User:Thibbs/VIDEOGAMEDATES
If you have been directed to this page[edit]
If you received a note on your talk page asking you to see this page (or saw a note in an edit summary when your changes were reverted), it is because you made changes to an article of a type that has become a problem. Articles on pop-culture media topics like children's television programming, film, sports, and video games have attracted large numbers of changes to dates (and, in some cases, other numbers) without sources that back up the changes or explanations as to why the changes are being made.
What to do[edit]
Not to worry. If you were correcting wrong info, make the change again and include an edit summary explaining how you happen to know what the correct date/information is. If at all possible, please cite your source for the information.
What if I don't do that?[edit]
If you continue to make the changes without explaining why and/or giving your source, you will be blocked from editing.
Further explanation for anyone interested[edit]
For whatever reason(s) numerous IP editors have been making unsourced/unexplained changes to dates for various pop-culture media topics (frequently child-oriented media such as animated television shows, kids' music, and video games). When examined, the overwhelming majority of these changes have turned out to be incorrect. The editors in question typically do not provide sources or explanatory edit summaries, ignore all talk requests and continue until blocked. While it is certainly likely that there are fewer editors than there are IP addresses being used, the wide distribution of locations and dissimilar sets of targets seems to indicate there are several editors involved.
As noted, this affects mostly juvenile topics (Saturday morning cartoon shows, direct-to-video sequels to theater releases, educational video games, etc) and there is a good possibility that the editor making the change is a child who doesn't know how to use Wikipedia. In addition, many of the IP-based edits come from non-English-speaking countries so they may be unable to understand or reply to talk page comments. Mobile phone and tablet-based editors have also reported difficulties in using talk pages to communicate, and there are other disorders (often within the Autism spectrum) make communication difficult for some editors. Reliable sourcing for dates in these topic areas is often difficult to come by and good faith newcomers may have trouble with Wikipedia's concept of source reliability.
For all of these reasons it is my hope that tracking this a bit more closely will reveal some patterns that will allow us to address this issue more concretely. If you have any suggestions for how to handle this issue please feel free to contact me at my talk page.