User:AndrewArmstrong

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I'm Andrew Armstrong, from the UK. My IGDA profile and Website. I'll add a picture of myself eventually, once I get one that isn't over a year old sorted out.

I'll help editing the wiki from my previous experience where I can, get in contact with me if you feel you need some help on the wiki for any reason. Although I am not in game development yet (being at University) I won't be able to contribute much to whitepapers or SIG's content except in some areas I know a bit about or can fill up, but layout and page creation / formatting is a good job for me. - Andrew 15:11, 13 Jun 2007 (EDT)

Currently my personal list of tasks involves the things below and general maintenance.

Table of contents

[edit] Editing things to do

Check for these stubs to see if they can be added to;

  • Category:Stubs (medium priority)
  • Revamp the Industry events section, its now out of date, and could be more comprehensive then here if made easy to edit. (medium priority)
  • See if the Artificial Intelligence SIG page could be started, no response from the IGDA person or the forums yet though. (medium-high priority, but no response yet)
  • Categorise lots of things and some categories too! (medium priority, will take ages)
  • Link to pages (medium priority - there are a lot of ones that are not linked to! at least need categories)
  • Try and create any Wanted pages. (low priority, not many that desperately need creating)
  • See if any of the Unused images can be deleted or linked from somewhere. (low priority, noting that unused ones waste space or are not needed of course)
  • Link from dead end pages if possible (very low priority, categorisation more important, this isn't wikipedia so dead pages exist a lot more - meeting notes etc.).

Done:

  • Also; wait until Mediawiki is updated for many things. Without Template:If or an alternative I can't do many easy to use generic templates. - Done, templates are go!
  • See if any Short pages need fixing up. (medium priority) Various empty pages marked for deletion. Wait until these are gone to continue.
  • Remove/fix Double redirects (medium priority). Mainly done, apart from a few oddities and any new ones that constantly pop up accidentally.
  • Fix Broken redirects. (not many to do) Done.

Could contribute to the existing IGDA Wiki Projects at Template:Core:Projects (would be good to get a main page for projects to be added to / discussed at). Projects are initiatives or something, I get confused, so that needs sorting first.

[edit] Editing notes

Useful editing templates:

  • Template:If - "If" statement - {{{{if|test=SOMETHING|then=TRUE|else=FALSE}}
  • Template:Switch - "Switch" statement - {{Switch|SOMETHING|case: COND1=RESULT1|case: COND2=RESULT2|default=DEFAULT}}
    • Template:! - Template usage with If and Switch - {{!}}

Editorial ones:

Mediawiki links that really truly help but are a pain to find:

[edit] Ideas to think about implementing + Current Projects

Some more wiki projects to improve the content depends on what people would find useful. Overlapping with wikipedia wouldn't be a good idea (eg; to have generic pages on games, publishers, developers, since they are (usually) covered). Covering information on the IGDA main pages wouldn't be a good idea either.

Will add some ideas for projects once some other stuff gets finished.

Some possibilities:

  • Help page for creating a proper Userpage which is not like my random one.
    • Templates for pictures, links to things (and to the member IGDA profile) and descriptions which is easy to use.
  • Help page for creating Templates used on multiple pages with different content on each to display - especially using If and Switch.
  • Templates for the SIG pages to use.

Current projects:

[edit] Categorisations

This is a basic tree for categorisations, but it is useful to see it live at: Categories Tree View, however that special page seems to be broken (tested in Firefox 2 and Opera) so oh well! Write it out to explain to myself what I'm doing :)

  • Categories
    • IGDA - IGDA categories category.
      • Chapters - Chapter front pages, no subcategories so might need some for the chapter-specific pages
      • Special Interest Groups
        • Online Games [SIG] - Online Games SIG pages.
        • Maybe add some more SIG ones, especially for the active groups Addded all the SIG ones, will categorise appropriate pages as time goes on. All pages likely need categorising so people can find things (a rather big job).
      • Initiatives - Initiatives for the wiki.
        • Subcategories for some larger initiatives.
    • Industry Events - Pages which are industry events
    • Wiki administration - Pages for helping wiki administration.

So need to add the Unused and Uncategorized categories. Some can be merged in fact I see, some removed definitely.

[edit] Biographies

Maybe start a more comprehensive IGDA member biography section. Since this is a much more specialised field then Wikipedia, could be complimented by member input. Could be more comprehensive then Mobygames (which is a great database, but lacks biographies for many, and other bits of information about them too, such as personal sites, news relating to them and suchlike).

Possible sections:

  • Name, vitals (DOB, current place of work) person's basic description
    • Box with picture, DOB, and mobygames link, website link, IGDA member link as applicable
  • History of work ("Biography" content, from past to present)
    • Subsections as needed to break up content
  • Personal life (if a public figure and in news articles / provided by the member)
  • Credits list (links to mobygames?)
  • Pictures gallery (if any or relevant)
  • Links (interviews, personal webpage, company bio pages)

(Note to self: Would need to see if it is worth doing, not much current wiki editing apart from in the SIG's because everyone is busy making stuff. Also might not be really a good project to start without help.)

Idea will be processed after the Digital Game Canon site is up. This is better done in a proper database which can be vetted.

[edit] Policies and help pages

Not vastly needed but some pages on deletion policies, help pages on some topics of relevance and the sorting out of the Help:Policy Manual page would be a good idea. Would need an administrator to do this really though.

Images, media and copyright policies might be a good idea to sort, since fair use rights for what I came up with doing the Writers Guide doesn't really take into account the fact some people might want to go beyond wikipedia and ban all copyrighted images or something (fair use for use in a review seems a sound premise in this case since this isn't wikipedia however, and other uses would likely be deemed fair for academic or referral purposes).

Guides on how to lay out IGDA pages (ie; adding categories for cross-referencing - since Sub Pages are really too limiting for content categorisation and certainly for searching, grouping and navigating information) should be somewhere if people agree with me adding them.

Locations for Initiatives (or projects or whatever they are called) might be worth sorting, they are *everywhere*.

[edit] Help page for updating the Main Page correctly

Help page for updating the Main Page correctly (which templates do what and why) since it is all templates. (Why isn't the main page protected though? - well, no vandalism can exist of course since users need to register at the forums then activate the wiki account to get editing rights!)

Things used on main page:

[edit] Ratings and Censorship pages

At Rating and Censorship is a set of pages which will hopefully contain more complete and coherant global details on rating boards, laws and censorship of games.

Things that need to be done:

  • Page templates Basics all done.
  • Example pages Done mainly.

Currently doing and will add to wiki when complete:

  • Comprehensive research and recording news/artcles about more recent rating and censorship info
  • Some history research (EG: the Nintendo censorship policies, before the ESRB was around)
  • Research into foreign organisations of which I don't speak the language.

Ongoing:

  • Information on rating boards and rating classifications
    • Example games and their received ratings in full (scans, website links). History of the ratings.
  • Information on laws/government mandates/other legal rating things
    • Clear meanings, how they are enforced, examples of their use in court. History of the laws and governments/culture.
  • Case studies on current and past games and the ratings they received all over the world.

Info thread

[edit] Game Preservation

I intend to help the Game Preservation SIG, at least administratively.

Stuff to do/sort out:

  • Classic Gaming Expo mentioned somewhere (Wired reports) and any other preservation or old game conventions, talks and conferences/meetups. some links added, better to add future ones as and when.
  • See how the Digital Game Canon project is going, and how it works. Done
    • Collect interviews, sources of information and game information for the digital game canon, and other games that need preserving, on the IGDA wiki.
    • Link to a variety of sites and articles (gamasutra has some, others do) on old games / companies / history. Gamasutra history articles done. Other sites not so much.
  • Updating any physical archives of games. Information pages / pictures of them. Updating old broken links.
  • See why the archive.org DMCA exception has not been updated and is out of date.
  • Look into other things available with the game software - manuals, box physical CDs/extras (or at least pictures of them), music and soundtracks, game reviews/game magazines, advertising media (posters, trailers, interviews). Does the SIG want to help preserve any of them or is it just the software?
  • Add pages and articles on game preservation research and news, since the area has not been as researched as well as film and TV. Research on copyright and IP might be relevant (especially length of such things).
  • See what government agencies or media organisations preserve film, tv, books, etc. and see what they might be doing about games in the future, if they don't preserve them already. Partially done. Need to investigate UK ones more but contacting them is v. difficult.
    • what laws, regulations and permissions do these organisations have?
    • What use is keeping a game preserved if no one is able to at least buy it or play it somehow? - How does preservation work for film and TV?
  • See what game companies keep archives of media, history or other information. Some likely have vaults of the stuff - Need to work on! (EA, Atari, etc)
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