User talk:Langeweile

Spellborn

You invite discussion for the Spellborn page here. I'll be more than willing to discuss, including the reasons why we have certain guidelines in place (such as WP:VG/GL). Before we do though, I want to know, do you have a conflict of interest related to the subject of Spellborn? I apologise for not assuming good faith, but the tone of the original article made me believe so. User:Krator (t c) 19:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for coming. If not otherwise mentioned, I'll refer to my original Version (how to make this link internal ?) of the article.

I'm not in a conflict of interest, except if you consider being interested in this game, or a fan, as you might call it, one...

I either do not doubt or want to question the general V, NPOV or NOR guidelines, nor the particular VG/GL one. I also have written my share of "scientific papers", so I think the basics are covered.

I'm rather interested why this article is considered so bad and recieves so much bite, while other articles on similar games (MMORPGs, not released, compareable form to the original article) are long since up: Age_of_Conan:_Hyborian_Adventures, Aion:_Tower_of_Eternity, Gods_&_Heroes:_Rome_Rising (even on "idefinate hold", read "very likely canceled"), Perfect_World, Pirates_of_the_Burning_Sea or Warhammer_Online:_Age_of_Reckoning.

I see why "gaming language" should be kept sparse - but I tried to keep it to a basic minimum, understandable for someone who is a bit familiar with MMORPGs. For someone who's not, the article is probably a bad read anyway, or s/he should first read the linked articles on MMORPGs, PvP, PvE, ...

Leaving aside the "lore" section for now, I have hard time to see the "strong advertising" tone, as each part had references to relyable 3rd party site. And on the "too much infomation for an article" part, I'm yet not wondering, as I tried to structure the page properly, so anybody could skip ahead of non-relevant parts, while those interested in a complete summary have all the important parts ready. Of course the focus in some areas was what makes Spellborn different to other MMORPGs - but to me that would be a natural approach, as just reiterating the parts which are the same doesn't provide any particular value.

As I am heading off rather soon, I'll give you a few links which may be interesting and explain a lot. Look over the past versions (before my edits) and you'll see why they apply.

On the advertising language: WP:PEACOCK
On the other games out there: WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS
On the gaming language: Wikipedia:Explain jargon. Generally all jargon should be avoided. Articles are written for the educated layperson. From Archive 31 of WT:VG (edited), a previous comment of mine on the topic of the audience of Wikipedia article. (full link) The bulk of this may be slightly off topic, but still is good to know, as it touched upon the reason why I deleted most of the "Endgame content" section.
"85.180's first argument is that players of a game should in fact be considered the main audience of an article. This is false. Wikipedia's articles are written to be readable by the so called educated layman. Someone who is educated, but has no specialist knowledge of the field. The mathematical methaphor employed is not true. The main clientèle for mathematical articles are not the users of a mathematical concept, but those who are interested in it, yet have no specialist knowledge (see: WP:MOSDEF). The same applies for game articles: it is not the players we write for, it is those who are interested in a game.
Players are indeed the main group interested in reading about racing games. Other groups are interested as well, for example, parents of (mainly young) players and random curious people. An important fact to recognise here is that of all groups, players are the least likely to use Wikipedia as their source. The vast majority of players mainly read gaming sites, including fansites, gaming wikis and - sites (gamespot etc). They have the same reasons for doing this as molecular biologists who do not use Wikipedia to read about molecular biology. Conversely, parents and random curious people (to expand upon the examples above) would mainly use Wikipedia to read about racing games. Concluding, players, though the main interested group, are not the main audience of Wikipedia articles on the games they play.
Though, I cannot deny there are some racing games players who read the Wikipedia articles on the games they play, and that they might like car lists. The most important point here is that the article should appeal to the common interest, and only to the specific interest groups as far as the shared interest goes. To give some outrageous examples, Wikipedia does not have a "list of scenes parents should skip because of excessive blood" to appeal to the worried parents. Wikipedia does not have a "list of cultural references on bumper stickers in this racing game" to appeal to the trivia seekers. Wikipedia does not write for every specific interest group. Wikipedia writes only that which can reasonably be presumed to be relevant to an encyclopaedia article written for a general educated audience, provided WP:5. Car lists in racing games do not fit the bill."
Also, consider that the many comments advocating the deletion of the article per WP:CRYSTAL are a new thing. Generally, if an article has had independent previews (in IGN and such, which this game has), an article can be written and should not be deleted. See also StarCraft II. If the closing admin of the Spellborn deletion discussion closes it as delete I'll take it up to deletion review for the precise reason that it would mean articles like StarCraft II should be deleted.

User:Krator (t c) 02:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the effort. I'll look into the info and see if some parts of the original work can be recovered according to the above guidelines. Langeweile (talk) 03:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned non-free media (Image:Spellborn.gif)

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