WikiProject Video Games Newsletter

Volume 3, No. 1 — 1st Quarter, 2010

Interviewed by User:Guyinblack25

This issue we continue our regular feature, profiling a "Featured editor". This is a chance to learn more about the various editors who contribute to the Video games project and the roles they fill. S@bre has been a regular VG editor and joined Wikipedia on December 23, 2005.

1. What drew you to Wikipedia, and what prompted you to begin editing?

   Specifically, it was the article on Day of Defeat: Source back in 2005. There was a request on the old forums for the game to help build the article, so I came along and expanded it with a whole load of game guide stuff and original research—I knew no different back then. I went back a couple of years later and fixed the article up properly; it's now listed as a good article. I later became involved in the StarCraft fiction articles, which at the time were a complete mess, though it wasn't until a collision with one of the extreme deletionists and some guidance from the erstwhile Deckiller that I actually came to understand how to approach those sorts of topics encyclopedically.

2. How did you become involved with the project?

   You know, I can't remember. I presume it was me just signing up, occasionally going to the talk page and reading a few things, and just gradually getting more and more involved.

3. As an active member, what do you think you bring the most to the project?

   Definitely article development and improvement. I've been considerably involved in a significant number of articles, usually with the objective of pushing them up to a minimum of good article status. I've been behind 23 articles that have reached good article status at present, comprising of a mixture of products, characters and a few developers. Hopefully I've got a few more in the works, though I unfortunately can't work at the same pace as I used to these days. Most of the articles I've worked on have involved me coming along, observing an article in a dire situation and rewriting the entire thing. Sometimes this has taken me a matter of days, others have been a slow process over months.

4. What article(s) are you most proud of writing or exemplifies your best work?

   I'd have to say I'm rather proud of my featured articles StarCraft: Ghost and Sam & Max: Freelance Police, which I believe are the only two featured or good articles concerning cancelled video game projects on the entire site. I'm particularly happy about Freelance Police, which represents my first (and currently only) article that has reached FA by my work alone; Ghost was a collaboration with the content machine that is Gary King. I'm also quite happy with the work I've done on Steve Purcell, an animator and cartoonist whose career has spanned LucasArts, ILM and Pixar.

5. Most of your article work deals with computer games, which typically receive less editing attention towards higher quality ratings than console games. Why do think that is and how can that be changed?

   Now that's a tough one. I imagine it might link in with the wider situation in the industry. The day-to-day advertising that you might see on TV or walking down a high street is usually focused on console games, as is much of the mainstream media, so perhaps many editors are simply more aware and better informed about the console market. However, while we occasionally hear stories of the overall decline of the PC market, you'll get reports showing that the exact opposite is happening (such as these). I don't think there is anything we personally can do on Wikipedia to bring more attention to the PC part of the project, as its part of a wider phenomenon.

6. What do you think is the most difficult part of editing on Wikipedia?

   Starting off. I had some turbulent times when I began editing; I quickly ran into problems with deletionists (though don't take my comments regarding deletionists as any indication that I think inclusionists are any better), and it took an uninvolved admin to fully explain the issues with what I was putting on the site and to familiarise me with the content guidelines. It strikes me that others are liable to have been scared off continuing to contribute when faced with these issues. Anonymous and new users will often add inappropriate content to articles, though they mean well but simply don't understand what is required of the articles they edit. We must all remember we were all new once: I originally contributed a whole load of junk that was similar to what some IPs do now, but I learnt how fix my approach to topics.

7. Are there any projects you are working on right now?

   At present, I'm mostly found around articles relating to Sam & Max and some aspects of Monkey Island—specifically Tales of Monkey Island, which I'm currently driving in a GA direction. Unfortunately, Telltale Games seems to be producing games faster than I can write articles at the moment, since I need to start giving some thought to writing the article for the recently announced Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. I'm also trying to ease myself into some history related articles. Writing video game articles with their associated characters and developers follows the same sort of pattern, so writing some history articles represents a nice change of pace, though the research for those topics is an entirely different ball game from video games. For instance, you can't just Google for Guy of Lusignan and take a reference from an industry journalist like IGN for that sort of stuff.

8. What else would you like others to know about you?

   Well, I'm a history undergraduate, which seems to be mostly responsible for a recent lack of time for Wikipedia editing, but the knowledge and research skills from that will undoubtedly come in useful in future Wikipedia exploits. I also partook in some modding work for models and textures in Source engine games a few years back, you can probably find some of them if you look in the right places, but I wouldn't say they represent the best that custom content can provide.

Also read about our previous Featured editor: PresN