The IF excerpt on Wikipedia
Aaron A. Reed
really a terrible forward face for the medium. Go read it again. I'll
wait.
Aren't there much more lovable aspects of the medium we could be
showing off? What we have is cryptic banner text, an inventory
command, a command which produces a second list of three things, and
then a seemingly innocuous command that ends the game and berates the
player in the process. There's not a single example of the "take
action and game state changes" which is arguably the fundamental atom
of IF. No disrespect meant to Curses; the transcript is just not
allowing it to put its best feet forward.
Why not show commands that do interesting things? Why not demonstrate
that IF has moved forward since the Infocom days?
I expect if I tried to change this myself, it would be immediately
reverted by an editor, since I don't have many edits on my Wikipedia
account. If anyone wants to help me hash out a better 3-4 move
transcript here, that more ably demonstrates what's good rather than
annoying about the medium, maybe someone with more WP cred can post
it, and possibly help me defend it on the talk page if necessary. I
think fixing this wart on the forward face of IF would be a nice
service to the community.
(And before you ask, yes, there's real work I should be doing.)
--Aaron
Poster
<6df098d6-fe0b-430e...@f1g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
This is a good point, but I'd encourage you to make the changes anyway
for the reasons you've described. It may not help much, but I'll back
you up on this one.
--
Poster
www.intaligo.com I6 libraries, doom metal, Building
sturmdrangif.wordpress.com Game development blog / IF commentary
Seasons: fall '09 -- One-man projects are prone to delays.
Ron Newcomb
OK, I agree. First question: what game to use instead?
Ben Cressey
Why, Bronze of course.
Brian Campbell
> I just want to throw this out there: the IF excerpt on Wikipedia is
> really a terrible forward face for the medium. Go read it again. I'll
> wait.
You might want to link to it, so people don't have to spend time
Googling and looking around in the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_fiction#Sample_transcript
> Aren't there much more lovable aspects of the medium we could be
> showing off? What we have is cryptic banner text, an inventory
> command, a command which produces a second list of three things, and
> then a seemingly innocuous command that ends the game and berates the
> player in the process. There's not a single example of the "take
> action and game state changes" which is arguably the fundamental atom
> of IF. No disrespect meant to Curses; the transcript is just not
> allowing it to put its best feet forward.
>
> Why not show commands that do interesting things? Why not demonstrate
> that IF has moved forward since the Infocom days?
This sounds like an excellent idea.
> I expect if I tried to change this myself, it would be immediately
> reverted by an editor, since I don't have many edits on my Wikipedia
> account.
One of the principles of Wikipedia is "be bold." <http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:BOLD>. Don't be afraid to make any change
that you genuinely believe will improve the article. As long as your
change has a good comment mentioning why you're doing it, and doesn't
appear to be vandalism, you shouldn't be reverted. While there are
some articles which have particularly touchy editors who might be too
quick to revert changes from newcomers, this is not true of most
articles. Most of the time, if you make a good, helpful edit, it will
be kept. Remember, you are an editor of Wikipedia too; there are no
specially designated editors of particular articles or anything like
that, just some people who might happen to watch the article to try
and help keep it clean and useful.
I think some people might be shy about making edits that might be
reverted because there are some pages which are camped by editors who
like to revert anything that doesn't meet up to their exact concept of
what the page should be. These editors can be frustrating to deal
with, but I don't think they're as common as they are sometimes made
out to be.
> If anyone wants to help me hash out a better 3-4 move
> transcript here, that more ably demonstrates what's good rather than
> annoying about the medium, maybe someone with more WP cred can post
> it, and possibly help me defend it on the talk page if necessary. I
> think fixing this wart on the forward face of IF would be a nice
> service to the community.
As I said, don't be shy. If you have a new transcript which you feel
will significantly improve the article (which I don't think is too
hard to do; you're right about the problems with the current
transcript), then just make that edit, and be prepared to defend it on
the talk page if someone challenges you (which, as I said, is likely
than you may think). If you feel like you need more than one edit to
get it just right, you can create a scratch page somewhere in your
user space (for example, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AaronAReed/
Interactive_fiction> assuming your username is AaronAReed). Once
you're happy with how the transcript looks on that page, you can copy
it over to the real article.
If you feel like you need help, stick what you've got into a scratch
page in your user space, and then ask here for some help editing it.
-- Brian
Autymn D. C.
> I expect if I tried to change this myself, it would be immediately
> reverted by an editor, since I don't have many edits on my Wikipedia
You would not. I make steady edits all the time as IPAs wherefore of
my ban.
> account. If anyone wants to help me hash out a better 3-4 move
> transcript here, that more ably demonstrates what's good rather than
> annoying about the medium, maybe someone with more WP cred can post
> it, and possibly help me defend it on the talk page if necessary. I
> think fixing this wart on the forward face of IF would be a nice
> service to the community.
No it wouldn't: http://wiktionary.org/wiki/nice.
> (And before you ask, yes, there's real work I should be doing.)
real = mootling
-Aut
Kate McKee
let's also discuss what part of the game. I think that Curses has
elements to recommend it, but I agree that the first 4-5 moves
illustrated in the current Wikipedia entry are sort of drab. Why not
a snapshot of a game in media res? (Other than the spoiler
consideration.) The best writing and puzzles often aren't in the
first 4-5 moves. Filmmakers showcasing their work (on, say, Oscar
night) select a clip from somewhere in the middle of the movie, which
usually captures the essence of the characters, the cinematography, or
whatever better than the bit that has opening titles running over it.
Conrad
There's a concurrent thread about the best of the IF Comp winners from
various years; it seems rational to select one of them as a showcase
game.
Conrad.
Ron Newcomb
This year shows that many great games weren't in any comp at all.
On Nov 20, 10:11 am, Ben Cressey <bcres...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > OK, I agree. First question: what game to use instead?
> Why, Bronze of course.
I can attest to its n00b-friendliness. For an article for the general
public who might possibly try a game, that's a win.
On Nov 22, 7:50 pm, Kate McKee <kate-mc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>let's also discuss what part of the game.
Hm. Another good question.
Ron Newcomb
OTOH, perhaps we should consider the game's genre, as well. It seems
games that are a bit more contemporary or down-to-earth get good
acceptance outside our community. _Violet_ for instance. _The
Magical Adventures of Biff Lightspeed_ not so much.