[game_preservation] Wikipedia thoughts?

[Henry Lowood]

Andrew,

Well, a lot can be said about this controversy and about Wikipedia in 
general.  My interest is in what seems to me to be a rather arbitrary 
set of criteria imposed by -- hmm, who? -- at Wikipedia with regard to 
what counts as documentation.  If the argument for Wikipedia is open to 
all, then fine, open to all. If the argument is that the content needs 
to be filtered and vetted, then who are these guys?  Maybe it would make 
sense to ask historians or game developers or members of our SIG or 
somebody knowledgeable in a particular field to act as, shudder, 
/editor./   And, by the way, as the criteria are applied, is any 
information transparently available about why they are applied, what 
historians would call historiography or archivists might call 
documentation strategy?  It just seems very odd to me, a vetting 
structure without any stake in the field that is being discussed, such 
that someone like Bartle or Koster could be dismissed as an being 
competent to write on the subject.

Henry

Andrew Armstrong wrote:

> When you've read the notability and research sections, give us your 

> thoughts :D

>

> I'm interested in the discussions revolving around the misuse of 

> supposedly good policies, the horrible politics and internal people 

> just wanting to destroy rather then create, and the gist that no one 

> can get into it unless they have hours of time even if they are an 

> expert, because it's more work then it's worth.

>

> I know how to edit a wiki, I know why certain rules exist for 

> wikipedia, but some of it is still a bit too much into political 

> territory, not actual editorial territory for my liking.

>

> Oh, and I do remember the earlier days - yes, such a time when there 

> were not multicolour signatures, and articles could have trivia, and I 

> must say remembering it might be rose tinted, but it didn't seem half 

> bad back then despite the lack of some content :) Maybe this Phoebe 

> would agree, maybe not.

>

> And feel free to raise discussions here too, I've been a bit too busy 

> to go digging into other topics, we kinda need more action around here.

>

> Andrew

>

> Bernadette Daly Swanson wrote:

>> Hi Everyone, 

>> I have been on the list for a while and am learning a lot from the discussions.

>> I work with one of the earlier editors of Wikipedia, Phoebe Ayers, and she and two others from Wikipedia have written this book that may give some more insight in how best to use the site as a content developers/editors.

>> I have just bought it so I don't yet have any suggestions, other than millions upon millions of us use it.

>>   I will provide the link to the table of contents in case that helps in terms of using Wikipedia and dealing with such issues:

>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/159327176X/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

>> (the arrow at the bottom right of image will advance it)

>>

>> Ben

>> ____________________________________________

>> Bernadette Daly Swanson 

>> Reference Librarian

>> Carlson Health Sciences Library

>> University of California, Davis

>> 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA  95616-5292

>> Phone: (530) 752-7637

>> http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/hsl/

>> HVX Silverstar in Second Life

>> http://www.youtube.com/hvxsilverstar

>>

>> ----- "Andrew Armstrong" <andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote:

>>

>>   

>>> From some recent curfuffles on Wikipedia deleting MUD article(s):

>>>

>>> http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/01/losing_the_thre.html

>>> http://www.igda.org/preservation/archives/2009/01/more_on_thresho.html

>>>

>>> I wanted to know if anyone on the list had thoughts on Wikipedia - as

>>> a 

>>> resource, as a solution or problem, or whatever. I'm just interested,

>>>

>>> I've not investigated it much myself, and only ever use the 

>>> encyclopaedia for general reading, but the quality of some subjects is

>>>

>>> pretty poor (or, as we can see, not even there now).

>>>

>>> Hopefully the situation will improve over time. I was also going to

>>> see 

>>> what perhaps Mobygames were doing to expand their database (if they

>>> were 

>>> going to) - there is a lot of credits, covers and screenshots, but not

>>>

>>> much actual written content about the games in the database, which is

>>> a 

>>> shame really.

>>>

>>> Andrew

>>> _______________________________________________

>>> game_preservation mailing list

>>> game_preservation at igda.org

>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>>>     

>> _______________________________________________

>> game_preservation mailing list

>> game_preservation at igda.org

>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

>>   

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>   


-- 
Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
 Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
<http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>