Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20101022/Feature

WikiProject Video Games Newsletter

Volume 3, No. 2 — 3rd Quarter, 2010

Changes to Featured and Good content | News items and announcements | Feature | Featured editor

Feature: New article announcements and article requests

Submitted by MuZemike

WikiProject Video games is a unique WikiProject in which we manually maintain a list of all new articles that have been created within the past 30 days. This is because our bot that culls possible new video game articles, AlexNewArtBot, produces so many false positives that we depend on project members to sift those out by hand and update them to the list; there is such an overlap with video gaming and other topics that it is virtually impossible to come up with a definitive set of keywords to cull from the list of new articles created only articles related to video gaming.

The new article announcements list serves several purposes:

To list and initially assess new articles which need to be tagged as part of WikiProject Video games via the {{WikiProject Video games}} template
To help wikify and provide initial cleanup to these new articles and to potentially note relevant problems with them (such as NPOV problems, notability concerns, problems involving improper usage of copyrighted material, etc.)
To help identify possible candidates for Wikipedia:Did you know – where new articles are featured on the Main Page which includes an interesting fact about each article
To help bring in and welcome newcomers to WikiProject Video games

Updating the list

In WikiProject Video games, editors are encouraged to update whenever they create a brand new article. It's a very simple process which involves clicking "edit" at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements and following the examples set forth in the previous entries on that page.

If the article is on a brand new day, and the current date is not listed, simply add the following to the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements:

Add on top of the list the current date --->
Add new article --------------------------->
Add another new article if needed --------->
.
.
Change the line ";;&emsp;<old date>" to --->

;;&emsp;<today's date>
#{{icon|Unassessed}} {{la|<article name>}} by {{User|<article creator>}}
#{{icon|Unassessed}} {{la|<article name>}} by {{User|<article creator>}}
.
.
#<old date>

IMPORTANT: Every line except the very top of the list must begin with a pound sign # in order to preserve numbering.

Finding new video game articles

To add a new video game article created within the past 30 days that was just discovered, simply add that entry under the appropriate date heading, following the formatting of the other entries. There are one of two ways to help find new video game articles that have not been listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/New article announcements:

Click User:AlexNewArtBot/VideogamesSearchResult‎ and find any relevant new articles listed there. The bot updates that list daily and with approximately a three-day lag.
Click Special:NewPages, use your browser's "find" function (on most browsers, this is Ctrl+F), and type a relevant term related to video gaming, such as "game", "VG", or "video". Add any relevant finding to the WP:VG/N list.

Initial assessments

All new articles pertaining to video gaming should be assessed in accordance with our assessment guidelines. Assessments are done via the {{WikiProject Video games}} template and are displayed and completed on the article's discussion page. This is the common format that the template takes:

{{WikiProject Video games|class=<class>|importance=<importance>}}

<class>: Most new video gaming articles are either Stub-Class (very short Wikipedia articles) or Start-Class (articles which have more content than stubs but are nowhere near completed yet). Replace <class> with "Stub" if the article is a Stub or with "Start" if the article has more content than a stub would normally have.
<importance>: Most new video gaming articles are low-importance with very few exceptions. Replace <importance> with "Low"
Nearly all Wikipedia articles created now contain infoboxes; normally for video game articles, we use the {{Infobox VG}} template. If the new article does not have this infobox or any other one, it is recommended that you append the following to the end of the {{WikiProject Video games}} template (before the last two ending braces (}}): |needs-infobox=yes
Most Wikipedia articles and video game articles have a box art featured in the infobox, which is permissible under the non-free content criteria provided they are low-resolution and have a fair-use rationale. If an article needs an image of a box art, append the following to the end of the {{WikiProject Video games}} template (before the last two ending braces (}}): |cover=yes
Most video game articles have some sort of a screenshot of the gameplay to easily identify to readers how the game works; this is also permissible under the non-free content criteria provided they are low-resolution and have a fair-use rationale. If an article needs a screenshot, then append the following to the end of the {{WikiProject Video games}} template (before the last two ending braces (}}): |screenshot=yes

Article requests

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests is a page in which users may request that an article be made, either because they have a difficult time establishing sufficient notability for a proposed article or because the user is editing from an IP address and cannot create articles him/herself.

Making an article request is simple. Go to the bottom or the Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests page and create an entry with the following format:

* [[<proposed article name>]] - <brief description>. [<URL to a reliable source>] [<another URL>] [<etc>]

This will create an entry with a redlinked entry, which will allow anyone to click and conveniently create an article with that title and whatever URLs are provided.