Changes: Forum:Citations in Gale article (BG3)

Revision as of 21:16, 21 June 2022

Forums: Helping Hand > Citations in Gale article (BG3)

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Hello Forgotten Realms wiki people. I am Jesus. I have been transported here by the Holy Spirit to absolve you of your great sins against Gale.

DO NOT EDIT THE WORDS OF YOUR LORD, OH LOWLY ADMINISTRATOR! I SHALL SMITE THEE!!!

Anyway - the Gale article on FR Wiki currently has citations that just lead straight to the BG3 FR Wiki page. Which is about as "trust me bro. Source: Me" as you can get citation-wise. This does seem to apply to a lot of the video game citations in the FR Wiki although, obviously, despite my Father being omniscient, I am in fact not, so I can't account for every citation.

What I would recommend is EITHER:

- Making the citations lead to videos of the game that are uploaded somewhere (e.g. a FR Wiki Youtube) or, more risky, to external videos with timestamps.

- In the citation itself, specify roughly in the game where it is. Which chapter or scene - in a similar way that you would do for page numbers in the books themselves.

- Not using citations until EA is out and you can get a better policy on it.

- Reforming your entire policy on video game content to include a better way to narrow down citations. Otherwise you have a potentially very abusable system where people can just cite the entire game for anything and anyone who wants to error-check it has to trawl through the ENTIRE GAME which is... not a good system, I think we can all agree.

Normally at this point, it is customary for mortals to say "thank you", but as I am Jesus I will instead say "you are welcome, your sins may be absolved if you take these steps".

Kind regards

The Son and the Holy Spirit.

‎JESUS THE LORD SAVIOUR OF CHRISTENDOM

Greetings Jesus.

Your points make a lot of sense, however, we just don't have the resources to dedicate to this. The wiki has about 14 editors who contribute regularly, and a small portion of them are interested in video games, and even less are interested in documenting them. The only people who contribute to such articles are a couple of trusted editors, and if others update them (which is very rare), we can talk through if their edits are legitimate or otherwise. I'm going to try to address your main points one by one:

"...the Gale article on FR Wiki currently has citations that just lead straight to the BG3 FR Wiki page. Which is about as "trust me bro. Source: Me" as you can get citation-wise."

This isn't what the citation is. The citation is for Baldur's Gate III, not our own wiki page. The links are there to be useful for finding out further information on the developer or the game. We point to both Wikipedia as a link to Larian Studios to point the reader to a wiki about the developer, and point to our page to give the reader access to information on the game itself.

"Making the citations lead to videos of the game that are uploaded somewhere (e.g. a FR Wiki Youtube)"

This sounds like a good idea, but it would be exceptionally time-consuming. I personally don't have time to document the information by playing the game, then recording it, uploading it, describing it, and citing it.

"...or, more risky, to external videos with timestamps."

Yes, this would be less-time consuming initially, but very risky, and potentially take up a lot of time in the long run. I'll list some reasons why.

Existence: An editor would have the job of checking if videos were delisted or deleted, channels being closed, removed from YouTube, or other means.

Updating: If a video was, say, deleted, an editor would have to find another video which has the exact same scene one is trying to look for, if any of the conditions above were met. Some YouTubers upload "Let's Plays", so we could use these, but this again would take a long time to sift through (some old games, such as the Pool of Radiance series have hundreds of videos to sift through).

Game mods: It would be sometimes difficult to tell if the uploader is using modifications to their game. An editor could accidentally cite false information this way.

"In the citation itself, specify roughly in the game where it is"

Good idea. However, this would only work for some games, but not for many. Not all games have chapters, and a different course of events can lead to other sources of events. Some events happen in completely different places at different parts of the game in terms of time. The editor might not know what led to such an event, or an editor might not be aware of randomly-generated events so could not document it correctly. This holds true for a lot of old Forgotten Realms games, and some modern ones too. As you're familiar with Baldur's Gate III, imagine if Shadowheart was walked past by the PC. They'd later be confronted by her, or find her in the Grove, or kill her and take the artefact from her corpse, or something else. Let's say they met her in the Grove, the editor could write that "Shadowheart went from the crashed nautiloid to the Grove, and sat on a bench, trying to understand the strange artefact in her position". This is pretty misleading when the event has multiple different paths and outcomes. I also think this would discourage a lot of new editors from editing the wiki, as would them having to cite a video reference.

"Not using citations until EA is out and you can get a better policy on it"

I strongly disagree with this. Pointing to the game itself is better than pointing to nothing.

"Otherwise you have a potentially very abusable system where people can just cite the entire game for anything and anyone who wants to error-check it has to trawl through the ENTIRE GAME which is... not a good system, I think we can all agree."

This is a decent point, but it isn't much different from "updating" these video citations if a video gets deleted or finding a citation if the editor doesn't add it in the first place.

---

For what it is worth, we're currently updating our policies.

In an ideal wiki with hundreds or more editors interested in documenting video games (instead of just two or so), this would already be implemented. If more people join the effort to edit the wiki, giving us a great resource pool, some of these ideas would likely pass.

Until then, cheers for your comments.

Possessed Priest (talk) 21:16, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 The Son and the Holy Spirit.|[[User:JESUS THE LORD SAVIOUR OF CHRISTENDOM|‎JESUS THE LORD SAVIOUR OF CHRISTENDOM]]}}
+{{Forum post|Greetings Jesus.
+Your points make a lot of sense, however, we just don't have the resources to dedicate to this. The wiki has about 14 editors who contribute regularly, and a small portion of them are interested in video games, and even less are interested in documenting them. The only people who contribute to such articles are a couple of trusted editors, and if others update them (which is very rare), we can talk through if their edits are legitimate or otherwise. I'm going to try to address your main points one by one:
+: "...the Gale article on FR Wiki currently has citations that just lead straight to the BG3 FR Wiki page. Which is about as "trust me bro. Source: Me" as you can get citation-wise."
+This isn't what the citation is. The citation is for ''[[Baldur's Gate III]]'', not our own wiki page. The links are there to be useful for finding out further information on the developer or the game. We point to both Wikipedia as a link to Larian Studios to point the reader to a wiki about the developer, and point to our page to give the reader access to information on the game itself.
+: "Making the citations lead to videos of the game that are uploaded somewhere (e.g. a FR Wiki Youtube)"
+This sounds like a good idea, but it would be exceptionally time-consuming. I personally don't have time to document the information by playing the game, then recording it, uploading it, describing it, and citing it.
+: "...or, more risky, to external videos with timestamps."
+Yes, this would be less-time consuming initially, but very risky, and potentially take up a lot of time in the long run. I'll list some reasons why.
+* Existence: An editor would have the job of checking if videos were delisted or deleted, channels being closed, removed from YouTube, or other means.
+* Updating: If a video was, say, deleted, an editor would have to find another video which has the exact same scene one is trying to look for, if any of the conditions above were met. Some YouTubers upload "Let's Plays", so we could use these, but this again would take a long time to sift through (some old games, such as the ''[[Pool of Radiance series]]'' have hundreds of videos to sift through).
+* Game mods: It would be sometimes difficult to tell if the uploader is using modifications to their game. An editor could accidentally cite false information this way.
+: "In the citation itself, specify roughly in the game where it is"
+Good idea. However, this would only work for some games, but not for many. Not all games have chapters, and a different course of events can lead to other sources of events. Some events happen in completely different places at different parts of the game in terms of time. The editor might not know what led to such an event, or an editor might not be aware of randomly-generated events so could not document it correctly. This holds true for a lot of old Forgotten Realms games, and some modern ones too. As you're familiar with ''Baldur's Gate III'', imagine if [[Shadowheart]] was walked past by the PC. They'd later be confronted by her, or find her in the [[Emerald Grove|Grove]], or kill her and take the artefact from her corpse, or something else. Let's say they met her in the Grove, the editor could write that "Shadowheart went from the crashed [[nautiloid]] to the Grove, and sat on a bench, trying to understand the strange artefact in her position". This is pretty misleading when the event has multiple different paths and outcomes. I also think this would discourage a lot of new editors from editing the wiki, as would them having to cite a video reference.
+: "Not using citations until EA is out and you can get a better policy on it"
+I strongly disagree with this. Pointing to the game itself is better than pointing to nothing.
+: "Otherwise you have a potentially very abusable system where people can just cite the entire game for anything and anyone who wants to error-check it has to trawl through the ENTIRE GAME which is... not a good system, I think we can all agree."
+This is a decent point, but it isn't much different from "updating" these video citations if a video gets deleted or finding a citation if the editor doesn't add it in the first place.
+---
+For what it is worth, we're currently updating our policies.
+In an ideal wiki with hundreds or more editors interested in documenting video games (instead of just two or so), this would already be implemented. If more people join the effort to edit the wiki, giving us a great resource pool, some of these ideas would likely pass.
+Until then, cheers for your comments.
+|[[User:Possessed Priest|Possessed Priest]] ([[User talk:Possessed Priest|talk]]) 21:16, 21 June 2022 (UTC)}}