I have partly undid your edit to Doctor Who. See the fan sites part of the topic's discussion page. The Web Guide is hosted at Outpost Gallifrey, and its inclusion at the foot of the page is to encourage other site owners to post their sites there rather than append them to the article. The Web Guide is sufficiently large and maintained to be considered a resource. --The Missing Hour 20:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I've moved the web guide up and removed the further links section - I don't think we should encourage site owners to post their sites anywhere. I'll continue this on the relevant talk page. Percy Snoodle 20:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

I Angelbo award you this Barnstar for your board and table-top game related contributions

Here is something for you, again you show the community that you are a well-versed contributer, so for all your contributions to game related articles on wikipedia. Regards -Angelbo 01:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, thanks again. I really must start giving some out - I keep meaning to but never getting round to it. Percy Snoodle 11:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Dune (board game) rv

Hi, can you explain why you removed the emulator category. Narco404 14:25, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is about a board game, not an emulator. Percy Snoodle 14:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Baphomet

Why'd you want to delete the article? Please explain, and I'll fix any errors in it —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Altazen (talk • contribs) 11:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

I don't think the subject meets wikipedia's notability criteria, and I think its inclusion violates the guideline that wikipedia is not a game guide. Sorry, I don't think that's an error you can fix. Percy Snoodle 12:06, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol. It doesn't seem like a game guide to me, since i didn't say how I kill Baphomet, but, what the heck. I'll delete it. How do you delete stuff here anyway? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Altazen (talk • contribs) 11:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

Just wait until Saturday - one of the admins will delete it then. Percy Snoodle 11:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

The correct syntax for DEFAULTSORT is {{DEFAULTSORT:sortkey}}

DEFAULTSORT is a magic word, not a template. For more info, see Help:Categories#Default sort key and Help:Magic words#Miscellany--DStoykov 22:07, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Right you are. Perhaps {{DEFAULTSORT}} ought not to exist, then? Percy Snoodle 12:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Martha Jones external link

Just so you're aware, the user who inserted the external link did comment that it should be reverted if there was disagreement - your edit summary of "sneaky" was a bit harsh!--Rambutan (talk) 15:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. I didn't mean it to be disparaging, but I can see how it could be taken that way and would be happy to apologise. Percy Snoodle 15:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

A Blurred Line

You tagged this article as a copyvio a short while ago. Actually, the site is a Wikipedia mirror, so they are using our content (with permission). Natalie 02:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Systems

Thank you for your contribution to Category:Systems in the past. There is currently a Call for Deletion for this category. If you would like to contribute to the discussion, you would be very welcome. In particular, if you would like to save this category, please add a Keep entry with your "signature" using "~~~~". Please do this soon if possible since the discussion period is very short. Thank you for your interest if you can contribute. Regards, Jonathan Bowen 18:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sea3d

Thanks for keeping me from looking unilateral. You may also want to chime in on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sea3d. Cheers! -- JHunterJ 11:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Will do; thanks for keeping me posted. Percy Snoodle 11:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

---

MORROW PAGE

who are you to detstroy all the fan links on the morrow project page? there are many pages with offical and unoffical links for game related material...

Cosmic Encounters References

Hi Percy, thanks for your comment on my adding the reference. I agree that inline references are better than general ones. Basically the story is I was hunting for references for other articles and didn't have time to fully integrate this reference to Cosmic Encounter at the time. However I felt it was a valuable reference that provides useful informatation about the game. In order to keep track of the reference and use it more fully at a latter time I could see four options:

1. Add it in as a general (non inline) reference.
2. Add it into a Further reading section
3. Add a note about it on the talk page
4. Write it down on a piee of paper - problem with this is is only for me, and someone else may have access to this mag and time to edit the article before me

As the review seemed to talk to several points in the article which currently had no references I choose option 1.

Mr Saxon

please stop reverting edits to Mr Saxon as he is now a proper character established in doctor who series 3 finale. --click here 09:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

No, he's been mentioned a few times and had two appearances in trailers. See also the other arguments on Talk:Story arcs in Doctor Who. Percy Snoodle 13:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

German-style board game removal

I wasn't the one who made the removal on German-style board game, but there was discussion about it on the talk page in support of the removal. I encourage you to join in the discussion on the talk page. The objection to that section was that someone believed it to be false and it had no sourcing. Thanks! Rdore 17:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Two paragraphs were removed - one about M:TG, which was false; and one about games like Bohnanza, which was true. I assumed the second paragraph had been removed in error and returned it. Percy Snoodle 18:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry

Oops, I shouldn't edit when I've had too little sleep. Sorry. Thinking it over most if not all of those video rpgs are going to be fantasy anyway so I guess there's no need for a fantasy video rpg category. If more video rpgs are released in other genres that may change. Instead I'll put them in Category:Fantasy video games T@nn 10:51, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Thanks for getting back to me! Percy Snoodle 10:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (board game)

Hello, you've made two edits to the page regarding parentheses, but I have trouble seeing what you've done from the page history. Could you highlight what changes you've made so I don't get it wrong again in the future? :) Oni no Akuma 07:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

My first edit removed the parenthesised section entirely, as I had originally thought they weren't needed. When I was checking the links to see if that had caused a double redirect, I noticed that there was another page with the same name but different case, so I moved it to a new page with a consistent case and a parenthesised part; but with the new parenthesised part matching other board game articles. So, overall, I changed "(boardgame)" to "(board game)", and "Curse of The Mummy's tomb" to "Curse of the Mummy's tomb". Hope that's clear. Percy Snoodle 08:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Thanks for the info. Oni no Akuma 08:54, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Question about rules lawyer

Yo, this is Shentino, wondering what was wrong with my edit. IMHO Dragon Magazine's point about DM's rule overriding factual error is worth including. I would like to discuss this in a civilized manner to avoid an edit war. May we?

No problem. While Dragon Magazine's point may indeed be worth making, I removed the section because of the way the article was phrased. As it stood, it sounded like the article was drawing conclusions of its own ("It is a safe conclusion that...") without making it clear which parts came from the magazine and which parts were the point-of-view of the editor. Further, it didn't provide a reference for the magazine article.

If the edit could be made in a less conversational tone, quoting the magazine in context without drawing conclusions of its own, and providing a reference, then I'd certainly consider it an excellent addition to the article. Percy Snoodle 13:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so instead of stating an opinion, I should just quote the article? It seems a bit awkward to just state the fact. How do I tie it into the article as a whole without making a conclusion?

You have to summarise without editorialising. There's some advice at WP:NPOV and the NPOV tutorial.

btw, what does "OR" mean? You used that in one of your edit comments and I was confused.

Sorry! I was referring to WP:OR, the rule which forbids original research, including drawing conclusions about referenced material. Percy Snoodle 06:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Ironwood Omnimedia

Hey Percy, I came across Ironwood Omnimedia in some research I was doing with a page I created and was wondering if someone should clean up those pages with references and external links.The only links are on the ironwood omnimedia, ruel knudson and e-rpg system wikis are either the company's official pages or a broken interview on what used to be rpgblog. I've been reading some afd's lately and seeing a real crack down on sourcing. As someone who's both in the wiki rpg project, and has edited these particular pages, maybe you could try to clean them up a little or find someone who wants to. Especially since Jim Adler (the page creator) only seems to have edits related to ironwood, I don't want it to look like a COI if these articles ever hit the chopping block.--Torchwood Who? 03:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)