GamerWiki talk:Policy

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Draft Policy Discussion

This section is for the discussion of policy that can be considered draft. Please vote here if you feel it is appropriate. tyagi 20:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Item 1: format of titles

  • All new game entry pages should use the format GameName (Platform) - e.g. Donkey Konga (GameCube), Halo (Xbox) or Gran Turismo (PlayStation).
    • Resolved and moved to policy.

Item 2: Wikipedia content

  • Content from other sites, specifically Wikipedia, should not be simply cut+paste in to GamerWiki. Copied information should be improved and summarised, or expanded, before being added to GamerWiki. This does not apply to purely technical information or graphical/multi-media content. Any content that is copied must have already been released under a license that is compatible with the GNU Free Documenttion License, as used by Wikipedia and GamerWiki. Any copied information or media which is copyright and may be used under Fair Use, must be tagged as such.
    • Does anyone have any comments on the above? It is to counter the plain cut+paste of information from Wikipedia. -- tyagi 20:46, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Okay I guess i have done a little of that, but most of the time I have just copied over a section from wikipedia (for example Overview for GameCube). Theres no point in linking to Wikipedia as you can just copy+paste the info here for articles that link to wikipedia so the user doesnt have to mess about with external links (thats what over wiki's do). Also even if we do copy some infomation over it can be changed over time to fit what your trying to do, but at least you have a base to start from. --Junglist 09:04, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
  • I've also cut some information from Wikipedia for certain sections here as have others on here who edit regularly. I don't think it's a problem provided the information is released under a compatible license with the GPL, and we just want to aim to improve and add to (in some cases reduce) the information. In many ways, we could now do with slowing down the information expansion and go back over the existing stuff to improve the quality of what's there.
  • The problem is that the stuff that's written for Wikipedia is aimed at a different audience and doesn't follow a set template. This then doesn't translate to GamerWiki. See, for example, Sonic the Hedgehog (Game Gear). That's just a cut and paste page about both the Game Gear and Master System versions of the game, with no Game Infobox, not credits, nothing that fits in with the rest of the database. Xevious 12:41, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Item 3: redundant redirects

  • Voting No - these redirects make it much simpler to find pages without relying on the search in my opinion, however I can see why User:Xevious deleted them. I think this needs discussion Halo 12:23, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • See below comment - Halo 00:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Can we conduct a test to see how this works in practice? So if there's an article with a redirect, do a search, see it appear. Then delete the redirect, do the search again, and check the difference. Also try this with the Go button and see what the effect is. At the end of the day, it's all about usability. Redundant pages are a Bad Thing, but the Wiki just needs to be usable. -- tyagi 12:28, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I think one issue is "what is the usual page?". Halo believes that someone searching for "Super Smash Brothers" would be looking for the N64 version, but I'm not so sure - after all, the "Melee" bit does sound like a bit of an add-on. With the redirect page in place, if someone was searching for the GC version and just typed in "Super Smash Brothers", they'd end up on the N64 page, without any indication that the GC game exists. Without the redirect page, they'd end up on a search list, being shown what the choices are. For some games this wouldn't be an issue, but I think for the sake of consistency we shouldn't force the user to a page for the sake of one click. - Xevious
  • Super Smash Bros needs a Series page then - Super Smash Bros (Series) which links to each page. I've made one similar for Gran Turismo (Series). But in the case of Wario Ware Touched, there is only one game is could possibly redirect to. Halo 12:43, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree about the series page. But as for the rest, for consistency, you'd have to have a redirect page like that for every game, which will increase the size of the database considerably. For now, we can just not delete the existing ones, but it'd be rather an onerous task to have to put in a new redirection page every time something was added, an also rejig a redirection page every time a sequel was released? Xevious 13:00, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think that adjusting a redirect would take much work, particularly if a series page needs making anyway. Redirection pages wouldn't be made every time something was added, but people can add redirecton pages if they think one is required. I agree the database would get bigger though. - Halo 13:09, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • So, as a compromise, I suggest the policy should be that if they already exist, redirection pages should not be deleted for now. We can look in six months or so, when traffic exists, to see if the pages are viewed a significant amount of times. If not, they can be deleted. In the meantime, redirection pages should not be made unless they are blatently obvious and unarguable and unambiguous. Xevious 13:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • That seems great to me. I don't have any roblem with redirection pages that are just incorrect (such as the wrong platform formatting, et al) - they can be deleted Halo 13:44, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm fine with this. My only observation on the above discussion would be that what we are terming a Series page, is actually a Disambiguation page. Would you agree? In this way, we can see some clear policy dropping out - that if it is a single title or item that is commonly referred to by a given name, then that name should be in the Wiki as a redirect to the appropriate full name. Where there are multiple items, we create a disambiguation page with links to the individual items with their full names. I will today look on Wikipedia to see if there's a more tried and tested way of doing this. -- tyagi 19:25, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • This is true - and as such, instead of having a page at "Gran Turismo (series)" That content should just reside at "Gran Turismo", yes? Xevious 13:34, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed. I've also changed my mind on this topic having seen some of the special pages - it does make the whole site more cluttered so I can see why you'd want them deleted. - Halo 00:16, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Item 4: Multiple Formats

Previously written on the subject of Multiple Formats:

I recommend the following:

Each format has its own page, with a disambiguation page listing the formats, and the formats listed in the main body. Then there could be a template for each game where the story and gameplay is identical across formats for easy editing. So we'd have pages: 

   * Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time (which just holds the text from Template:PrinceofPersiatheSandsofTimeformats below)
   * Template:PrinceofPersiatheSandsofTime (which lists the story, gameplay, and trivia)
   * Template:PrinceofPersiatheSandsofTimeformats (which states that the game was released on PS2, GC, Xbox, GBA)
   * Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time (Gamecube) (which has the GameInfobox template specific to the GC, the PrinceofPersiatheSandsofTime template, credits (some specific to the GC version probably, so not from a template), and under a subheading of "Alternative formats" the PrinceofPersiatheSandsofTimeformats template text)
   * And so on for each format ...

This needs a bit more setting up, though. But I think it would be useful, and seems to work well when the game is quite different across formats (See Metal Gear Solid).

Thoughts? Xevious

  • I see MTC has tried this with Sonic Heroes. It seems to work well. Any suggestions for adjustments?
  • Tyagi has stated that he's uneasy with the way that this "pollutes" the Template namespace. I personally think that the Templates it creates is a valid template (as in, it is full of 'template text'), albeit with limited use - it's used only on the multiformat pages. What we really want is something that works in the same way as a template - that is, allows us to flow in a single bunch of text to be embedded in another - but doesn't show up on the Template space. Xevious 13:50, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Item 5: boxart

  • All pages should carry the image of the PAL or European/Australian box in the GameInfobox where possible, with alternate covers included elsewhere on the page.
  • Agree with the principle of it, disagree with how it's worded. Should be Where possible, all pages should carry the image of the UK PAL boxart. Alternatively PAL European/Australian boxart should be used where this is not possible. Where a PAL release does not exist, US boxart should be used in precedence of Japanese boxart. Halo 00:12, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • My opinion is this: GameInfobox boxart should be taken from the following list in order of preference:
1) English language PAL (e.g. UK, Australia)
2) English language NTSC (e.g. USA)
3) Non-English PAL (e.g. France)
4) Non-English NTSC (e.g. Japan)
However, the addition of boxart from other regions is strongly encouraged, and should be added as a right-justified thumbnail, below the main GameInfobox block.


Other Policy Discussion

Dates

We ought to try and sort it so the template takes the date which is entered in the form "18/December/2003" and reformats it so it says "18 December, 2004" as it was previously.

Items within the gameinfobox

I vote we ditch "Principal designer" and add the box for "Alternative Title", as found in a lot of entries already. It's rare that there is a single designer, and they can be listed in the credits section anyway. I've added in the alternative title, but not sure the best way to make that work - we want really to allow multiple alternative titles, and also have them linkable; currently the user would have to put into the template something like:

alternativetitle=Alt Game 1 Huzzah (JP), DEATH AND KILL (US)

which isn't very friendly. Any ideas? Xevious

PEGI/ELSPA

For games before about 2000, there was an ELSPA rating instead of a PEGI one. Any ideas? Xevious

Games with the same name

I propose that we label games with the same name on the same platform with an identifier in brackets after the game name and before the format. For example, Aliens (Electric Dreams) (Spectrum). This identifier could be the publisher, the host platform (for arcade games), or so on. Xevious 12:14, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Sounds fine to me -- tyagi 18:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
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