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D&D articles for Wikipedia 0.7

Hello! :)

This article has been selected for possible inclusion on the Wikipedia 0.7 DVD release. If there is anything you can do to help this article (fact check for sources and citations, check grammar and spelling, providing creator commentaries, finding useful quotes in interviews and product reviews, detailing publication history, rewriting in-universe text to out-of-universe text, and general cleanup here and there) now would be the time!

Also, if you'd like to nominate more articles to be selected for this project, or just wish to discuss the release in general, please see the WikiProject D&D talk page for more details. :) BOZ (talk) 16:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

IF I can find some of the old products how do you put an ISBN into the proper format for the article? Might be all I can do because I are not much good writer for grammerz. ;) And what are access dates? I thought wikipedia bots did those things? shadzar-talk 04:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
  • D3 Vault of the Drow ISBN 0-935696-07-5
So what is the proper format for that and I will check other tomorrow. shadzar-talk 04:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
You just did it--ISBN and then a valid 10 or 13 character string. Notice that it automagically turned that into a link. In a {{cite book}} context, the parameter is "isbn=" Jclemens (talk) 05:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to see what I can do about getting the "Works" section to be less of a huge space-taking list. Not sure what can be done about accessdates - don't even know how that works! BOZ (talk) 14:39, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Accessdate is a parameter for {{cite web}} and similar templates. If a particular reference doesn't have one, click on the link. If it works, then add accessdate=2008-10-03 (or whatever the proper date is) to the reference. That lets people know at least one date when it could be successfully accessed, which is useful for using the Internet Archive or other historical search engines, should the link become inaccessible in the future. Make sense? Jclemens (talk) 15:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Adding accessdates is easy here's an example I just added. — Alan De Smet | Talk 03:53, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, given the new comments that you can see below... Shadzar is working on the ISBNs, and Alan De Smet has been working on the article in various places so that's good. I agree that some of the bio stuff needs to be merged into larger sections or generally rearranged - I'll try to get to that some today. I'll leave trimming the works section as needed to someone else. I didn't do any of the actual writing in this article, so I wouldn't know from where to cite the mentioned unreferenced sections; I'd be happy to do the work if someone could point out where to look. The job titles section may be unnecessary in my opinion, and could probably be worked into the biography section and possibly the Works section as well. The TV/other appearances is indeed trivial, and should either get cut or worked into another section. Also agreed that the personal life section is a mess; what sources do we need to look at to fix this part up and give it a proper ordering of events? That's some work, but I bet we could do it with some elbow grease. BOZ (talk) 14:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think most of the sections could stay the way they are. "Early life and inspiration" could be merged with "Gaming Career" - this is all the pre-TSR stuff were he is working on getting things going before D&D. The television/MMORPG stuff could all be merged into the "late career" heading or done away with altogether (need to be sourced if they're staying). Otherwise, I think we can leave his bio the way it is. BOZ (talk) 17:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

GA comments

I am not going to fail this, but I will comment that there are numerous sections and paragraphs without citation and if each is presenting a new idea it should be attributable to a WP:RS.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:41, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep. I'm working with the authors on it. Jclemens (talk) 18:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)


Gen Con 2008 Memorial Plaque

After saving the image and inverting the colors this is what it says, and I hope I did it correctly for the caption under it, if not then someone else please fix it using the inscription: 

The first DM,
He taught us to roll the dice.
He opened the door to new worlds.
His work shaped our industry.
He brought us Gen Con,
For this we thank him.

In fond memory of Gary Gygax
and in celebration of his spirit and accomplishments.

shadzar-talk 03:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Cool trick. :) BOZ (talk) 12:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Gave the image 5 more pixels to allow for last line of inscription to fit as appears on plaque, and removed the quotation marks that do not actually appear in the inscription with the proper formatting. shadzar-talk 18:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Just so you know, the width of the box and the size of the text is going to vary from viewer to viewer, so minor tweaks like that aren't going to help much. For example, with my web browser the last line is still broken, and making it wide enough to display the entire line would require making it about 50% wider. Not a big deal, just the complexities of formatting for the web. — Alan De Smet | Talk 01:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
OOPS! Well at least you brought the plaque into focus a bit, and had I known it was ok to trim images like that I would have done some edit work to it as well to fix the levels and color balance from the original image. Maybe if present on 0.7 the image width or inscription will be forced to format correctly as appears on the plaque. I just thought that the division was floating that forced the text on wikipedia to change widths....different stroeks I guess... shadzar-talk 02:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

ISBNs

Don't have the individual ones hope the compiled product will suffice.


No ISBN
Dungeon and Dragons 3-book set

  • Book 1: Men & Magic
  • Book 2: Monsters & Treasure
  • Book 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures


  • Greyhawk (with Rob Kuntz)
  • Eldritch Wizardry (with Brian Blume)
  • Swords & Spells
  • Chainmail (game)


Will amend list after going to dig the advetures out of storage. Vault of the Drow is of course listed above is anyone wants to drag it down here while I run to go get the adventures. shadzar-talk 18:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

For Boot Hill, I say use the eariest available, or list them all. For the Geomorphs, well, whatever, we got something.  :) For the older products in your second section, I have looked for those in the past and also came up empty - do you think they were printed without ISBNs in D&D up through 1976? BOZ (talk) 19:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty sure they didn't expect D&D to become something big as the initial run was 1000-5000 copies or something like that. When it became big enough they probably had to conform to industry standards, so I doubt the oldest of the products have even been assigend ISBN's and I doubt WotC would file for them now if they are even able to. My storage was without power so was unable to get anything out of it today so will have to check other things later this week. I fear that like Boot Hill there may be more than a single ISBN for other things that had multiple printengs, so have no idea how to go about those things. For example there were 2 Monster Manuals with different covers and they have the same ISBN. Those adventures some had several printings and may have a new ISBN for each printing to note that it changed and is a different one...how do we handle that correctly? I think even the Harry Potter books and DVDs have a new ISBN depending on which version you get for the same thing. Meaning the industry standard isn't very standard at all other than each new iteration requires a new ISBN, but then would we have to list only one, or every iteration? The geomorphs like many others were also compiled meaning you could have X+1 ISBNs. I guess the powers that be would need to state how many ISBNs we need or how to work with what we can, and those that don't have them what we should do about them? I could borrow the actual geomorph sets to get individual ISBNs, but then we would need to add the compiled product to the list as he wrote it also, or we could just combine them to shorten the article to the compiled geomorphs with the single ISBN we have. I think for most things D&D or otherwise we will only find ISBNs for things with UPCs as well... shadzar-talk 20:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
shrug I guess we do the best we can, and if someone else finds more accurate information later they can fix it? :) BOZ (talk) 21:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
For Boot Hill, I'm just going to do this: Blume, Brian, and Gary Gygax. Boot Hill (TSR; 1st edition, 1975, no ISBN; 2nd edition, 1979, ISBN 0-394-51875-6; 3rd edition, 1990, ISBN 0-88038-976-1) BOZ (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Works for me, but I am just a research person so any formal writing best left for those that know what they are doing. ;) shadzar-talk 23:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
You set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down? There should be a lot fewer left which still need it. Some of the ISBNs are probably listed on the corresponding pages, as I have seen this on some articles. BOZ (talk) 01:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Phase 2

I think that is all I have. shadzar-talk 18:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll get em - what else do we need? Note that D1-2 and G1-3 are listed individually, so we may need separate ISBNs. BOZ (talk) 19:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Like the geomorphs I don't have those, and does it matter? D1 & D2 like D1-2 was authored by Gary. So does it matter than the combined is used, and not the individual, since he was the author of all 3 of them? 4 in the case of the G series. The author didn't change just because the products were compiled into a single collected adventure. Now if it were the S series that may be a bit odd, since Gary authored all but S2 White Plume Mountain which was done by Lawrence Schick. Can't the article just combine them into the anthology? shadzar-talk 20:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
As your reviewer, I should probably stay out of this, but I wouldn't fail a review just because the original edition ISBNs were missing. The point is so that a person researching the article subject's works can find them--to that end, the more current ISBNs might even be more useful. Jclemens (talk) 20:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
So per WP standards AN ISBN suffices so long as it proves product exists and allows for further reading about it somewhere else? I just don't want to have to dig in another sealed box in storage. =P I have to seal these back up to be waterproof and such as it is now. (Should have just bought the online versions and checked the ISBN for the listed ones...) And what to do about those that never had an ISBN? shadzar-talk 20:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I have no idea what the criteria are at FAC--I know I won't gig you for them at GA, nor do I know of another GA reviewer who does so. For materials without an ISBN... I don't know. If you've looked and can't find one after a reasonable effort, and think that one may never have been issued (e.g., for self-published stuff) just say "ISBN unknown" or something like that. Jclemens (talk) 20:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough - I'll see what more I can do tonight. :) BOZ (talk) 22:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I have checked every website that lists things that I can and found no ISBN even from .gov sites for those older products. Amazon even has the wrong ISBN listed for the version of expedition to barrier peaks. I am a retard. I just thought of somewhere that might have ALL the ISBNs. shadzar-talk 23:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Hope I handled the D1-2 / G1-3 issue fine. :) BOZ (talk) 00:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me, but what do I know? =P It will be up to our friendly reviewer to decide since we are under the gun and time crunch to get into the 0.7 with this article and finding the others would take some time and other editors or eBay shopping. I actually like that it states they were singular, then later compiled and at least gives reference to the final compiled versions. But again that is my personal tastes, and I don't know what is really expected from a technical writing standpoint. :( Good job though with that idea! shadzar-talk 05:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Phase 3

Searching here and will add all findings shortly. http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=503 shadzar-talk 23:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Now I am tapped for ideas without the physical books.

Got all of those, plus all the early D&D supplements. BOZ (talk) 00:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
The internet is more helpful than you think! :) Hopefully I got satisfactory coverage, but we'll see what we can do if more is needed. BOZ (talk) 15:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Just be careful with amazon, because like I noticed the ISBN for Expedition to Barrier Peaks has something listed that is NOT even the ISBN. Like eBay those facts there are NOT checked and just user provided data. shadzar-talk 18:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Should I revert my latest edits then? I'm not sure where else to get the rest of the info without owning the products. BOZ (talk) 21:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
I think we should be ok as long as they look the same. I am not sure of amazon is credible. Is there a gov website that has lists of ISBNs? I haven't found one. Maybe copyright website will have the book with the ISBN also? shadzar-talk 17:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I have no idea... It's certainly possible, but I don't know where to begin to look. BOZ (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Progress

Here's what is left to do, per the review thus far:

  1. Trim the list of works to cut out less notable items
  2. Merge smaller limited bio sections into larger sections
  3. Make sure referencing on bio is adequate, particularly TSR section and on
  4. Consider merging television appearances/other appearances into another section or removing it
  5. Reorganize personal life section; second wife is listed before first wife for example
  6. Expand the lead section per WP:LEAD
  7. There are a lot of one-sentence paragraphs and one-paragraph sections. The former should be eliminated and the latter curtailed.
  8. Source or merge the Job Titles section.

Help out where you can!  :) I'll do what I can as well. BOZ (talk) 14:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh man, haven't had a good time to work on this lately, but I promise to get on it soon... BOZ (talk) 03:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Working on #6 right now. The guidelines say an article of this size should have 3-4 paragraphs, so I'm going with 4: Pre-TSR, TSR, Post-TSR, and Later life/death. None of them are going to be particularly long, but should give a good overview of those times in his life, using what is already in the article. I may need help on sourcing and writing the lead, but I'll get the ball rolling. :) BOZ (talk) 02:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, got it. Hopefully that's not too long? It's supposed to be a summary of the rest of the article that hits on all the important points and explains things as clearly as possible to the general reader. If I put anything in there that's not completely necessary to understanding Gary or his life and work, then feel free to cut it. BOZ (talk) 02:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Got #4 because that one was easy; hope no one objects? :) BOZ (talk) 19:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Is #2 even an issue anymore? BOZ (talk) 19:26, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to try to work on #8; hopefully I'll have some success! Might not get the sources, but I'm going to work that stuff into the bio. BOZ (talk) 19:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll give it another review tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for keeping this up--this article had a good long way to go when you started. Jclemens (talk) 19:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks.  :) I'm also not so sure that #7 applies anymore, perhaps only a little in the Works section, but handling item #1 should take care of that. ;) I'm maybe not the best guy for trimming stuff out, so hopefully someone else will pick that up. BOZ (talk) 20:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to try to get to work on the bio section soon. One source that I found earlier up on the talk page is the Wired bio/obit: [1]

I've put in numerous little touches using that article, and even straightened out the personal life section a little. :) That's it for tonight though, it's awfully late... got through about half of that source. BOZ (talk) 07:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Job Titles

I elected to remove this section entirely. The first half of it, I integrated into the bio section. this second half is unsourced, and unsupported by what is already there, so I just removed it. If someone could find a source pointing to how this stuff works into his life, and if it's notable enough to mention, please do work it back in.  :)

  • 1986–88 – Chairman of the Board of Directors, New Infinities Productions, Inc.
  • 1988–94 – Creator/author under contract to Omega Helios Limited
  • 1995–2008 – Creator/author under contract to Trigee Enterprises Corporation
  • 1999–2008 – Partner, Hekaforge Productions

BOZ (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I have the first one sourced. The whole of the job titles section probably came from "longbio" and I may be able to source some or all of them from the Kyngdoms interview. BOZ (talk) 17:40, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction?

right|thumb|I can't make out the year on this image scan. This article implies that TSR was publishing The Strategic Review in 1974, as that was the year Gygax and Kask transitioned the magazine to Dragon. However, the Dragon (magazine) article states that The Strategic Review began publication in 1975 and Dragon a year later. Can these be reconciled? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 21:26, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

What? I will look into both articles and my Dragon Magazine archive to check the run dates for "TSR" and seen the years it ran and The Dragon began and make both articles agree with each other. Was that all that needs to be done in that regards while I have the software running? shadzar-talk 22:20, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe that Strategic Review #1 came out in early 1975, and #7 came out in mid-1976, and Dragon #2 was in August 1976, but a look through the CD-archives should be more exact. BOZ (talk) 22:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
TSR Vol. #1 No #1 Spring 1975, TSR Vol. #2 No #2 April 1976, The Dragon Vol. 1 No 1 June 1976 shadzar-talk 05:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Here is what appears to be an interview with Tim Kask, which covers the period.—RJH (talk) 21:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I added that link in the appropriate place (and started a stub about Kask), if you want to do more with that interview, that's up to you. :) BOZ (talk) 23:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Works

OK, the Works section needs some work. ;) Right now, it's even longer than the bio, which seems entirely disproportionate. I see three options:

  1. Trim about 1/4 to 1/3 of it out, including the less notable stuff or anything he's not well-known for
  2. Merge most (or all) of it into the bio, again trimming it, and possibly leaving some of it in the current section as "other works" just to fill in the blanks of his career
  3. Split the content into another page; this would prevent us having to trim the section, and we would still add some of it to the bio

What do you think? :) BOZ (talk) 18:07, 16 October 2008 (UTC) A "List of Gary Gygax's work" (however you possessivize his name) might work. Would hate to have to lose data, so copying it elsewhere, then trimming it down to just the highlights would work. Jclemens (talk) 18:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

List of works by Gary Gygax? :) It's a possibility. Not everyone might want to go with splitting the info out, though. BOZ (talk) 19:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll leave that issue alone for the moment. How about, what works should be mentioned in the bio? Boot Hill, I think so, but I'm not positive. Greyhawk supplement, Eldritch Wizardry yet, Swords and Spells not so much, D&D Basic set not really. Most of the AD&D work should stay (no to Geomorphs, heh). Gamma World, not really. Cyborg Commando, no. :) Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventures, yes, but only expanding a little on what is already there. d20, Castles and Crusades, same thing - while a lot of people liked his later work, it's the late 70s through late 80s that he is most known for. Non-RPG games, yes, integrate most but not all of the pre-D&D stuff that isn't already there. Literature, the Gord books need a mention at least, the rest not so much. Periodicals, do we need to mention anything more than Strategic Review and Dragon in the bio? Unless someone disagrees with any of this assessment, I'm going to go ahead and go forward with merging that info into the bio. I'll do it in one big edit so that we can revert it if it's ugly. BOZ (talk) 22:44, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd keep Cyborg Commandos, not because its a terribly good game or well remembered, but because tells us what he was doing during that period. C&C should stay for similar reasons. I'd also be prone to include any "major" releases, so D&D Basic seems better included that excluded. — Alan De Smet | Talk 14:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but he really didn't have anything to do with the Basic Set or its incarnations, since those were only based on his work. I could see noting that much in the bio, but even that seems to be sandwiching tangential info in there. Cyborg Commando may not warrant a mention in the bio since it's not exactly his best-known work, although *maybe* a sentence at most would be OK - I've tossed in a number of other references to games he's worked on here and there. :) Castles and Crusades warrants more of a mention than Cyborg. BOZ (talk) 14:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I think I've got it! We keep the Works section right where it is, and we use it as "besides all the stuff mentioned above, these are additional credits by Gygax". That way, anything worth mentioning in the chronology of his life doesn't get repeated below, and anything that looks like bio info or is important enough to get a mention up there can get moved into the bio. Sounds OK? :) BOZ (talk) 14:21, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
OK, hopefully that's a big more balanced, as well as taking care of a few of the other concerns raised in the review thus far. Anything else we need as far as that goes? Since we had a mention of Castles and Crusades, I moved all of the C&C stuff up to the bio. I also moved all the D&D modules, accessories, supplements, etc. I kept the DJ and LA stuff and d20 down below, because I wasn't sure which books were more notable than the others. Now it should be more clear what, if anything, needs to be cut from the Works section.BOZ (talk) 00:27, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Rogue citation

The citation for Gygax's appearance on Code Monkeys leads to here, which appears to be unreleated to his appearance. Someone should review it and either delete the citation, or fix it. Sadly I'm busy now, and can't dig much deeper. — Alan De Smet | Talk 14:13, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Would IMDB qualify as valid for citations? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1100920/ shadzar-talk 19:10, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I think he fixed it, actually. BOZ (talk) 19:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
I fixed a different problem; the only citation for the Code Monkeys appearance still seems wrong. IMDB isn't a real good citation; it's data comes from the public and isn't well verified. However, it was reasonably well publicized, I'm sure something can be found. — Alan De Smet | Talk 02:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure what to do with that, other than to say go with the IMDB reference until we find a better one? I have a big chunk of free time to use later today, so once the distraction of the Bears game is over you'd better believe I'm going to get to working on this bad boy. ;) BOZ (talk) 17:23, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gary Gygax/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

WikiProject Biography Assessment Drive

This article is narrowly a B-rating as it needs an infobox, but is otherwise comprehensive.

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- Yamara 07:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is now a Good Article. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC).

Substituted at 20:27, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

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