Some cookies to welcome you! :DWelcome to Wikipedia, Mynameisnotpj! I am Collectonian and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time. I just wanted to say hi and welcome you to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page or by typing {{helpme}} at the bottom of this page. I love to help new users, so don't be afraid to leave a message! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Oh yeah, I almost forgot, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); that should automatically produce your username and the date after your post. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome! Collectonian (talk) 03:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed you are running two years behind. I think you had about 3-4 of these mistakes as I remember the category being as low as 66. But you were not using edit summaries, so I can't pick out which edits were adding {{cleanup}}.--BirgitteSB 03:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I should have said something. I just moved those from the Talk pages to the article page.
That would explain it too! Sorry for changing it around.--BirgitteSB 04:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That was completely my fault. Next time I will try to remember to write the explanation in the edit summaries.
Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from List of Mario series characters. When removing text, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the text has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Wario has a main page, and is a character from the Mario series so the deletion of that section was inappropriate.AnnaJGrant (talk) 16:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another editor has added the {{prod}} template to the article List of podracers, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 04:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I notice that earlier today, you changed this redirect to point to Rome instead of Romans. I feel this is unhelpful, and have reverted it. A redirect should take someone to the page most relevant to their search term; and if someone typed in 'The Romans', I think Romans would be a more logical place to send them than Rome. If you disagree, please comment on my talk page. Terraxos (talk) 22:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there has been some talk about changing how the parent categories are used, but todate there has not been any concensus on including articles in both the child and parent categories. This can clearly be seen in the following facts:
I reverted your reversion here [1]. The edit looks quite inocent to me, just a standard notification that he closed the deletion debate. I also think that his closing of the debate was correct. --Enric Naval (talk) 03:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ok, I'll correct the link now. It's just a matter of having "(2nd nomination)" at the end --Enric Naval (talk) 03:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just used the page param to add the correct name [2] --Enric Naval (talk) 03:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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I notice you have been using a disambiguation tool to bypass random redirects all over the place. Have you read WP:R#NOTBROKEN? In particular, the redirects you bypassed here could be argued to be "possible future articles", as unlikely as that may seem at the moment. Anomie⚔ 02:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your changes are being reverted by a nuisance[edit]
Hi, The changes you made to Humane Society using wiki cleaner recently have been reverted by Special:Contributions/99.243.234.169 who seems to have a problem with the US being called the USA for some reason. Looking at this users contributions s/he seems to be an all-round nuisance on a mission. I'm not quite sure what to do about it myself but thought you may have some idea what can be done. Richerman (talk) 16:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted your edits on Freestone because they were not in compliance with WP:MOSDAB. Guidelines for disambiguation pages are somewhat different than for articles. I noticed that your edits tend to be clean-up related, so I thought you might appreciate the explanation. I do a lot of disambiguation work, so if you have any questions about how to format disambiguation pages, feel free to ask me on my user page.
Hello. I nominated the article above you worked on for deletion. If you wanna give your opinion on the matter, you should do it ASAP. Happy wiki-ing! :3 ZeroGiga (talk) 08:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Development content is very important to include in an encyclopedic video game article. It provides a history of how the game came to be and provides real world information needed for an article to claim comprehensiveness. However, writing this section can be difficult because the amount and type of information available will vary for each game. One of the best sources for such information is a developer interview. These can provide insight into the thought process of the designers and give examples of influences and obstacles encountered. Previews can also be helpful by giving a snap shot of the game before it was released and may mention development issues that were still being addressed.
When writing about development, common sense should be used to organize content to maintain a sense of flow for the reader. Most times, it is best to give the information in a somewhat chronological order—though information can also be grouped by topics like audio, promotion, graphics, etc. If one such topic gets large enough, it can be split off into its own subsection or regular section. For example, Kingdom Hearts#Audio is a separate section from the rest of the development information because it focuses on the game's musical score and voice acting. Portal (video game)#Soundtrack, however, does not have as much content and is a subsection of the main development section.
What to include about development
Who are the developers? Which company or studio developed the game, and are there any prominent designers involved?
When did development begin?
When and where was the game first announced? (e.g. Tokyo Game Show, E3 Media and Business Summit, etc.)
What influenced the game's story, characters, music, and/or gameplay ? (e.g. past games, movies, books, etc.)
Were there any delays?
Was anything excluded because of time or technological constraints? (e.g. extra levels, game modes, characters, story arcs, etc.)
Things to remember
Avoid proseline. Though maintaining a sense to chronology is important, this section should not read like an ordered list of events.
Images in this section should be relevant to the information given and should add on to it.
Source everything to avoid information being tagged as original research.
Hi, and I hope that you have been taking to editing. I noticed that you called for the deletion of Sosiaalisesti rajoittuneet because covering a non-English webcomic here "makes absolutely no sense," and am here to convince you otherwise. Since that was some time ago, can I ask if you still hold the same opinion? --Kizor 13:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It has never (as far as I know, since it is not on the article) been translated into English.
There are no English sources. There may be Finnish sources, but seeing as this is not the Finnish wiki, they are pretty much useless. An article must prove notability in the language of the wiki.
Hopefully that will help you a little in understanding my argument. I was giving editors a chance to look for sources, but it seems that all of them are in Finnish. I am going to recommend the article for deletion within a few days, if none can be found. Thank you. Mynameisnotpj (talk) 02:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well that was deeply unpleasant. Thank you for your patience. And yes, that did make clear that you're after proper citations and not tightening our scope to exclude non-English topics. That's a reasonable concern, but as much as I don't have the wisdom to show for it I'm older than dirt on this website and haven't seen the language of references carry a deletion. Since you're a Wikipedia editor you presumably would not be satisfied with a merely practical answer, so I looked deeper into the principles.
There's nothing that I could find in our barrel-o-rules about excluding non-English references. WP:OR, WP:V and WP:NPOV (the core principles - the ends rather than the means) have one section about non-English, WP:N (which is not a core principle but #¤%& well tends to be used like one by its fans) is silent. V's said section specifies that non-English sources should be replaced by English ones when there's no drop in quality, and that controversial material or direct quotes should be translated, both "for the convenience of our readers." There's no mention of non-English sources being limited, supplemental, inferior or in any way not equal to English ones other than inconvencience. This seems to reflect our practices, too.
As for why this is, rejecting non-English sources altogether (WP:V) would be disastrous to our coverage of history, archeology, customs, geography, food, festivals, et cetera et cetera. Rejecting them for notability... well, WP:N is a yardstick for being significant enough to include. Wouldn't restricting it to English media create an enormous bias in favor of Western media - and Western art and science? (They do things with robots in Japan that'd make our eyes fall out.) The recent Finnish campaign funding scandal caused a massive furor and calls for the Prime Minister's resignation, but it has next to no international news value. A development in, I don't know, Tonga, might be a significant yardstick in the country's history but pass unnoticed by CNN and pals. Why?
To ramble further the English Wikipedia is "the" Wikipedia: by far the oldest, the most comprehensive, the most popular and certainly the most stuck-up of them all. Most of en.wiki's traffic comes from outside the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, South Africa and Australia. I'd say that this is not an English encyclopedia, but a global encyclopedia in English.
Hope that helps, --Kizor 09:23, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, it appears you were correct in undoing my revision at Super Smash Bros. Melee. However, in the future, please use an edit summary when reverting an edit that is clearly not vandalism. Something like "actually the length is 14:18" could have been used for that specific instance. Thanks, Artichoker[talk] 15:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In many video game articles, the Reception section is the last main section of prose. As its name suggests, within the section you should summarize the critical reaction to the game. The section should provide a high-level overview of what the critics liked and didn’t like about the game; it is a summary, not a repetition of what publications thought. Therefore, don’t put in excessive, long winded quotes or have a paragraph detailing IGN’s thoughts on the game. To prevent cluttering of the prose with scores, reviews table such as {{VG Reviews}} can be used to organize this kind of information.
A good way to lead off the section is a by-the-numbers or at a glance snapshot of the game’s reception; you can use aggregate scores to suggest an overall critical response to the game, and can provide sales figures (if you have them) for the game’s release. Commonly, the rest of the reception is broken into positive and negative paragraphs. Entirely separate ‘Praise’ and ‘Controversy’ or ‘Negative comments’ or the like are strongly discouraged as troll magnets. If the game has won any awards, then listing them at the bottom of the reception section is an option.
Other things to remember:
Don’t list every single review in the reviews table; likewise, don’t mention every award the game has ever gotten.
Generally, talk about what the reviewers say rather than speaking for them; for example, “Reviewer X of Publication Y took issue with elements of the game such as X, Y, and Z” instead of “Review X said that “I took issue with elements of the game such as X, Y, and Z.” If a reviewer has a good comment which sums up the positive/negative/overall reaction, or a particular sentiment common in many reviews, it might be more appropriate to use.
If adding sales data, make sure to provide context; did it sell those 4.2 million units within three months of release or three years? If possible, break down the sales by region; did the Japanese like the game, but Americans not buy it?
Use reviews whose scores are outliers from the average ratings to find key points that were liked or disliked about a game. If all reviews except for one average around a 9 out of 10, and the one is a 7 out of 10, there is probably some clear negative points to be found in it; the same works with very positive reviews.
Perhaps most importantly, give proper weight and keep a neutral point of view. If the game received mostly negative scores, having three paragraphs on positive aspects and glossing over the bad parts in a sentence or two conveys the wrong impression to readers.
The list of almost 700 articles has been checked and updated. Special thanks to MrKIA11, Dukeruckley, JFlav, FMF, and several other editors for checking the large number of articles.
Inactive project cleanup Proposal to consolidate inactive projects and taskforces. Project page can be found here.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Indie Game Developers deleted.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Arcade games moved to page under WP:VG. See new Arcade task force page.
Feature: Reliable Sources
A common issue with writing video games articles is that it's often natural for editors to turn to the internet for all their information. However, using only online sources can be problematic, especially if editors are not familiar with Wikipedia's sources guidelines. First off, for every notable, reliable web site about gaming that exists on the web, there are twenty-five fan sites or personal blogs. As per Wikipedia's, content guideline about reliable sources, a proper source that should be used in an article must meet the following criteria:
Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
How do you determine if website X meets the criteria? Look around for information on who owns the website or if the website has a staff and established editorial processes; if the site doesn't have information posted online, send an email to the webmaster or editor. It can be hard to definitely prove the a website has a "reputation" for accuracy. Thus, it's probably easier to go with established sites to begin with, such as IGN or GameSpot. If you use a source with borderline qualifications, be prepared to justify the site at content review or to other editors. WikiProject Video Games has a partially-complete listing of vetted sources in print or online at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources, as well as more detailed information on what constitutes a reliable source.
To find sources on the internet, checking Google News as well as simple web searches can help spot references you might have missed. Often, however, older news articles are locked behind pay gates or subscription services. A workaround is using a service like ProQuest or LexisNexis, although unless you have access to these through a college or education institution it will likely cost you money regardless. Libraries can have old newspapers and copies of magazines; to assist in finding print sources online, WikiProject Video Games has a Magazines Department where you can contact users to get copies of certain reviews, previews, or features from old magazines. If you have gaming magazines of your own, add yourself to the list!
Special note: The naming convention for the newsletter has altered. Instead of being labeled the month it is delivered, it is now labeled the month the content applies to. See discussion.
Assessment Department: This department focuses on assessing the quality of Wikipedia's video games articles. The resulting article ratings are used within the project to aid in recognizing excellent contributions and identifying topics in need of further work, and are also expected to play a role in the WP:1.0 program, and more specifically in the Video games essential articles page.
Two new quality ratings have been implemented into the Assessment Department's scale. The new Wikipedia-wide C-Class rating (see category) has been added to the scale between Start-Class and B-Class. Because of this, the criteria of the B-Class has been tweaked to better illustrate the difference between a B-Class and C-Class article. An older rating, List-Class (see category), has been added to the scale as well. It is mainly used on pages that have very little prose and are primarily tables and lists of information.
Editors are encouraged to submit articles for assessment if they feel an article has made significant progress up the assessment scale or has gained importance within video game articles. Assessed articles generally receive some feedback to further improve the article. Experienced editors are also encouraged to help with assessment of articles when the number of requests gets too large.
Peer Review Department: The Peer review process for WikiProject Video games exposes video-game-related articles to closer scrutiny from a broader group of editors, and is intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work, often as a way of preparing a Featured article candidate. It is not a academic peer review by a group of experts in a particular subject, and articles that undergo this process should not be assumed to have greater authority than any other.
Editors are encouraged to use the Video game peer review process, as well as the regular Wikipedia-wide process, to improve the quality of articles. While a peer review can be done at any time, it strongly suggested to use this process before an article goes up for Good article nomination and Featured article or Feature list candidacy as articles cannot be a candidate for GA or FA while at peer review.
Editors are also encouraged to leave feedback for articles undergoing peer review. A process such as this will not work if editors do not give as well as take. Feedback can range from brief comments after skimming through a page to a full blown dissection of grammar, structure, and references. Either way, every bit helps.
39 of 393 articles have been prepared and submitted. Come help us prepare more at the workshop page.
Feature: Wikipedia 0.7
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of articles taken from the English version of Wikipedia, compiled by the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. It is designed for a DVD release, and the selection was put together using a Selection Bot, based on the quality and importance assigned by WikiProjects.
The Video games Project and its daughter projects have multiple articles among the selection and are currently working on cleaning up the articles to improve their presentation. A workshop page has been set up that is designed to assist and coordinate the effort. The status of and recommendations for articles is listed on the table. Discussion about which articles should be kept and removed from the list have been taking place on the talk page.
If you have assisted in working on and improving a current Featured article, Good article, or A-Class article, please check the workshop page to see if the article is recommended for inclusion.
Articles will need an id version submitted to ensure it is included. They will also need to be cleaned up if maintenance tags and other issues are present. Participation is not restricted, and if you can assist with the preparation effort, it would be greatly appreciated.
Things to remember for preparation
The workshop page has a notes section for each article. Clean up suggestions have been left for some articles.
Do a light sweep of the article to address any vandalism andclean up tags: citation needed, more references, lengthy plot, etc.
If you need help with an article, post on the talk page.
For some time now, the Video games project and the Military history project have been cross listing their articles undergoing peer review in an effort to improve the quality of articles, as well as the copy editing skills of editors. The idea was first proposed by User:Krator as a way to better prepare articles for Featured article candidacy. After being approved by both projects, the idea was implemented under a trial period, and eventually approved as a standard practice.
New, cross listed military history articles are announced on the Video games project talk page, and listed on the Video games Peer review page under a special section. Video game editors are encouraged to leave any type of comments that come to mind. If you don't know anything about military history, that's perfectly fine because that's the point. An editor lacking knowledge about the particular topic can provide a helpful point of view as a general reader—the intended audience.
A peer review process such as this will not work if editors do not give as well as take.
Peer reviews are meant to examine not just the prose, but the sources and images used in the article.
Feedback can range from brief comments after skimming through a page to a full blown dissection of grammar, structure, and references. Either way, every bit helps.
Reviewing another editor's article can help sharpen your writing skills, which in turn can improve the articles you write.
Article importance is an assessment of a topic's importance in understanding a specific higher level topic. Assessments are maintained by WikiProjects and reflect the project's view of what is essential to understanding their scope. In the VG Project's case, all importance scales are in terms of understanding video games.
Recent discussions at the VG Project's talk page have called for revisions to the practice of assigning article importance. The discussion began in mid-November with the goal of clarifying what level of importance should be assigned to certain type of articles. It eventually expanded to creating a standardized table of importance to serve as a guide for current and future editors.
The discussion has focused on and shifted to several topics including flaws of previous practices, new ways to view assessment, other project practices to emulate, and specific articles which are exceptions to proposed guidelines. A brief pole and discussion determined most editors felt that the bulk of some topics—specifically individual video game, series, and character articles—were not essential to understanding video games, making them ineligible for top importance. The discussion then shifted to tweaking the wording and layout of the table.
The current proposed table is being discussed on the project's talk page, and the issue of whether some topics—specifically character articles—should be allowed to be rated importance has also been brought up. As always, member are encouraged to voice their opinions and engage in discussion to determine consensus so the new assessment scale can be implemented.
A search bar has been added to the archive box on the VG project talk page. Searching the discussion archives is now much easier.
Feature: Video game notability
Video game related articles fall under niche categories on Wikipedia: "Culture and the arts" and "Everyday life". Because of this, they are often required to demonstrate notability more than other topics. Wikipedia defines notability as "worthy of notice", and considers it distinct from fame, importance, and popularity. Though it is acknowledge to be related to fame and the like, it is important understand that being famous, important, or popular does not mean a video game article should be on Wikipedia.
Being notable means that a topic has "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Wikipedia's policy also stipulates that this only presumes to "satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." This means that though an article may meet the criteria on paper, it is up to the community to decide if a topic truly is notable and/or violates other policies such as WP:NOT. In short, just because a video game, character, or related topic exists, does not mean it should also exist as a Wikipedia article.
Dealing with non-notable topics
Articles that do not meet the criteria are either deleted or merged into a relevant topic.
WP:Articles for deletion (AfD) handles the deletion of non-notable articles, among other types, and has an established process to begin discussions about reasons for deletion.
If an article is a subarticle of a larger topic, merging it into the larger topic article is a more desirable action. For example, the main character of a video may not be notable, but has received some mentions in reviews. It would benefit both topics, the character and its video game, to include the content into the article of the video game; essentially using a small, weaker article to strengthen a larger more notable article.
Things to remember
The best way to show notability is to provide reliable sources about the topic.
Notability is less about keeping articles out of Wikipedia and more about making sure readers are provided articles about significant, quality topics.
While you may think a topic is notable, others may disagree. Try to keep a clear perspective when assessing notability so discussions can reach a consensus.
AfD is more of a last resort and is not always the best course of action to take.
Consider starting a merger discussion first, as some editors may not fully understand why an article they started is not suitable for Wikipedia.
This issue we are trying a new type of newsletter feature: "Featured editor". This is a chance to learn more about the various editors who contribute to the Video games project as well as the roles they fill. If you enjoyed this new feature and would like to see similar interviews in future issues, please drop us a note at the VG newsletter talk page.
David Fuchs (also known as Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs), is a long time video games editor that has written a large number of the project's Featured articles. He has been ranked high on Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations, and has assisted in reviewing and editing more many. Recently David has begun to assist with image reviews for Featured article candidates, and branched out into other types of articles in addition to video games. He can normally been seen on the project's talk page offering advice and his input on the various discussion taking place there.
What drew you to Wikipedia, and what prompted you to begin editing?
I got involved due in part to (I believe, my memory is fuzzy) finding the site while doing research for Advanced Placement Europen History during high school. My earliest contributions (in December 2005) were creating topics based on what I learned, as well as creating an article for my high school with another friend. I soon became involved with editing topics related to Halo video game franchise, specifically the article on the parasitic Flood.
What got you involved in writing Featured articles?
I think for most editors it's a shiny accomplishment you are striving for, and natural for most editors to try and get an FA. I first nominated an article for FA in 2007, after about a year of inactivity onwiki; it didn't pass as it was poorly written and didn't follow our guidelines for writing about fiction; I also took a couple of tries to get my first video game FA (Halo 2).
What article(s) are you most proud of writing or exemplifies your best work?
I suppose Myst is a sort of accomplishment I can point to; I started work on the article on May 2 2008, when it looked like this, and submitted it to Featured Article Candidates one day later. I think that's some kind of record, but I dunno. In terms of being a good read or something I'm very happy with, however, I'd have to look at my more recent work, specifically Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Bone Wars.
How do you pick the articles you work on?
Whatever hits me. There's many articles I haven't gotten around to editing and improving as planned because another article has caught my fancy.
What advice would you give to editors seeking to write quality articles?
In the words of one of my favorite cartoon characters when I was a child, "We must do reeea-search!" Even in video games, online sources don't usually cut it. Even after getting an article to FA, make sure you continually trawl the internet and elsewhere for more information to add to the topic.
Note: This is an abridged version. To read the full interview, click here.
Welcome to Wikipedia. It might not have been your intention, but your recent edit removed content from List of Mario series characters. When removing text, please specify a reason in the edit summary and discuss edits that are likely to be controversial on the article's talk page. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the text has been restored, as you can see from the page history. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia, and if you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you. Wario has a main page, and is a character from the Mario series so the deletion of that section was inappropriate. AnnaJGrant (talk) 16:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC) 
