Template talk:VG Reviews

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Contents

[edit] Template bug

When the template lacks "compilation = true" and a compilation score, it causes the template and any text below it to have a lot of white space before either.

Fixed. Anomie 12:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! ♦TH1RT3EN talk ♦ contribs 16:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad template

It's arcane, it's limiting, and it's hostile to anyone trying to include reviews. IE. It's non-inclusive and unnecessary. FURTHERMORE, it's inconsistent. Some articles are italicized, some are not.

Furthermore, where's the link to the actual reviews? Do you want people to actually have to VISIT THE SITE AND HUNT FOR IT? Either that or have every reference for every review either in the text, written out, or off the template - which makes it sort of DEFEATING THE PURPOSE, huh?

This is a bad idea for a template. JAF1970 (talk) 14:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

First off, calm down. Secondly, consider the advantages. One standardized look for the templates, of which I've seen dozens of different permutations. Popular, notable publications are already coded in. Generally, people will be (or should be ) linking to the article in question for each publication in the main body of the reception section, so that's not necessarily an issue, just a habit some editors have. If an editor wants to add a different publication, they have plenty of room to do so. David Fuchs (talk) 18:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Also, some publications are just that- publications. Others are only websites, which do not get italisized. So that complaint is something to take up with the English language, not the correct implementation here. David Fuchs (talk) 18:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Wow, what unnecessary vehemence. Put the reference in with the score, for example {{VG Reviews| EGM=0<ref> ... </ref>}}. It doesn't seem any more arcane than any standard infobox, do you hate them too? As for being "non-inclusive", if there are any publications that will be used on many video game articles that are not in the template, feel free to suggest them here. Anomie⚔ 12:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] text alignment and hidden awards

Would it be possible to get at least the "Score" column aligned to the left? As it is, it looks pretty messy in use because depending if something got a two-character score (i.e. 10), a one-character score (i.e. 9), or a three-character score (i.e. 9.1) out of 10 and whether it's referenced or not and whether the platform (if it's for a multiplatform game) is stated afterwards, the scores center differently. It would look better if the scores were all aligned on the left-hand side of the box (title still being centred.)

Also, could someone add a hide/show tag to the Awards section, seeing as it might get pretty long? I'm thinking about one like the one used in Template:Infobox Chinese actor and singer, which can be seen in use in, for example, the Cecilia Cheung page. The coding used is {{{!}} class="collapsible collapsed" width=100% {{!}}} but I tried incorporating that and I don't know how to make it work. If someone could add those two things, I'd be so grateful! clicketyclickyaketyyak 01:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Room for a caption/title for the table?

Can we get something to make room for a caption or title? When a different verison of the same game gets different scores it would be easier to split them up and show the scores that way. E.g. Puzzle Quest which has many different versions out for various consoles. Strongsauce (talk) 18:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Dealing with different scores is easy, look at The Orange Box. Captions would be unnecessary and could easily result in tables for each platform across articles on video games on multiple platforms. And that would be painfully messy. -- Sabre (talk) 11:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that example Strongsauce (talk) 20:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notability requirements for inclusion?

Seems that this template is getting filled up with multiple websites. Allgame, PC Powerplay, and Official PSM (UK) were the most recently added ones. How exactly do we determine whether or not a gaming website should be included? Allgame and PC Powerplay don't seem to be very notable (I've never even heard of PC Powerplay, and I assume Allgame is part of the Allmusic network of sites). Strongsauce (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit: seems that PC Powerplay is an Australian-based magazine. Strongsauce (talk) 21:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I added PC PowerPlay because a score from them was quoted in the World in Conflict page. Don't know about notability. Of course, if there is a wikipedia page about the magazine, it must already be notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. OliAtlason (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
While I suppose PC PowerPlay's notability "#1 best selling magazine in Australia" is fine. However I don't think that just because there is an entry in Wikipedia makes it notable nor does that warrant an inclusion into this template. For example looking at the Allgame entry, while it exists it is a very poor article.
However, you can add reviews from sites not in the template by using the rev1,rev1score attributes. I started this discussion since including every possible game review site is a bad idea. There are several in there that are Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft centric (which isn't that big of a concern). But in general we want this template to work for as many games as possible. Strongsauce (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know about rev1, rev1score. Maybe it should be emphasized in the template documentation ? OliAtlason (talk) 22:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I added Allgame as it's quoted on several pages on wikipedia. Also it's one of the few sites that not only reviews modern games but also on older games for systems including Atari 2600, Intellivision and other systems. It's related sites All Music and All Movie are excepted by the wikiprojects for music and film, so I think this is just as fair to be added here, even if it's not as popular as GameSpot or Nintendo Power. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I suggest that we just have one field for UK/US versions of the same magazine, with an explanatory (UK) or something in the actual reviews- that would cut down on quite a few extra parameters. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, perhaps limit the newspaper fields, and keep it to all-game/media related publications? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think thats really applicable to every publication with different versions in different countries. From what I've seen of the two main PCGamer magazines, the original UK version and its later US offshoot might as well be two completely different magazines, sharing little more than name. The two can disagree drastically. For at least the PCGamer option, I'd recommend keeping the UK and US magazine entries separate. I'd also argue that the newspaper entries can be more useful for establishing notability to non-VG editors, as they are independent not only of the developer but the industry as a whole. -- Sabre (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but there are a gazillion possible newspapers- cherry picking the Tribune and NYT, and you leave out the Post, et al- it just seems pointless to include them with their own dedicated parameter, bloating the template and thus reducing its usefulness. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 22:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Synchronization with WP:VG/S

I have opened up discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources#Template:VG_Reviews about a synchronization between these two pages. Please contribute, for the love of NPOV. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] OPMUK not working (FIXED)

The OPMUK code listed doesn't seem to work. Can someone please fix this? ChimpanzeeUK (talk) 10:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems to work now. Don't know what i was doing wrong?! ChimpanzeeUK (talk) 10:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Collapsibility

I see -Majestic- made this table collapsed by default[1] and Rockfang made it show by default[2]. Could we add a field called hidden at the top that would accept a yes or no (or blank) definition for customization between different articles? --Pixelface (talk) 08:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Go ahead, as long as the default is to show if nothing is defined. -- Sabre (talk) 10:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty inexperienced at template coding, but I've found if one includes "|state = collapsed" in an article, the table will be collapsed or hidden by default. I've added a note about it to the documentation. --Pixelface (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, if you want to hide the [show]/[hide] link on the right altogether and have it always expanded, use "|state = plain" attribute. Updated the doc. ---Majestic- (talk) 02:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] These specific codes are ridiculous

There's no reason we should have 40+ intial codes for specific publications. These infoboxes would be way cleaner and easier to input and manage if we just eliminated them all and stuck to rev1, rev1Score, rev2, etc. I mean, do we honestly need the code "CE" for The Cincinnati Enquirer? There are dozens of publications suitable for dozens of games, and while some are more frequently used than others, I don't think anyone is at a serious advantage by typing "1UP=" rather than "rev1=1UP.com". The way things are set up now, it's incredibly discouraging for novice Wikipedia editors to adjust to. Pele Merengue (talk) 00:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

There's various discussions around the VG project to cut down the number of sites listed, tied in with reliable sources. Only the most commonly used sites should be listed here. --MASEM 00:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the more commonly used ones should stay. Changing to revx completely would be a bad decision in my opinion.--Rockfang (talk) 01:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IGN/IGN UK

While I'm not a member of the VG Wikiproject, and I don't care much either way, I'd like to point out that, contrary to this edit summary, nowadays IGN UK does seem to do separate reviews, at least on some products (I don't use the site, so I'm not sure if they do separate reviews for all games now). See for example the US and UK reviews of GTAIV. I don't have any opinion on whether IGN UK should be a parameter in the template, just wanted to point out that there are separate reviews of some things (or maybe all things - again, I don't use the site and can't be bothered checking). Dreaded Walrus t c 13:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, this brings up a point. Why don't we just merge the regional websites/magazines into one parameter? That would clean up four more slots. If we want to reference two or more scores, or to point out which publication did what, just stick a (UK) or (AU) next to the ref. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
For IGN regional variations and things similar to it on small scale, that makes sense, the two aren't drastically different in terms of style, formatting, reviewing techniques, etc, and this UK thing seems to be fairly recent. There's certainly nothing stopping people from using both versions of IGN's reviews in the prose. However, a blanket removal wouldn't be productive. Take PC Gamer for instance. The only thing that binds the two together is the name, with the US version coming a year after the UK version. Looking around, they significantly differ between the way they do things and review things. A good example of contrast is the Sam & Max episodic games: PC Gamer US loved it, gave at least one of them a GotY award, PC Gamer UK critically panned it. Here, the regional differences are far more pronounced, and so for PCG at least (which is also the best selling PC journalist magazine in both countries, a bit of an edge over IGN/GameSpot and other online sources), the two entries should remain for UK and US should remain. -- Sabre (talk) 15:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)