Wikipedia talk:Game guide

message: This is a very rough draft, any and all help much appreciated. I thought I would get the ball rolling as this has been an increasing problem with many gaming articles. Havok (T/C/c) 09:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction).  Depending where you want this to go, different bits will be valuable.  I think you might get away with as little as a summary of the manual of style's major topics plus a pointer there, plus a small section on notability.  GRBerry 19:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Very rough

message: I think the "good" example is still bad (but better than the bad example) - it's written in second person and also is still presenting information that's not really appropriate in an encyclopedia. --Improv 23:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather pull examples off of current FAs, myself. In fact, I think I'll do so. Nifboy 01:07, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Nifboy is right, we should pull examples off of FAs, but if we don't, I think the right way to rewrite that sentence would be: "...the ability to parry.  Some large or armored opponents have openings at certain times with which Link can get past their normal defenses and counterattack."  (The very last sentence is probably too close to a game guide in the sense that it tells you how to beat certain enemies.)  ColourBurst 22:15, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But that isn't what they are talking about. See this diff. Andre (talk) 23:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmmm, that's bad.  The only thing I would have problems specifically is that "vibration of the controller".  I'd just change it to "visual and tactile cue" instead.  (Or "visual, tactile and audio cue", eliminating the chime reference as well, because it's not really a chime.)  ColourBurst 01:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like I said, it's a rough draft. But I think pointing to examples in articles might be a good idea. We could do a test on one article after we have the base down for the policy/guideline, then use that as an example on how to write each gaming article. This is not going to be pretty, but in the long run it's better for Wikipedia, the gaming articles and the editors. Havok (T/C/e/c) 09:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good is bad 

message: As it stands now this is a largely redundant page. WP:CVG has covered much of this information. For example:
Content that may be moved to gaming wikis:
* Specific moves and buttons used to execute them. While saying that a character can jump, punch, and pound the ground is OK, explaining how to execute them using the controller is not.
* Lists of mere statistics, items, or other minutiae. The HP or weight class of a character is not important to the article; neither are all the swords available in the game.
* Strategy guides. Basic strategy concepts are often essential to the understanding of a game, but avoid in-depth explanations.
* Lists of cheats or codes. Some codes may be notable and suitable for articles, such as the famed Konami Code, but the method of performing a code that's confined to only a few games and has no special claim to fame is unsuitable for Wikipedia.
Andre (talk) 01:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * There are no examples there (and the list you gave doesn't cover what's actually done in practice).  AfDers are still very much confused in what constitutes a "game guide", and follow whomever said "it's a game guide" or "it's not a game guide" first (or, err in the direction of "it's a game guide").  The people who maintain the articles also want to know what information constitutes as "game guidey" so they can properly maintain it.  See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Classes in World of Warcraft for a nasty example (although some maintainers there tried to WP:OWN the article).  ColourBurst 17:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  There's plenty of info already on the WikiProject 

message: I would love for everyone to check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Professions (World of Warcraft), I can't for the life of me find anything in that article that sounds or reads like a game guide. Havok (T/C/e/c) 09:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Professions (World of Warcraft)]]

message: Thanks for starting this article, it is a good idea.  Wish I could offer some advice on how to proceed, but I'll have to mull things over for a bit.  FrozenPurpleCube 16:54, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good idea

message: Could we provide clear guidelines as to what a gameguide is so we know it when we see it? Obviously there's a little disagreement here and maybe we can simplify the whole matter by trying to define what a gamguide actually is. I'll take a stab at it: A game guide content's purpose is to provide a detailed description of the mechanisms the players use to obtain their goals. Please refine/expand this. Hopefully we can come to some kind of detailed agreement which can then be applied to the articles in question. --Brad Beattie (talk) 14:25, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got into it above. Anything that goes into game play mechanics or strategy that is not essential to explaining the game in a broad overview is a gameguide. If it's telling you "how to" than WP:NOT clearly states it's a no go. NeoFreak 14:38, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitions 

message: The discussion occurring on this page has been very well fleshed out on WP:CVG. I don't understand why we're having it again! Andre (talk) 14:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because most people do not read WP:CVG if they aren't members. This is created to set a precedence for what is allowed to cover in a gaming article. If CVG was a policy or even a guideline, I would understand what you are saying. But having discussed it there means nothing to WP as a whole. Havok (T/C/e/c) 14:51, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition, most people ignore the CVG discussions when !voting in AfDs.  ColourBurst 23:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Feel free to edit and come with suggestions. Havok (T/C/e/c) 07:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very redundant discussion! 

message: How would you define a game guide? I would personally say guides tell you how to accomplish something. Explaining game mechanics is fine ("Mario can jump") but saying how to accomplish game mechanics is probably too specific ("Mario can jump by pressing A") and saying when to use said mechanics is pretty much textbook game guide ("Mario should jump at the beginning of 1-1 to get the Mushroom.") -Ryanbomber 13:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *What is the justification for the inclusion of detailed videogame play mechanics in an encyclopedia? You don't need it to get what the game is all about and any indepth questions about the game play style itself for interested parties can be solved with one or two lines of external links to the million diffent sites on the net that do a better job than wikpedia ever could or should. This is not the place for such desciptions. NeoFreak 05:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm... including game play mechanics can help the article in the way that it explains how the game works. Much like for example Chess and all other boardgames, sports games etc. Let me as you this; Why are videogames or computer games any different from these articles? Havok (T/C/e/c) 07:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought I had already covered Chess and the such. If not I put a more detailed explanation on the WoW jobs deletion page. NeoFreak 08:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you didn't.  Sorry, but you're completely unconvincing.  Take a look at Chess strategy and tactics and explain how it isn't a game guide.  It even has sub-articles.  Not to mention American football strategy or Pitch (baseball).  Clearly, sports are allowed to detail their mechanics in several articles.  Why is there so much objection to video games?   I think the recent situations with the Wii and PS3 are clear indications that video and computer games are not all that minor.  People wait in line to get them, the same way they do with tickets to various sporting games.  FrozenPurpleCube 16:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the Pitching article is kosher but, yes, both the other two articles you mentioned should be looked at for potential violation of WP:NOT. Video games are not the only offenders and I never said they were. How many people are going to be playing WoW in twenty years? How many people are going to be playing baseball in twenty years? Entertainmet fads and product supply issues don't demonstrate the same sort of notability that baseball and chess hold. Come on now. NeoFreak 01:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We can't make decisions on Wikipedia today based on what might happen in 20 years. That would go well outside of the crystal ball limitations. Even the Olympics don't get that far in advance.  Today, there are 7.5 million people playing WoW.  That's a lot of people, and it shows notability today.  In twenty years, WoW may be gone (or it may have 200 million people playing it), but that 7.5 million people is enough to make it notable.  Which it would retain, even if it shut down tomorrow. It'd just be historical.  In any case, the prevalence of so many similar articles (the baseball one you have no problem with has at least 5 daughter articles), tends to point to me, that we can describe a game, be it video or real-life.  If we can't, then we need to start purging articles by the hundred.  And in regards to WoW, the Professions in it clearly qualify as something people would want a description on.  At least as much as they'd want to know about knuckleballs.  FrozenPurpleCube 04:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're missing my point. I'm not arguing WoW's notability, if it wasn't notable it wouldn't have an article at all. WoW's huge player base, its influence on the online gaming community and its huge commercial success all warrant a article. I'm trying to point out the life-span of a video game and what is and isn't needed in an encyclopedic entry about the game. I'm saying that within all that there is no need what so ever to launch a huge amount of subarticles that detail all of it's game play mechanics as if you were reading a instuction manuel or strategy guide. All of that information has no place in an encyclopedia. These things are not needed to get an understanding of the game and why it is notable. NeoFreak 04:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you're quite mistaken then.  Yes, there is a conceivable limit to which one wouldn't need to know certain things.  Every single monster's stats, the stats of weapons and armor...  But something that is fundamental to every character?  Sorry, but I can't see how you can possibly think it's not important.  You can't have an article on World of Warcraft and not not talk about the Professions.It'd be liking having an article on baseball without talking about the [baseball field]].   And since Wikipedia is not paper, we can go into detail, especially since the World of Warcraft article is a little large.  But yeah, you should probably ignore the questions of lifespan and historical impact.  If you want to deal with that, let's wait a century.  Then maybe this whole question can be regulated to the same importance as buggy whips.  FrozenPurpleCube 06:33, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: I have amplified and rewritten part of the proposal. Revert if changes are seen as unneccessary or harmful. --ElaragirlTalk|Count 16:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bold edit 

message: I would propose applying WP:V broadly to all game guides.  Unless its significance has been discussed in neutral, reliable third party sources, it doesn't belong on wikipedia.  In the case of game guides nearly any discussion of mechanics would fall afoul of this. The exception would be for truely notable game mechanics (example that comes to mind, the base-building system of the first RTS game, Dune, which defined an entire genre of games).  Applying the requirement for out-of-universe perspective and a stringent application of WP:V would be my approach to limiting gamecruft and guides. Wintermut3 01:42, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this solves anything, in fact it makes it worse.  Nearly all games out nowadays have strategy guides that tend to be written by third parties.  This means that nearly any strategy on a game would be able to pass WP:V.  Requiring out-of-universe perspective is likewise ineffective - strategies tend to be out-of-universe as well.  ColourBurst 04:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess my point is requiring them to talk about the notability or importance of the topic is the key.  An article/review/guide about a game establishes it's notability, but if no one's written an article about a specific mechanic or sub-character, then they are not notable under a strict interpretation of WP:V. Wintermut3 05:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that WP:V never talks about "significance" or "notability", which is what WP:N discusses.  WP:V just says that data published by a third-party source that's reliable can be used as a source.  Again, this will not solve the problems here, because nearly all strategy guides will talk to some extent on game mechanics in detail, devoting at least one section or more likely several on specific ones.  Note that the "game guide" deletion assertion was never founded on WP:V or WP:N - it was founded on WP:NOT, specifically the point about it not being an instruction manual.  ColourBurst 15:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I see your point, but I guess I'd like a way to tie back any proposed policy change to the core principles.  Game guides are, to my mind, trivial coverage because they are published en masse and without any 'peer review' so to speak.  The WP:Not an instruction manual applies to sections that read like a game guide, but I'd like to find a way to eliminate detailed discussions of the minutae of game mechanics without excluding truely notable game mechanics (IE genre-defining features in the games that invented them, such as the Combo system in early fighters, base building in Dune or the first use of mouse-driven systems in the old Sierra adventure games). Wintermut3 22:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:NOT is a core principle (Wikipedia is an encyclopedia is the core guiding principle behind WP:NOT).  In addition, even for a strategy guide, "no peer review" is false.  It may not be very good review a lot of the time, but there is a semblance of review (there will be editors attached even to strategy guides.)  Whether something is published "en masse" is also irrelevant to verifiability - newspapers are published en masse as well, but they're relatively reliable.  The problem here is you're defining "notable" subjectively (I'm not sure which sources have written about combo systems for early fighters, for example), and if you combine this subjectivity with subarticle details, you end up with WP:CRUFT, which doesn't have concensus precisely because of its subjectivity.  ColourBurst 23:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed bright line

message: I agree with Havok that WP:5 and WP:NOT are fairly vague on what constitutes a game guide.  However, CVG's article guideline, which any game-related article should be guided by, already speaks on this very issue.  Specifically, it states:
A general rule of thumb to follow if unsure: if the content only has value to people actually playing the game, it's unsuitable. Keep in mind that video game articles should be readable and interesting to non-gamers; remember the bigger picture.
Moreover:
Content that may be moved to gaming wikis:
    * Specific moves and buttons used to execute them. While saying that a character can jump, punch, and pound the ground is OK, explaining how to execute them using the controller is not.
    * Lists of mere statistics, items, or other minutiae. The HP or weight class of a character is not important to the article; neither are all the swords available in the game.
    * Strategy guides. Basic strategy concepts are often essential to the understanding of a game, but avoid in-depth explanations.
    * Lists of cheats or codes. Some codes may be notable and suitable for articles, such as the famed Konami Code, but the method of performing a code that's confined to only a few games and has no special claim to fame is unsuitable for Wikipedia.
Other unsuitable content:
    * Theories or speculation. You may think that the Chozo were actually cannibalistic, perhaps based on a sentence referencing their mysterious eating habits in an instruction booklet, but unless this has been stated explicitly in official literature, it does not belong in the article. This also applies to theories that are not your own.
    * Similarly, fan ideas about characters' lives or relationships are not appropriate for the encyclopedia.
    * Obscure rumors. If the launch list of Nintendo's Wii hasn't been announced yet, do not bother contributing that you heard a Metroid card battle game is in the works. If it's heavily rumored in several major media sources, that is fine.
    * Rumored codenames. For example, do not refer to the "Game Boy Evolution," because that name is entirely made up.
It seems to me that these sections speak fluently to what game articles need to accomplish: that is, articles should only contain what is required to give a NON-GAMER a BASIC understanding of the game.  Anything more does not belong.  Thus, for example, while an article may properly describe that players in such-and-such a game can move about and kill monsters within the game, no attempt should be made to describe how to move best, how to execute precise attacks, and how to find the best spots to kill.  I think CVG's guidelines with a bit of common sense should solve just about every problem.
Luis1972 (Talk • My Contribs) 15:01, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  CVG has pretty much settled this issue 

message: It appears that this has failed to reach consensus and should be marked rejected. --Kevin Murray 03:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Failed to reach consensus