Talk:Game reference (style guide)

Hyperlinks

The suggested game reference format in this style guide doesn't make the game name a hyperlink. Since this is a hypertext reference work, isn't that kind of missing the point? I presume we do want to create pages on games, and refer to them in other pages? Are you seriously suggesting that I type out every single author of 'Pick Up The Phone Booth And Aisle' whenever I want to refer to it, instead of using the Wiki link feature? Even Wikipedia doesn't impose that kind of restriction. --Nate 23:06, 26 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• Re: the hyperlink issue. Yes, we do want to create pages on games. If you want to create a page about a game, I'll let you; I won't delete it. And yes, you may link to that page from a game title's hyperlink. That's just fine. However, I admit that I am not actively encouraging game pages at this time. So far, I have not encourged making hyperlinks out of game titles because, 1) that would insert a huge number of ugly red links, and 2) we still do not have a standard for game pages. When we first were adding pages per author, I was strongly taken to task by some members of the IF community for permitting the creation of substandard pages with no standards in place. It's taken me months to re-edit all those pages. And I'm in no hurry to edit a lot of badly-written pages about games like Jim Pond and the Agents of F.A.R.T. or Doctor Who and the Vortex of Lust. When I have a game page standard, I will update the game page style to suggest links for the game title. -- David Welbourn 02:57, 27 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

• Re: the authorship attribution. We are not Wikipedia, and we never will be. This is a small and young wiki, and we are learning by doing as well as looking at what other wikis do. We will do things a bit differently. Now I'm sure your example of Pick Up The Phone Booth and Aisle wasn't random, was it? How many articles do you want to write about it, anyway? But for the most part, yes, I do expect to see full authorship in game references, especially in game lists, which is where this standard originated. Note that the standard does permit you to omit any part of the game reference if that part is clear in the given context. Therefore, you may use a postscript to give details if you want to casually refer to games. If that's still too awkward, well, I can't force you to use the standard. I note that maga entered The Corn Identity on every author's page as attributed to "with many others", and I haven't "fixed" it yet. Should I fix it or let that stand? -- David Welbourn 03:20, 27 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)
  • My thought on that particular issue was that, since for most of its authors the relative importance of TCI is disproportionate to the scale of its complete listing, it'd be better to keep the full list on IF Whispers and not clutter up author pages with it. It was also a stylistic concern; enormous references bug me. I understand the need for wiki-wide consistency, though, and will fix 'em if you think it should be done. -- Maga 06:36, 27 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)
    • Well, that's more or less why I didn't change it right, away. I sorta saw it as a vote that the standard wasn't working properly when you opted to disregard part of it. Obviously you're not the only one bugged with long references. Which suggests that the standard isn't flexible enough. For now, I think we should leave the TCI references as is. -- David Welbourn 07:34, 27 Oct 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Language

What standard should we use for non-english games? Also on the style page the 'Anzi! IF Toolkit' needs renaming to 'Amzi! IF Toolkit'. Richard Otter 08:31, 6-Nov-2005 (GMT)

The current practice is that the language is not part of the required game reference. When language is specified, it is currently done with a one-word statement after the parenthesis, preferably before comp info statements, like so:

La Belle Jeu (Terri Grandhomme; 2017; Z-code). French.

I could be persuaded to make the language an optional subsection of the reference, which would still go after the platform. If we adopted that standard, then the game reference would look like this:

La Belle Jeu (Terri Grandhomme; 2017; Z-code; French).

Do people have a preference? -- David Welbourn 05:31, 6 Nov 2005 (Central Standard Time)

Yes, I'd prefer including language as a subsection within the parenthetical section. I've been using the curent practice so far, though. --Mara 06:04, 25 August 2006 (EST)

Well, I agree with Mara: including language as a subsection does seem a bit more logical to me. (But I don't think it's extremely important; the current practice is acceptable too, so if it were too much trouble to change what we've done so far, we could as well keep it.)

--Eriorg 12:30, 2 September 2006 (EST)

Okay. The general consensus seems to favour changing the standard so that language is included within the parentheses, with the understanding that it's not a huge priority to fix all the old references. I'll update the page to say that. Thanks, everyone. -- David Welbourn 08:59, 3 September 2006 (EST)