Talk:Polybius (urban legend)

message: If you do a search of the USPTO on the company name SINNESLOSCHEN, the name has only been registered once in the United States, as an LLC in 2008.
This indicates the chance of the screenshot within the article is a fabrication is relatively high.http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4807:nhgy1m.2.1  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.29.166 (talk) 14:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Its not even a screenshot. Its an amaturishly constructed image. Its very obviously a total fake. 75.17.124.26 (talk) 03:59, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sinneslochen trademark history 

message: The article in its current form is almost useless. It doesnt even properly tell the history and development of the hoax. Everything in the article that can't be sourced should be removed.
The hoax started with the game description on coinop.org in 1998. It continued in a small set of usenet group posts in 2001. Then there were the magazine articles a couple years later. Then there was Steven Roach. Then there are the various cabinet sightings. There is no pre-1998 history to any of this. Speculation about games that might match the stories told about the game have no place in the article.
Right now, the article reads like a bulletin board for hoaxers. 75.17.124.26 (talk) 03:23, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The show is called "Chasseur de légendes" and the first episode of season one talks about Polybius. Here is a link to the episode. I don't have access to it in my region and can't find it anywhere online so hopefully someone else can check it out. 86.111.137.66 (talk) 11:32, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article needs to be rewritten 

message: Trolling/hoax/Snopes content wouldn't make it on here.
But I stand corrected.
68.38.197.76 (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  you'd think because it's Wikipedia 

message: Ok. I dont see and cannot find any source for the following claims made in the article. Unless someone can produce sources for this material, its eventually going to be removed.
- The game proved to be incredibly popular, to the point of addiction, and lines formed around the machines, often resulting in fighting over who played next.
:No source for addiction. lines forming around the machines or fights over play on the machines.
- an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland
: The coinop.org material says "one" suburb. 
- This was followed by clusters of visits from men in black. Rather than the usual marketing data collected by company visitors to arcade machines, they collected some unknown data, allegedly testing responses to the psychoactive machines. 
: The only known source says they collected "data about how the game was played". It does not say anything about "psycoactive" or "testing responses".
- In some versions of this mystery, the players suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including amnesia, insomnia, nightmares and night terrors. 
: What are the other "versions" of this mystery and what are the sources for them. The quoted material is basically directly from the coinop.org source.
- The supposed creator of Polybius is Ed Rotberg, and the company named in most accounts of the game, Sinneslöschen (German meaning "deletion/erasure of senses, Sense-delete"), often named as either a secret government organization or a codename for Atari.
: Who is the source for tying the game to Ed Rotberg? Who is the source tying any of this to Atari? Where are the accounts that do not associate the game with Sinneslöschen?
- The gameplay is said to be similar to Tempest (a shoot 'em up game using vector graphics), while the game is said to contain subliminal messages which would influence the action of anyone playing it.
: Where is the source that says the gameplay was similar to Tempest? Where is the source for "vector graphics"? Where the source for "subliminal messages". The sourced description of the game says it was "kind of abstract, fast action with some puzzle elements". 
69.198.25.2 (talk) 19:51, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for sources/citations 

message: I believe this article demonstrates an overall bias to assume the game is pure fiction, using words like "supposed" or "alleged" next to many descriptions of the game throughout the article. For instance, the introductory paragraph states "Not much evidence for the existence of such a game has ever been discovered," which implies that the writer was hoping to find no evidence. Instead, it should say something like "There has been only trace evidence that Polybius was manufactured and released." Another good example is the thumbnail of the title screen, which reads "Title frame of the alleged game", implying that the game is only "alleged" (Wiktionary: "supposed but doubtful"), which directly contrasts to the image's description page, which inarguably states the game is real, non-free, and under copyright protection (another bias we might want to work over). A better caption might read "Title frame of Polybius", since the game's existence or lack thereof has already been declared above. There are more examples of this in the article, such as "According to the story", "The supposed creator", and even "a "lack of hard evidence" situation typical of hoaxes." — Supuhstar * — 03:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There no "evidence" whatsoever as to the game existing. The article is documentation of an urban legend. What you are calling for is to use Wikipedia's voice to back the hoax and to treat it as if its real. The article should be careful in its tone to clearly WHO has made WHAT claim about the game and make claims about the existance of the game in Wikipedia's voice at all. Wikipedia is not a message board for anonymous unsourced claims or a forum for trying to turn rumors into facts. The article should document the urban legend but make claims about it. 75.20.229.129 (talk) 05:46, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying there should be evidence, or that this should be a platform for propagating rumors, I'm just saying this article isn't written in the unbiased way that Wikipedia tends to have them. — Supuhstar * — 02:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: An article dealing with a matter of clear facts has a different standard than an article dealing with a hoax or an urban legend. Such articles need to carefully seperate facts from the stories used to spread the hoax. "According to the story" is appropriate. "supposed" is an appropriate qualifier for "creator" because not using it suggests Wikipedia is using its voice to support the claim. "typical of hoaxes" probably goes too far and should be modified. 184.63.149.199 (talk) 16:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

text: But has there actually been "trace evidence"? The source currently being cited for there being "not much" evidence plainly says "there is no evidence that the game ever existed". --McGeddon (talk) 15:51, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias 

message: So Wikipedia has moved to accepting creepypasta tales as articles?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.159.172 (talk) 17:23, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia strives to be an unbiased repository for all knowledge — Supuhstar * — 15:40, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Creepypasta

message: The image that the article was referring to for Wreck It Ralph is a hoax.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8bCFV4uhwA  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.13.198.218 (talk) 15:35, 7 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wreck It Ralph 

message: Not sure this section meets Wikipedia's sourcing standards - a guy giving an interview is a primary source and I'm not even sure that Gamepulse.co.uk is that reliable a source in the first place, and gamecola.net which did the follow-up analysis looks like a WP:SPS group blog. Given that this only adds up to "guy claimed to have worked on the game, was probably lying" anyway and doesn't seem to have gotten any wider coverage, maybe we should lose it. --McGeddon (talk) 16:54, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: With no response in a month I've gone ahead and cut it. --McGeddon (talk) 22:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Steven Roach sourcing 

message: In 2009, it appeared as if the author of the coinop.org description of the game added new material to the entry:
::"Quick update, we just wanted to go on record here that Steven Roach is full of himself, and knows nothing about this game. We have it on good authority. No, Polybius is not a Tempest prototype. No, Polybius is not a vector game. Does the title screen look vector? No, it does not. We've recently received some new information about the game (today's May 16, 2009), and yes one of us is flying to the Kyiv, Ukraine area tomorrow and yes the trip is related to this information. Stay tuned."
It seems likely that the person who modified the entry in 2009 was the same one who created it years before. The comment introduces four new story elements:
- It denies the Roach story.
- It denies that it was a Tempest prototype
- It denies that it was a vector graphics based game
- It denies that the title screen looked like vector graphics
This might be worth adding to the article in some form since everything in the urban legend really sources back to that entry at coinop.org. 75.17.124.85 (talk) 01:14, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  2009 information 

message: TVShowFan122 (talk) 16:52, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not at all difficult to create your own Polybius machine. GSK (t • c) 19:00, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

text: To re-add material on Steven Roach, you will have to find an acceptable source for it. The previous sources all failed the test because they were primary sources. As far as polybius machines, there is a very long history of people building hoax machines or doing hoax photos including screen shots. Minus a whole lot of hard evidence, anything like that is not going to be taken seriously. 12.12.144.130 (talk) 21:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Instagram and Steven Roach 

message: So since there's an actual video game coming out called Polybius, maybe a move is reasonable? // Gargaj (talk) 12:21, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to ''Polybius (urban legend)''? 

message: How come the AVGN's Polybius episode isn't mentioned in the popular culture section? The series is notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article after all.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.182.252 (talk) 02:03, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Because notability isn't an infectious disease and Wikipedia is WP:NOT an indiscriminate list of junk. He's notable for his own existence, not for what he says. He's not a real video game reviewer or a WP:RS. It's a show that exists to just say and do junk. — Smuckola(talk) 03:43, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Angry Video Game Nerd 

message: The video game infobox template is at the time of writing used in the article (though I might just change it after this post). I think this is a mistake because this article is about the urban legend Polybius, not the video game Polybius. The infobox fields currently used in the article, "Developer", "Publisher" and "Release", are not important aspects of the myth (excluding title and image, though I have to say the image is questionable). At least not as important to be included in an infobox. It is like including the speed of the ship RMS Titanic in the infobox for the 1977 film Titanic. Torr3 (talk) 02:33, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: What other infobox should be used?  Seems that this is the best option really - it may be an urban legend, but it's about a video game, which includes a Developer and publisher - even if they are probably allegedly fictitious. It's certainly better than no infobox. Chaheel Riens (talk) 09:47, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Additionally, unreleased games such as Thrill Kill and StarCraft: Ghost use the video game template - so do acknowledged vaporware titles such as The Grinder (video game).  I think this is the best option as is.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Urban legend articles usually do not have an infobox, except with mythological figures and characters.  Just because no other infobox fits better does not mean that the infobox used is appropriate. I do not think it is inconceivable, however, that an urban legend infobox could be made. Regarding vaporware - vaporware is not myth, vaporware is still video game albeit in an unfinished or unreleased state, and "Developer", "Platform" etc. are all relevant basic info about vaporware titles (if reliable information is available). Another issue is that I think the video game infobox makes it look like a real game with facts supporting it. On a quick glimpse of the article it kind of looks like a real game, and it may give a false sense of Polybius (possibly) being an actual video game. Perhaps it could be factor in making some people, whom are prone to believing this kind of stuff, into believe in the myth.  Torr3 (talk) 18:26, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think that's a concern.  The article makes its existence (or rather lack of) clear; the fourth word in the lede is "fictitious", there's a  at the top of the page, and the article title itself includes the phrase "urban legend".  I think there's zero chance that the use of the video game infobox will persuade even a casual viewer that the game actually exists. Chaheel Riens (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox 

message: Hi, I just wanted to bring attention to a forgotten arcade game from the 80s that might have served as one of the bases of the Polybius myth, Cube Quest. One can find videos of it on YouTube and other places. It fits a lot of the descriptions of Polybius, such as it being a tempest-like game with puzzle elements, and I could see how how the psychedelic Laserdisk backgrounds might have caused seizures, etc. Also Laserdisk games were prone to breaking, so that would explain it mysteriously disappearing from arcades.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.247.216.140 (talk) 05:17, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cube Quest 

message: Would the possible connection to Poly Play be worth mentioning?--Professor Phantasm (talk) 11:26, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poly-play 

message: I found a site where someone who is talking about Polybius differently. I typed in the website called AMAfeed and his name was Klaus Saller, I think he told the truth about Polybius.
SonicTV64 (talk) 21:14, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a reddit post supposedly by Klaus Saller that in addition to providing the same core information on AMAfeed answered a few questions but the answers are somewhat evasive.  While reasonable at first read the more you think about it the less sense the story presented makes. The first question should have been 'why use a mangled German word for the name of your company?'  The next question should be 'why are there no records of you company having even existed?'  The whole thing smacks of trolling...though much better then we have seen in the past.--Professor Phantasm (talk) 12:49, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  It wasn't released? 

message: As long as we are clear that the game is (probably) fictional, I fail to see anything wrong with placing qualified statements ("alleged," "claimed," etc.) in the Infobox. As for precedent, we have birth and death dates for Lord of the Rings characters. Aragorn, for example, has an Infobox listing him as born in Third Age 2931 and died in Fourth Age 120. 
Again, we have birth and death dates for Lord of the Rings characters! Placing qualified statements to acknowledge urban legend status, this does not in any way magically lend credence to someone claiming the game was real just by virtue of being in the Infobox at all. 
Anyone wishing to try to refute the above argument should please do that here, on the Talk Page! Stop edit warring, and stop posting commented-out notes that haven't been discussed on the Talk Page. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 05:18, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  About the Infobox 

message: Should there be a section about the game's prevalence in things like webcomics? (For example, I only learned of this because it is part of the story in the webcomic 'addictive science') 0w0 catt0s (talk) 04:11, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  appearance in 'popular culture'  

message: All,
Polybius is an urban legend and I feel like basically all of the happenings to this urban legend in the past few years are not mentioned on this page. There are three movie projects featuring or referencing Polybius that were released in 2020 that are no longer on the page. There was an info dump with an 80+ page US House of Representatives hearing on Polybius (which is likely fake but it is far more substantial and substantive than the various rumors referenced here). No offense to Rogue Synapse but their definition of the urban legend has now been challenged by multiple sources and all of the edits I see from the past year or two are now deleted or reverted.
To be frank, this article needs a new format and a re-write from fresh eyes. To ignore all of the current "discoveries" or references related to the urban legend in a Wikipedia page about the urban legend makes the page misleading. I would volunteer to tackle the project but it seems extremely likely that any work put into this page will be deleted.
Please advise.  
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Arcadephreak (talk • contribs) 16:34, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can find reliable sources to back up changes you wish to make there's no reason so assume they'll be reverted.  Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:22, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Developments, "Sourcing" an urban legend, and strange deletions on this page. 

message: In the Netflix animated series Inside Job, a Polybius game appears in an "employees only" arcade, at a organization responsible for managing government conspiracies. Appearance is in season 1, episode 2, 4m50s into the episode. I don't know how to cite something like this since it would be flagged as "original research." Would go in the "popular culture" section.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:600:877F:BF00:B52F:A2E1:126B:AFD2 (talk) 19:47, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: A primary source (the episode itself) is typically sufficient when discussing whether something appears in that source. —151.132.206.250 (talk) 18:51, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appearance in TV series "Inside Job" 

message: ...had an episode dedicated to this, probably a worthy inclusion in the pop culture section. 137.118.200.132 (talk) 03:51, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dimension 404 

message: Many Polybius cabinets actually still exist today, but that is not mentioned. Goofyahadude1013p310 (talk) 17:59, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a reliable source for that claim? - Aoidh (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I had evidence, but can't cite it Goofyahadude1013p310 (talk) 18:54, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That's why it is not included. Our purpose is to summarise what reliable published sources say about any subject. Wikipedia isn't a place to report personal experience, or original research - if you can't cite it, don't write it. Girth Summit (blether) 18:56, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is this not included? 

message: I see that you wish to add Stuart Brown (Ahoy) to the article as a reliable source. Do you have any source (aside from him) that could establish such credibility? I found a Kotaku article that mentions him but I do not believe it is enough. It also does not go into detail on his research, which I feel it appropriate to say is self-published. 
Edit: The Kotaku article cites Wikipedia, which makes me worry about A. circular references and B. their investigative techniques. Tireauclaire (talk) 21:52, 4 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I do believe that I read in an article that he use to work as journalist at tech magazine if remember correctly. Although I would have double check that as my recollection of the contents of the page is a bit fuzzy. I'm not even sure if I remember which media outlet it was published under but I do recall some vague details of the news article. Greenboi123 (talk) 00:29, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: They are self-published (WP:SPS); their prior work history does not change that. There is a big difference between publishing an article at a newspaper/journal/website/magazine that has an established method and history of editorial oversight, fact checking, and accountability, and someone publishing their own work under their own name without that oversight. A self-published journalist is still self-published. A self-published work can sometimes be reliable if the person in question is a Subject-matter expert, but in that context one cannot be a subject-matter expert in something as broad as "journalism", so that caveat does not apply here. I'm familiar with Ahoy's channel and the video in question and while I enjoy their content, it is prima facie not a reliable source as far as Wikipedia goes without a very good reason why it would be. - Aoidh (talk) 02:35, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inclusion of Stuart Brown (Ahoy) 

message: Per WP:BRD I have again removed the addition of the The Simpsons entry in the "In popular culture" section per MOS:POPCULT, which says  The source used for that entry is very much a passing mention of Polybius being shown on The Simpsons. The source says nothing about the appearance on The Simpsons as being culturally impactful in any way, and the only thing that source verifies is that The Simpsons made a passing reference to Polybius in the background of one scene in one episode. That is precisely the type of WP:TRIVIA that MOS:POPCULT seeks to avoid and why it was reverted. - Aoidh (talk) 12:36, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a reasonable application of WP:TRIVIA, but it applies equally to every other item in the "In popular culture" section, as they all "merely mention the subject's appearance..." Willbmoore (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simpsons did it 

message: What is this description of this article named "the storm is coming"? 50.53.66.139 (talk) 21:43, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Storm?