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Comicbook

Find video game sources: "Comicbook" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

Comicbook.com is a news website that covers a wide range of media including, movies, music, tv and games. I see this one a lot when trying to look for reliable sources, and looking through WP:VG/RS I see that is inconclusive with only one discussion, and even then the website wasn't the main point of the discussion. I am hoping a consensus can be reached this time. CaptainGalaxy 20:53, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

I personally think it's reliable. I used an article from the website last year for the TeamFourStar article and browsing through the site, I didn't really find any clickbait-churnalism articles on it - everything seemed to resemble decent journalism. I even saw that ComicBook was used in The Empire Strikes Back revisions during its FA review and the source is still in the current revision. So perhaps if the site is good enough to pass the threshold for that then it's fine to use, especially seeing as how it's used over 3,000 times on Wikipedia. PantheonRadiance (talk) 23:12, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
I think they've got a bit of a churnalism problem. The amount of non-stories they published on Breath of the Wild 2 - something I could probably summarize everything know about it in less than 5 sentences - is staggering. It's not a hard no from me, but I'd need to see some pretty good examples of editorial policy and credentialed writers to be convinced... Sergecross73 msg me 23:47, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
@Sergecross73: Looking into it, their about page mentions they're a subsidiary of ViacomCBS, whether that is a signature of credibility I don't know, you'd have to look at the about page to judge for yourself.
As for credible editors, in their gaming branch these were some notable editors I came across:
  • Logan Moore - Previously worked for PlayStation Insider and DualShockers
  • Marc Deschamps - Previously worked for Nintendojo and The Baltimore Post (other editors have also worked for this one, but I can't find on Wikipedia if this is reliable or not)
  • Cade Onder - Previously worked for Screen Rant and Android Central (a subsideriary for Future PLC, who owns GamesRadar+, TechRadar and PC gamer)
  • Rollin Bishop - Previously worked for The Mary Sue, Tech Times, VICE, Rolling Stone and Polygon
Hope this helps. CaptainGalaxy 13:31, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
A little, as in, most of those outlets (outside of Rollin's history) are pretty fringe or not considered reliable either... Sergecross73 msg me 16:46, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
I believe ComicBook originated as a sister site of GameSpot, fwiw JOEBRO64 01:37, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
I think in general, Comicbook would be seen as reliable on the broader project, but I also have concerns about churnalism that make me want to say "situational" without an immediate qualifier on "when its appropriate". Longer form articles? More specifically, I have growing concerns that GNG is being undermined in some cases by the "cover every little trivial pop culture thing possible" churnalism of some of our "situational" sources. -- ferret (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
I basically agree with Ferret here. I tend to stay away from using it, but it's not because I can point to a specific time where it's added errors to an article. It just goes into heavy detail on some topics. I think that creates potential problems for WP:WEIGHT, but arguably more weight from reliable sources is no issue. I've said this on other discussions, particularly GameRant and ScreenRant, but the churnalism problem is going to cut across a lot of otherwise reliable sources. I'm starting to think we need a wider approach instead of discussing these sources individually. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:51, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Just to be clear, because I've seen you mentioned them a few times now - Gamerant is not some sort of great example to aspire to. Its just barely considered usable. If there were a rating scale of reliability from 1 to 10, where 1 to 5 was unreliable, and 5.1 to 10 were reliable...they'd be like 5.2. So, it's not some great inconsistency if we allow them but not some similar websites. It could be more like Gamerant is a 5.2, and ComicBook is a 4.8. Sergecross73 msg me 16:53, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
And just to be clear, I agree. I keep on mentioning it because the "situationally reliable" section seems to be the consensus about how to handle these types of sources, where they are basically accurate by WP:RS standards, but could lead to messy articles full of insignificant details if we start trying to summarize this "churnalism". My goal isn't to flood Wikpiedia with more sources like Gamerant, but to urge us towards a consistent approach against a whole style of journalism that's starting to creep into even more reliable sources. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:59, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Okay, gotcha, just making sure. Makes sense. Sergecross73 msg me 17:00, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
I think we do need to have a more general discussion about "churnalism". The reason why these sites spit out endless articles about BOTW, for example, is because it's a popular game with millions of concurrent players, and they expect those articles will get views. And they do get views. And thus advertising dollars. And it's not like GameSpot or IGN are too principled to follow the money, at a time where journalists are financially squeezed. The problem won't be which companies are consistently reliable, but which types of content just fundamentally shouldn't be summarized on Wikipedia.
In the past, we went through a similar challenge when some otherwise reliable sites started pumping out game guides -- which are technically reliable, but we decided that Wikipedia shouldn't cover it. [1] There was also the issue of endless "top 10 lists" becoming a trend. It cuts across the entire industry, really. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:21, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

GameOver.gr

Found a Greek outlet based around gaming called "GameOver.gr". Did some digging around, and the LinkedIn page of its owner, George Kallifas, claims that he had been running it for 16 years, that he has had experience in the gaming industry for over 20, and that GameOver.gr as "one of the biggest videogames related sites in Greece". Looking over the amount of citations the website has on Wikipedia, there are a few, mainly for game reviews and mostly on foreign versions of Wikipedia.

I looked further onto GameOver.gr's social media accounts; their Instagram account has around 1.6k followers, while their Facebook account has 11.5k followers, and their YouTube account has 10.7k subscribers. Their Facebook page also claims that they are the "#1 destination in Greece for news, reviews, previews, interviews and giveaways related to the videogames industry", but I haven't been able to find any other Greek outlets to compare them to.

I'm gonna leave what I have so far up. I'm trying to find an editorial policy of sorts, as well as other Greek video game outlets to compare them to in order to figure out if their claims about being one of the biggest game outlets in Greece have any weight to them.

--Anonymouseditor2k19 (talk) 09:07, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

As always, I really want to dig at this one, as we need more vetted non-English sources. GameOver.gr has been cited by IGN as far back as 2004 in regards to a preview of World of Warcraft they did. TouchArcade has cited them in 2014. Unfortunately, that's all I could really find. I've also taken note of how few followers they have, with a Discord of only 81 online members and most articles having 0 comments. However, community engagement does not equal readership, and that it's Greek needs to be remembered so it's not like people from the US or France or China are regularly reading it, etc. I can't find a direct staff page, some staff have no bio at all, and no editorial page I can sniff out. A basic About Us doesn't appear to exist. They've recently, this month, began accepting paypal donations which seems odd. This one is difficult. Very long running site, but I have little to gauge it on. It could literally be the biggest gaming site for Greece, but I don't know how to tell. -- ferret (talk) 13:53, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Basically we need to dig up other Greek gaming outlets in order to see how substantial their claims really are.
Looking over at similarweb.com, they've had around 56.8k visitors in January, 29.4k in February, and 38.7k in March, though I don't know how much of this equates to actual readership. This is a pretty inconsistent number when compared to gameworld.gr and game20.gr, who average around 81.8k visitors per month and 62.8k visitors per month respectively, and both also have a higher category ranking than GameOver.gr. Anonymouseditor2k19 (talk) 21:02, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

TIGSource

Find video game sources: "TIGSource" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

I would like to start a discussion on adding TIGSource as a situational source, at least when the articles were written by Derek Yu. Right now it is simply listed as "inconclusive". ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 08:38, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't quite understand why we have this listed at all, as we link to a AFD where it was simply mentioned by one participant. Less than 60 uses site-wide right now. This is a hard unreliable for me for most content, as half the staff go by pseudo names and there is no information on any of them, no statement in the least about editorial policies or contents, no staff hierarchy or anything. I honestly am not sure how to navigate this site even. Clicking Features lists some sort of competition page from 2010, rather than... Features? I.e. articles. It's run very much as a group blog, and I don't think anyone is editing or acting as EIC. The site appears to be near defunct as well, with no new posts in years, and only a few posts each year.
The best I would agree to is listing it similar to The Jimquisition, for opinion pieces only directly from Derek Yu. But I really don't even want to do that. It brings to mind the Forbes Contributor issue to me. We have 2-3 authors who write for Forbes that we'd all likely agree are known to report factually, who are established journalists, and yet we don't sign off on them as having a "Author is reliable on their own" pass. Why should we give Derek Yu such a pass? He's not a published writer, not a journalist. He's a guy with a blog. I scanned down the main blog feed till I found a few of his posts, and what we have are short blog posts of 2-3 paragraphs. And whatever this is, currently the last post on the front page. -- ferret (talk) 02:32, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Unreliable sources query

Small question here but if a source from the unreliable section is found in an article and if a replacement is not found, do we just leave it there or do we remove it seeing that it's not situational rather unreliable? 2402:D000:811C:98E8:CC84:D33B:D421:1493 (talk) 20:00, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

There's a couple ways of handling it. Which one you chose depends on personal preference, and the likelihood of the claim. You could:
  1. Find a new source to replace it and keep the statement.
  2. Tag the source as unreliable ([unreliable source?]) and keep the statement.
  3. Delete the source, and add the citation needed ([citation needed]) while keeping the content.
  4. Remove the content and the source altogether.
Personally, I do #4 when it's a sketchy or unlikely claim, and #1 if it's something I'm pretty certain is true. #2 and #3 are usually reserved for when I have a lack of knowledge or time to fix something. Sergecross73 msg me 20:35, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Two Beard Gaming

Is the video game website Two Beard Gaming a reliable source?

I mean, the site of Two Beard Gaming is already used as a source in at least 2 wikipedia articles.

They have a top 101 games list that could be put in to the "games considered the best" page should they get approval.

Eseseso (talk) 22:59, 24 May 2022 (UTC)Eseseso

Absolutely unreliable. Almost WP:USERG. All authors anonymous with no credentials and no clear editorial structure or policy. They take user submissions, specifically stating that prior experience in writing is not required, and staff is unpaid. -- ferret (talk) 23:18, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Unreliable - per ferrets comments above. You're free to ask about as many sources as you want...but you might want to think about taking some time learning what we look for in reliable sources. Your suggestions so far have all been...very far from what we look for. Sergecross73 msg me 00:37, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
Unreliable, not a formal gaming media outlet. Anonymouseditor2k19 (talk) 00:45, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

GameCola

GameCola has never been evaluated here, despite a decent number of citations on WP. They've been around since 2002, publishinng many reviews of games both new and old, on top of a slew of other articles on all manner of gaming topics, and a podcast currently at its 157th episode. They have a pretty large staff, too, and the site clearly has editorial overview. So, is it a RS, or not? Phediuk (talk) 09:43, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing much in the way of editorial policy or writer credentials, which aren't good signs. It's not a full-on "no" from me just yet, but I don't see much to suggest reliability at the moment (though I don't see any gigantic red flags). JOEBRO64 15:41, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
For being around a long time, they don't really seem to get cross-ref'd by other gaming outlets. I cherrypicked people on their contributors (not staff) page, and they don't have any impressive pedigrees (or any real credentials I can find.) Their highlighted front-page content is mostly clickbait. Their web design seems to be still acting like it's 2009, which isn't a huge knock against them, but it does give me pause that this is not a large-scale, professional venture. I would say they're unreliable. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:00, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Unreliable No editorial policy, staff responsibilities are not clearly defined (only EIC/owner is really called out, no staff credentials, accepts user submissions without a clear editorial statement in regard to them. We have staff bios such as "Terrence Atkins has long nails with blood on them.". Somewhat oddly in my view, the site declares that all articles are the copyright of their respective author, which also makes me question editorial control. It also appears all article/blog/news writing stopped around August 2021, and the site only does podcasts now, as a minor note. Despite their long long career, I only see two cases of them being quoted by other RS's in our custom search. -- ferret (talk) 16:01, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

SVG.com

This discussion has found the source to be unreliable. Most of the discussion surrounded whether or not this source is suitable for being marked as 'situational', with those in favour suggesting that the citation has editorial oversight, whilst those against commenting on the quality of that oversight. Both on strength of numbers and argument, the unreliable result had the most compelling consensus. There was also some concerns that there wasn't a consensus as to where something would be situationally reliable. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:58, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Find video game sources: "svg.com" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo


Creating a talk page discussion per Ferret's undo. I had already found and read the previous discussion when I made my undo, and I rather disagree that there's consensus to add there? The only other participant (izno) was responding to the technical question of limiting the search to the site only, and I don't think the standard for addition on this page should be "One person posted and no one objected". In fact, that seems like exactly what our Inconclusive discussions section is for. So while I'm willing to have a discussion on the merits, I also think it's pretty cut and dry that the addition of svg.com isn't backed by consensus at all, and the burden should still be on the person who wants to add it.

That said, on the merits, this site is terrible and I'm strongly opposed to it being considered reliable. Pinging Ferret, Shooterwalker, and Pbrks. Alyo (chat·edits) 16:14, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

  • I actually used this website as a source recently, blindly, after seeing that it was listed here as reliable. Today, I was about to use it again, but decided to do a double-take, as the website really did seem to have poor standards. The editors and staff are a mixed bad of some journalism education, English degrees, and and no writing-related degrees, along with a very concerning graduated high school and avoided college like the plague entry. They have Fact Checking and Ethics policies, which is reassuring. The articles they write though... I mean, really? I will forgo any "reliable" or "unreliable" vote here, since I am not sure that I can make it unbiasedly at the moment. The biggest issue I have with this whole situation is the addition of SVG.com as a reliable source, even though there was clearly no consensus, which was then reaffirmed since no one opposed or stated it was unreliable. No opposition does not imply reliability. Every source listed a reliable in VGRS needs to have a backing consensus. – Pbrks (t • c) 16:45, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
  • The reasons stated in the removals was that there was no discussion, by my reading. As a discussion clearly occurred, however unattended, that felt like it was wrong or misguided basis for removal, especially as the entry has been there for some time. Shooterwalker has already given their opinion in the older discussion, but I'm not seeing anything exceedingly wrong with the examples being presented here. Are the facts wrong? Are there major grammatical issues or some other flaw? Explain why these are bad articles. Perhaps there's some churnalism involved, and lord knows I rail against that constantly, and yet despite that we refuse to depreciate Valnet properties. For example, the Elden Ring fisher-price controller article is being highlighted. Polygon, Game Informer, Kotaku, Eurogamer, the Verge and damn near our entire Reliable Source list also covered that. Are they unreliable? -- ferret (talk) 17:01, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
  • I agree with Ferret. There's a consensus that this source has editorial overview, including (as Pbrks noted) fact-checking and ethics policies. There's nothing factually incorrect about any of the articles. To Ferret's point, there is a growing problem of "churnalism" that isn't limited to this one source. It's a combination of journalists being squeezed for revenue as their business model suffers in an increasingly social media driven environment, and thus they are writing about someone who has 2 million followers on Twitch. I don't use twitch, and I don't know who this guy is, and I reserve my criticisms of the individual news articles. But I'm not going to substitute my opinion for policy. And if someone wants to remove it from the reliable source list, they need to cite something in WP:RS that justifies it, instead of simply saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
  • There is a wider issue going on in journalism at large, and it is now a perennial issue across multiple sources. We will always need to exercise some editorial judgment even for other reliable sources. If someone wants to suggest a solution to the wider problem of clickbait, social media driven journalism, I'm open to that, and it will necessarily address sites that otherwise do meet the definition of an WP:RS. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:18, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Normally sources that do not have sufficient discussion go in inconclusive (and 1 person is the definition of such). It should be removed or moved until such time as there actually is consensus. --Izno (talk) 17:26, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
    • Please provide an opinion or evaluation of the source. There's little point in moving it just to move it. Let's discuss, get that consensus, then take action. -- ferret (talk) 17:56, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
      The default for our actions is to revert to actual consensus. Actual consensus as established by long practice on this page is "inconclusive". It's a trivial action and sets the status quo more appropriately. Izno (talk) 22:48, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Absolutely unreliable. I guess I don't see why anyone would want to cite SVG. I checked a dozen articles and they're all summaries of stories published elsewhere. Do they publish their own original content? Their headlines are clickbaity and searching for their articles is a mess. There's no search option on svg.com that I could find, and site-specific Google searches find gossipy trash like https://www.svg.com/126664/the-untold-truth-of-pete-davidson/ which redirects to nickiswift.com. I'm guessing that's because they're all part of the same network and their domains are set up that way, but that's sure to confuse some people. I could maybe understand giving SVG a situational status where we allowed original content written by staff with actual games journalism backgrounds, but everything I've seen so far is churnalism. Woodroar (talk) 17:46, 6 May 2022 (UTC) Striking these comments, since nobody has actually found any original content from staff members with a journalism background. I don't see how this site comes anywhere near WP:REPUTABLE, which is a positive assertion that editors have to prove, not the opposite. Woodroar (talk) 21:01, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    • Other "churnalism" sources like Gamerant are marked as situational, and I'd be comfortable lumping this in the same category. But I think every site has some churnalism to some degree, and we're going to need a wider solution before we start migrating half our sources to "situational" due to clickbait issues. This is much bigger than this one source, IMO. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:11, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, here goes. SVG is the video game arm of Static Media, which is itself a startup specializing in that sort of 'trending entertainment' content ("We give readers what they want, before they want it", "Static Media's content never stands still", etc). In order to do that, they repeat what other more reputable publications say almost verbatim, or else just put down in words something that has happened on a Twitch stream.

Lets look at this piece, as it's a topic that SVG's writers are not likely to have any subject experience in. Sure enough, the piece basically just copies content from the Bloomberg piece it cites and calls it a day. SVG says Microsoft may actually have something to worry about, as FTC Chair Lina Kahn has been an outspoken advocate of a more heavy-handed approach to the regulation of technology companies. Kahn finds that these organizations can often leverage power to devastating effect, exerting control not only within its own business circles but in others as well ... Under Kahn's leadership, the FTC successfully blocked two mergers of tech companies: Nvidia's deal for Arm Ltd. and Lockheed Martin's purchase of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. Bloomberg says FTC Chair Lina Khan has long advocated for a more forceful approach to reviewing deals, particularly by the biggest technology companies, which she says are able to leverage their dominance in one line of business to gain power in other markets. Under her leadership, the agency has sued to block two major takeovers - NVidia Corp's proposed purchase of Arm Ltd. and Lockheed Martin Corp's deal to buy of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc. That borders on plagiarism. In their standard pieces, it's only better insofar as it's technically not plagiarism to write down what a streamer says and call it "news". There are so many pieces like this that are just beat-by-beat reconstructions of something that happened in a youtube/twitch video (with timestamps as citations!). Or are just cited to a reddit user's translation of what happened in a video. I truly cannot imagine how problematic it would be to use a piece like this, which just prose-ifies some tweets and videos and then makes genuinely intimate conclusions about a person's life and mental health with the same level of sourcing as a youtube comment section, in a BLP. I'm going to assume I don't need to go through each of these and explain how they specifically violate WP policy about RS's.

What else. This one cites to a fan wiki. This one cites "fan responses" by linking to tweets by utter randos. Their "exclusives" vertical is full of this thing where they do one interview and then cut it up and republish smaller pieces as separate exclusives. They will also interview someone in what clearly seems like a promotional feature, and then publish another piece summarizing a group of those interviews as another exclusive. With all due respect to the editors in this discussion, it seems beyond obvious to me that this is not even remotely close to a RS. There is no expertise here beyond "I can read The Verge and cut it down to ~400 words". There's no evidence that their editorial policy is anything other than "as quick as possible". They don't do their own reporting. If another source gets something wrong, SVG doesn't appear to be in a position to fact checking before hitting publish. The more I look, the worse this gets. I don't think it's even remotely in the same universe as a Kotaku, who at least had a history of good work and whose news/opinion work is much easier to separate. Alyo (chat·edits) 20:37, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

  • Thank you. This is a much stronger argument for why would shouldn't use this source. Before, some examples of articles were given with no rationale for what made them bad. In one case, the example was something almost every RS we have covered. But this analysis paints a different picture, and while I don't know if "unreliable" is the right word, it's the term we use when depreciating or forbidden sources, so I guess it is. Or perhaps we recognize them as being a tiertiary source? Ergo, no good for secondary coverage. -- ferret (talk) 22:38, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
    To clarify, I would back this being listed Unreliable. I feel a little iffy on the term, they aren't publishing anything false, but that's not really what "Unreliable" means on Wikipedia. We should avoid this source. It appears almost everything they post is based on something else, so we can... just use that. -- ferret (talk) 21:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Comment I'm not going to add my opinion on SVG here, but I think this discussion of Looper I started from a couple months ago would be helpful to talk about. PantheonRadiance (talk) 23:25, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  • I think the Looper discussion is hitting a lot of the same issues, particularly the comment from David Fuchs. I'm comfortable shifting this to "situationally reliable", but I'm still going to ask that we be more specific about what the actual issue is. "This site is terrible" and "it seems beyond obvious to me" isn't really instructive. Wikipedia asks us to explicitly state the WP:OBVIOUS, for the benefit of future participants, so we can very specifically understand what types of WP:RELIABILITY issues we are seeing here. I'm willing to concede there's an issue, but we're still not being clear about what the issue is. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:41, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • we're still not being clear about what the issue is Err, just to be clear, are you saying that my comment "still" isn't clear enough for you? Are you asking me to specify exactly which Wikipedia policy prohibits us from using sources that actively plagiarize other sources? Or source to fan-edited wikis? Unless someone else says they feel the same way you do, I think you're in the minority there. In fact, I think the burden has shifted to you showing why we would ever want to use SVG, even situationally. Can you link to SVG pieces, like I did, that are reliable, independent, and add value to a topic beyond summarizing a different source? I haven't seen a single one that I would use in an article I was writing. As it stands, if you took away their own statement of ethics, I see no arguments in favor of SVG as a source in this discussion. Alyo (chat·edits) 20:46, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    Exactly this. Sources aren't automatically reliable unless an editor compiles a mountain of evidence demonstrating otherwise. Editors who want to use this or any source bear the burden of proving "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". Woodroar (talk) 21:07, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    Wikipedia works on the basis of consensus. I don't think you've proven some kind of "plagiarism" controversy or copyright violation, but I think you've established that there are sometimes more reliable sources that they are pulling their information from. That's what a situational source is, which generally means that we try to replace them with more reliable sources that say the same thing. We can add a note saying that, and I'm open to adding further notes. I'm only asking you to do the bare minimum of how Wikipedia expects its community to function and try to build a consensus here. Shooterwalker (talk) 04:10, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Break

I believe there's a consensus here for Unreliable, any opposition? If nothing substantial in a couple days I'm going to go ahead and close this, and put in a row with both Looper and SVG together as unreliable. Recent discussion at Talk:List_of_video_games_considered_the_best#New_Looper_List_and_a_few_questions has also covered Looper again, finding that they have continuously posted articles that were regurgitating years old information from other sources. Additionally, the list being discussed there initially claimed it was by SVG staff despite being under Looper.com, then later was changed to Looper staff. I think it's exceedingly unclear whether SVG is actually independent of Looper or just a place they filter to "Gaming". -- ferret (talk) 15:08, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

If it helps, I also find it to be unreliable, on the same grounds as Looper and those other similar websites - clickbaity headlines on churnalism articles about nothing seems to be a major facet of the website. Sergecross73 msg me 15:18, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
I would still err on the side of situational in compliance with the standards at WP:RS. The guideline says Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The source meets that definition -- it's independent, published, with editorial review and a policy on fact checking and corrections, let alone ethics. No one has presented any examples of inaccuracy. I appreciate the wider problem of "churnalism", but that isn't strictly a fact-checking problem. That said, I appreciate Ferret's efforts to push this towards discussion and consensus, and I won't stand in the way if everyone else truly thinks this is unreliable. I just think we're eventually going to have to address "churnalism" as a separate problem, and across several other sources that would be considered situational (or even reliable). Shooterwalker (talk) 01:50, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
Anecdote: Every single Looper and SVG article I have read is full of "Per X, Per Y". Specifically, there seem to be a format of "Sentence about the topic, linking to a past Looper/Svg article. Second sentence related to the topic, linking another past Looper/Svg article. According to Source X,...." So it seems like we'd always simply use the same sources they used instead of them. And often times, those sources being cited are ones we'd exclude as unreliable, so we definitely don't want to let Looper/SVG be a gateway for "On the Mario Fandom, it says..."
The question is perhaps (and maybe not directly address by WP:RS), does Looper/SVG ever do original reporting? This is why I mentioned treating them as a tertiary source above, which comes close to essentially saying "Don't use them" anyway. I also want to reiterate: We should definitely behave as if Looper/SVG are a single business unit and not separate publication. Every single article is riddled with crosslinks between the two sites, using the voice of "in our earlier reporting..." -- ferret (talk) 02:55, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
I know that Looper does some original reporting, or at least has in the past. This article about comics, for instance, was written by a published author who's written for multiple RSs. I'm not too familiar with Looper's history, however, so I'm not sure if it's a one-off or it's a case like CBR (which was reliable and published tons of good articles until they were acquired by Valnet and slowly drifted into churnalism as most of the original staff departed) JOEBRO64 14:00, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
This kind of long form article is certainly not the form I'm finding from Looper/SVG for current recent publications. -- ferret (talk) 14:40, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
I find Shooterwalker's argument on the issue to be more convincing. Unless someone could present concrete examples of inaccuracy, I'd go with situationally or marginally reliable for SVG (and by extension, Looper). At the very least, the same standard as GameRant: "not a high quality source, to be treated with caution and excluded from BLP pages. Topics of low potential for controversy such as general pop culture topics or game information are allowable areas". Haleth (talk) 14:14, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
I would want to add something in regards of "Be careful of articles that report on social media or fan site content." -- ferret (talk) 14:42, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
I am very open minded on the guidance. If the problem is churnalism, we can discourage certain types of content (e.g.: undue weight given to activities on social media). I keep reiterating that the site doesn't have any apparent issues with accuracy or fact-checking. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:16, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
I keep reiterating that the site doesn't have any apparent issues with accuracy or fact-checking. I'm not trying to be annoying about this, but you also have yet to respond to an entire comment I left showing exactly those issues (reliance on fan-created content, verifying their own conclusions via anonymous social media posts, lack of analysis besides repeating other sources, etc). I know wikiprojects often have more lax standards than broader village pump pages, but if you took SVG to WP:RSN with this reasoning it would be a snow close. Alyo (chat·edits) 02:59, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
I did. You accused them of plagiarism -- something that's potentially of criminal magnitude -- without any real evidence. (Unless you meant it hyperbolically.) I replied and you appeared to leave the discussion. I'm willing to add a cautionary note about the source, as we do with other sources that have sparked someone's ire. But I'm asking you to engage with the rest of the editors here and try to describe an example of incorrect information that might accidentally be introduced, if we are not careful. (For example, is the issue that they are writing inaccurate summaries of peoples' activities on social media? Or is the issue that they just write too many article about what Twitch streamers are doing on social media?) Shooterwalker (talk) 05:38, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
something that's potentially of criminal magnitude Err, {{citation needed}} you appeared to leave the discussion because you asked me to help build consensus after I'd left a lengthy comment that led multiple people to change to calling the site unreliable. We built consensus, you're unfortunately just on the wrong side of it. You're now just repeating the same point without seeming to understand that you're completely wrong about what a "situational source" is. The litmus test here is not finding a single instance where they have been factually wrong, as you keep asking for. A situational source is one where one part of the site (a specific author, a category of writers, one type of content that they have expertise in, etc) fully meets WP:RS even if the rest of the site doesn't. And the burden to find that is on the editor arguing in favor. You, not me, have the burden of proof of showing when and how their articles are useful or situationally reliable. Saying "well they have an editorial board so it's all generally fine but we'll slap a warning label on them" won't cut it, sorry. See David Fuchs' comment below: the editorial board is just one element of a multi-factor test. Alyo (chat·edits) 14:09, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Multiple editors continued this discussion after you left, and I joined in afterwards. If you want to build a consensus you're welcome to continue. "Burden of proof" strikes me as a WP:WIKILAWYER approach that is fundamentally at odds with Wikipedia, which is built on WP:CONSENSUS and common ground. I keep on offering common ground that we offer some kind of cautionary note about whatever it is that you think might lead to inaccurate Wikipedia articles. But if you really want to keep beating the "burden of proof" horse, I'd say the WP:BURDEN shifts to you to find that the editorial board and policy of fact checking are not enough. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
You're entirely missing (or avoiding) my points, and thus I'll disengage. Cheers, Alyo (chat·edits) 17:06, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Your points have been noted, and my goal is to incorporate them into a note about limitations. There are other editors who share your concerns and the consensus will figure it out. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:25, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't see the real benefit of marking stuff "situationally reliable" when it's clear either another, better source covers the same topics or it's just outright bad journalism that we shouldn't be basing editorial content on. What good content are we losing by not being able to use SVG? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 15:07, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

Nothing of substance. The important stuff can be found elsewhere, and most of their "original" stuff is "This one mind blowing fan theory posits that Links yellow shoes indicate BOTW2 will occur at the beginning of the series timeline" doesn't belong in articles anyways. Sergecross73 msg me 16:38, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
Agree, this should not be marked "situationally reliable" unless we actually know what that situation is, and we have yet to see a single example of an SVG article being a good/appropriate source. Alyo (chat·edits) 03:03, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
The standard is set out in WP:RS, and we've been over this. It has an editorial board. It has a standard for issuing corrections, let alone additional policies about ethics, which is more than other sites offer. That's the standard for a reliable source according to the WP:RS guideline, which has widespread consensus. I'm trying to discuss this with you in good faith, and it's true that the mere presence of a policy on a website doesn't guarantee that a source meets the WP:RS guideline. But you keep on saying it's not "good" or "appropriate", and you haven't cited a single Wikipedia guideline, or revealed a single example where the source has been factually incorrect. At best, there's a consensus that they have a "churnalism" problem. And to be clear, churnalism isn't even something that comes up in the WP:RS guideline, and is a new problem that we have no consensus about how to deal with it. I'm willing to work towards a consensus to address "churnalism", and to raise the standard beyond what is stated in WP:RS. But you have to start working with me instead of repeating yourself in circles without reference to Wikipedia guidelines. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:17, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Stuff like having an editorial board and standards for issuing corrections are pretty much minimum viable stakes for considering reliability (outside edge cases like self-published sources), not standards themselves, and reliability is a sliding scale regardless. If SVG is not putting out content that is substantially different than better sources, there's no reason to use SVG. I simply don't understand why there's some big argument trying to use what everyone agrees here is a subpar source. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:28, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
I agree reliable sources are on a sliding scale. This is a perennial problem because now even our most reliable sources have a "churnalism" issue, whenever they start covering rumors and social media controversies (likely with the goal of generating social media reactions themselves). Churnalism isn't really a problem with fact-checking and accuracy, so you're right that these sources still meet the "minimum viable" qualities to fit the WP:RS guideline. And yet, I agree that the definition at WP:RS might not always be enough, and we might form a WP:CONSENSUS to contain any issues about a specific source. We need some clarity on what "subpar" means here, because my best read of this discussion is that there are issues with how they Twitch streamers and their social media antics. The source table has a "Notes and limitations" heading for exactly this function, and we even have the "situationally reliable" section where we need to be even more cautious. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:52, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Generally unreliable: The problem here is that the site includes a mixture of statements that come from other reliable sites, statements sourced from fansites, YouTube videos, streams, and other generally unreliable sources, and statements that are inferences or generalisations from the site's staff. Clearly articles sourced to fansites shouldn't be used and we might be worried that summaries of streams and videos bring up DUE problems and are potentially unreliable themselves. Furthermore, I don't believe that there is currently sufficient evidence that we should trust the staff's own inferences and generalisations, especially for BLP articles. This is further backed up by the fact that there appears to be virtually no WP:USEBYOTHERS. This might be reason to consider the site as a situational source if not for the fact that these statements are generally not confined to separate parts of the site or its articles. Articles may contain a mixture of content coming from reliable sources alongside unreliable statements from the site itself, and it may be hard to distinguish the good from the bad. Therefore, if the site includes information that cannot be found in other reliable sources, it isn't guaranteed that it will be reliable information. But if it can be found in other reliable sources, those other reliable sources should absolutely be preferred. In no case would it be preferable to use the site as a source for information in an article. Alduin2000 (talk) 03:17, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

  • I believe the consensus remains at unreliable. Since the section break, only Haleth has voiced a situational source support. Otherwise the only supporter is Shooterwalker. Other comments have reaffirmed their unreliable position, and a new unreliable !vote came in. I don't think we'll see a change in the direction of this discussion, so my plan is to proceed as originally stated at the start of this section soon. -- ferret (talk) 14:24, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
    I've asked for a non-involved closer to read this. I believe my close would be correct, but I'm fairly involved. -- ferret (talk) 18:10, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reliability of HLTV

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This CS:GO related site has been on WP:VG/RS for a while and has been brought up for reevaluation multiple times as well, but no discussion has taken place. The original evaluation mentions a lack of evidence that the writers are "experts in the field," and whilst this may have been somewhat true in 2016, the situation has definitely changed. The current head of operations, Zvonimir "Professeur" Burazin has been hired as an analyst by multiple notable tournament organizers including ESL and PGL (where he was hired for an official Valve sanctioned tournament).

This does not mean their website is reliable per se, but their match database has also been integrated into the official CS:GO client itself.[2][3]

I should also add as a disclaimer that I wrote the original Wikipedia article for HLTV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lxxl2 (talk • contribs)

I'd really hesitate to put HLTV as anything more than a situational source. While one of the original comments in that evaluation does indeed mention a lack of "experts in the field", I think the bigger issue is actually the second part of the comment about the lack of information about their editorial standards. Now that Mira (who had prior experience at other media organizations) has left, the Editor-in-Chief is a former player with no journalistic training or other experience that I'm aware of. There's no information about their processes, and if you go through the articles under their "news" vertical you'll get pieces written by uhh, who? A random forum member? Who is this? It wouldn't be so bad if these were clearly separated from the pieces written by Professeur et al, but pieces by the EIC are presented right above pieces by forum randos. I will occasionally use HLTV as a source for very basic "XYZ result happened at the Major", but I would almost never use it as a source for the purposes of demonstrating notability and I don't think we can consider it generally reliable. Alyo (chat·edits) 02:08, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
I see where you're coming from here, but I would like to point out that a large portion of the HLTV articles that would be used in an article are stating basic results like "XYZ happened at Cologne in 2016." This obviously can't be used to establish notability as then basically every CS:GO player who is somewhat close to notable in CS would get an article of questionable merit like Maikelele, but using it as a source for historical results shouldn't be an issue.
I would add that the in general the HLTV rankings are considered reliable by the community in that hitting the #1 spot is something which is notable. [4][5]. Whenever an analyst mentions the "world ranking" on an official stream they are referring to the HLTV ranking.[6] I have no evidence of this, but if they refer to a player being the #1 player in the world in X year they are also referring to the HLTV ranking. This admittedly places the website in a bit of a murky area as despite being taken quite seriously by the community, in so far as experts in CS:GO like SPUNJ are involved in the presentation of the top 1 award [7], but the person who makes these rankings doesn't really have any credentials[8]. Essentially, what I'm arguing is that being ranked highly by HLTV in their player rankings or winning one of their MVP's for a large tournament could be used to establish notability, and vice versa. Lxxl (talk) 21:09, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
Being ranked highly or named MVP by HLTV (or any esports body/organization for that matter) could never be enough to demonstrate notability of a person. We use the general notability guidelines for this; that is, we need multiple sources that show significant coverage (not just passing mentions) about the subject in published, reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject. If being ranked highly by HLTV is indeed a notable event, then reliable news outlets would be writing about that person achieving said ranking. If/when an esports SNG is created, then we can worry about things like "ranked in top x by HLTV", but until then, we only go by the GNG. I also would say situational -- can be used for verifying match scores. I see almost no use for it outside of that. – Pbrks (t • c) 21:09, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
Situational, at best. I'd prefer we not use it at all. It seems the cases where HLTV's rankings or awards are noteworthy (in the common sense of the word), secondary reliable sources are reporting it. In such a case, we'd use them. There's no reliable secondary reporting coming out of HLTV in my view. I hesitate to say situational though. That suggests it's reliable, in some cases. What cases? It's mentioned using it to verify match scores, but I would counter: Should we be including details of a match that no one outside of HLTV reported on? If only HLTV reported on it and has the score, maybe that match shouldn't be included as a significant event. -- ferret (talk) 21:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Unreliable - the website looks more like a fansite written by enthusiasts than what we tend to look for in Wikipedia sources. Sergecross73 msg me 16:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Agree with Sergecross that it's chalked up in unreliable for me. Another case where if something's relevant, secondary sources will probably cover it. Notable within the esports realm doesn't mean it's reliable for Wikipedia's sourcing purposes. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:23, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Unreliable and false info - First: anyone, like you and us, can register and make reviews, news and more. Second: I found news that some tournaments like IronWar Grand Prix 2021 is total fake by scammers and the winners didn't get any money! [9] It doesn't make sense to list all the false tournaments, there is no trust in this site. We have reason to believe that some of the tournaments did not take place at all. --SHOCK-25 (talk) 12:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Since there's been a few "unreliable" !votes here, I want to clarify that I do actually think the site is situationally reliable in two scenarios: CSGO tournament results (the data/numbers part of the site), and CSGO news published by established journalists (Professeur, lurppis/Mira when they were there, etc). As regards the first part, HLTV has historically been the centralized site for tournament results and lists, and it has become so established that Valve Corp has actually integrated HLTV's tournament info into the game client itself. Because of this history/line to Valve, their data is frequently cited by other reliable sources. There are very few wp-notable CSGO tournaments, so this isn't a massive issue, but for the CSGO Majors it's nice to have at least one place that aggregates all the results. So that's use case #1. As far as what Sergecross73 says, there are a few people who stick out above the rest. Former EIC Luis Mira is an established journalist, Tomi Kovanen (journalist who became GM of Immortals) used to write for them, and as OP noted, Head of Operations, Professeur, is an analyst at Valve-sponsored events. So while much of the site is indeed geared for enthusiasts, a few of the people are cited by other reliable sources and in other forms. I don't think it rises to the level of generally reliable for the reasons I previously stated, but I feel like I have to at least point these people out. I still wouldn't use HLTV for notability purposes, but I do think that pieces like this or this, written by their top writers, actually have more authority/expertise than pieces written by other "reliable sources" who branched out into esports, and can be used to wp:v. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:15, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
    I think a lot of what you've said here actually plays into my comment about "Unless other sources comment on a match, should we be including it?" HLTV is somewhat close to being non-independent to Valve, almost a primary source. Are the details and statistics reliable? Probably. Should we take note of most of them? Probably not. -- ferret (talk) 15:51, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
    I guess I'm thinking of this as a question of extremely limited scope. There are very few CSGO tournaments with articles on WP, and of those I would only argue for including specific results in the world championship articles, the Majors. Those events are notable by every metric, but Dot Esports or Upcomer or even ESPN Esports (RIP) is not publishing individual match scores for all the group stage games. Are the details and statistics reliable? Probably. Should we take note of most of them? Probably not is essentially how I'd frame it, but with the "probably not" allowing for use for the most notable tournaments. I'd analogize to something like Chess_World_Cup_2021#Results. Is the event notable? Clearly. Is there a reliable, third-party/non-database source that wrote about (92) Cristobal H. Villagra 2-0 (165) Goh Wei Ming in the first round? Uhh...I doubt it? I can remove every individual match result, or every link to HLTV from those match pages, but it seems odd when we otherwise acknowledge the accuracy of their data.
    (If it isn't obvious, I've been thinking about taking one of the Majors to GA status so I'm trying to iron out what sourcing is available to me now--I'm totally fine with whatever consensus determines.) Alyo (chat·edits) 17:53, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

www.gry-online.pl

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I was surprised not to see this listed here. A large Polish video game portal, has en and pl wiki articles: Gry-Online. It's more of a general gaming with a side of computer news (ex. recent article about Wikipedia, and they also run articles about board games, graphic novels and tv/films, etc., so they seem to be moving towards general geek stuff, although their main focus remains on video games. They have a game database called 'encyclopedia' but as usual it's more of a catalogue. They claim to have about a hundred employees, listed here: https://www.gry-online.pl/team.asp . However, I cannot find a description of their review process, but that's not incommon for many publicaitons. They don't accept user submissions for their articles. I suggest adding them to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources#Foreign_language. PS. For whatever reason, their English version uses a different name, should also be listed: Gamepressure.com (also it seems to have little visiblity and is not used on en wiki, I think). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:37, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Gry-Online is already listed under "Other reliable", albeit as "Gry OnLine". IceWelder [✉] 09:19, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
@IceWelder Ah. Well, then any objections to adding the hyphen/dash/whatever this is called? I think it is part of the entity's official name. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:52, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Fine by me. I'm just trying to figure out whether it's "Gry-Online" or "Gry-OnLine" or even "GryOnline"; the website uses all three interchangeably. IceWelder [✉] 10:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Super GamePower

Find video game sources: "Super GamePower" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk

Super GamePower (pt:Super GamePower) was a Brazilian print magazine published 1994–2009. From 1994 to August 2001, it was published by pt:Editora Nova Cultural, which originated from Editora Abril, "one of the biggest media holdings in Latin America." The source is currently being used in EarthBound, Reception section. Since this is not a website I don't know what else to add honestly, but I believe it could be considered reliable. In 2012, news website Universo Online, one of the most popular in Brazil, interviewed the team behind the magazine, creating a 32 minute documentary [10]. Skyshifter talk 02:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Reliable. Seems like this was a decently-sized outlet in Brazil during the late nineties, and could come in useful as a source. Anonymouseditor2k19 (talk) 06:54, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

BrutalGamer

I came across the site https://brutalgamer.com while researching sources for the article Gameknight999, which I started a year ago in draft space and let languish, and which was recently approved for main space. The source looked pretty good to me, with an editorial staff and everything,[11] so I cited a review I found in it. I didn't see BrutalGamer listed here, though. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

The breakdown on how they do reviews is refreshing, but I'm not seeing any real staff credentials. The site's Facebook page has less than 500 likes, and the last review, 2 weeks ago, has only 719 views. Despite the long staff list, every review in 2022 was done by one person. The current front page of news, every article is by the same author. You have to go back almost 30 articles before seeing another staff member. The site is very close to essentially being a blog by it's EIC, with occasional guest posts. Our custom search only seems to find two hits where another reliable source mentioned this site, both prior to 2012, so I don't think it rises above the bar to be considered a reliable source. The key being a reputation for fact checking, but no one is quoting them so they can't have a reputation. -- ferret (talk) 21:58, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Ah, OK. I was looking back many years for stuff pertaining to Gameknight999, and I saw several different authors as I browsed old issues, but I hadn't looked at the most recent contributions. At the time, I did wonder at the fact that the review I cited had just a first name for an author and no author bio, but the content looked good in quality, so I cited it.
I just ran a search on Wikipedia, and there are a handful of articles citing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALinkSearch&target=*.brutalgamer.com&title=Special%3ALinkSearch ~Anachronist (talk) 23:35, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Use doesn't really indicate reliability. We have sources on this page declared unequivocally unreliable and they're in use. The reviews should probably be removed. The interviews can be treated as primary. Most of the rest looks like routine news that another source should have covered. -- ferret (talk) 16:04, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Impact of declining journalism on Wikipedia articles

With digital journalism competing for ad dollars, and more eyeballs shifting to social media and streams, we're seeing the whole model of reporting change. A lot more opinion pieces, trend riding, listicles, and even just content dumping, to get as many eyeballs onto a site as possible.

I have seen this issue raised among several different sources, even ones we consider reliable. I'm tempted to create a survey or an RFC, but I wanted to just get some preliminary thoughts here.

Try to recall a source that is "borderline" reliable. A source that technically has fact-checking and editorial review, but sometimes produces journalism that is at odds with writing a good Wikipedia article. It might even be a source that is currently on this list as reliable. Now imagine we started building Wikipedia articles by summarizing those sources. What types of negative effects do you think we would see on Wikipedia articles? Bonus question, which types of journalism would create the most problems? Shooterwalker (talk) 16:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

  • I'll answer my own question to kick things off, and I encourage people to come up with a completely different answer. Around ten years ago, a lot of web sites got in on the Game Guide business, realizing that consumers would search for hints about how to win their favorite games. It's good for business but not especially good for writing an encyclopedia. WP:VG/MOS evolved to discourage complete lists of items, points, easter eggs, and the like. Most of us agreed that this was a good practice and numerous articles were cleaned up, to the point that this was codified in WP:NOT. Technically, those game guides are produced by web sites with an editorial team, and a reputation for fact checking. But we knew that if we started summarizing them, there would be endless unreliable detailed articles about every aspect of every game.
  • I am currently having mixed feelings about listicles. I used to think it was a pretty big deal to show up on a most important video game characters of all time type of list. Journalists quickly realized that people like me think this is a big deal, and started to generate endless topics for lists, in hopes of spurring discussions and reactions. It becomes a race to the bottom. Ten cutest game characters. Most annoying video game characters. Maybe not bad? 5 video game dads. 7 coolest quotes from (game protagonist). 10 best video games with fictional languages. There is a point where it crosses the line from a major accolade to trivia.
  • I think it's healthy to ask "what's the worst that could happen?" If I were hellbent on abusing these sources, I could probably create endless spinouts of the best-selling games. Easter eggs in Grand Theft Auto. Ghost themed levels in Mario franchise. Undertale ending. Video game journalists have churned out enough content that we could write these articles, but good sense keeps us from doing so. Some of these aspects might be covered at the main articles about those franchises or games, but we run into fewer problems because there are such strong conventions about how to write about those. Even though I think the problem is the sources, I actually think the solution might be at our WP:MOS. But I'm thinking out loud, and there may be all kinds of other issues with low quality journalism. (For example, articles about social media personalities and controversies.) Shooterwalker (talk) 16:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
While I think this is an important issue, your framing (at least in your initial comment) rather begs the question. First, what is a "borderline reliable" source? That word doesn't appear here or here or here, so do you mean a situational source? If so, that sorta answers the rest of your question: anytime that it produces journalism that is at odds with writing a good Wikipedia article we just wouldn't (/shouldn't) use it. That's what "situational" means--ideally we've identified when the source is speaking within their circle of competence + from a position of editorial reliability. Alternatively, if you mean "a source that we've judged to be generally reliable suddenly begins churning out garbage", WP policy is flexible enough to deal with that. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, and our sourcing policies very explicitly note that generally reliable sources may still not be reliable in curtain circumstances. Look at WP:GREL to get an example of what those circumstances might look like. We don't have to accept a specific citation just because the site/org has a whole has been judged to be generally reliable. Apart from this, I'm not sure what a "borderline reliable" source is. Either the organization has established a history of editorial oversight, accuracy, and an area of competence--in which case the presumption, but not guarantee, is that it's reliable in that area--or it hasn't. So to rephrase your question as I initially read it: "What if we had a good source that was actually a bad source, and then we used that bad source to create articles--wouldn't that be bad?" Well, yes of course, but WP policies are intended to prevent that.
You've added some more specific examples, so I'll reference those. Your first bullet seems to be an example of the current situational source system working. We know that those types of community blogs, user-submitted tips, and quick guides don't face the same level of editorial oversight, so even if they are published by web sites with an editorial team, those pages aren't considered reliable. Your second bullet is something that's likely not reliable, and the more a site publishes those lists the less we will consider them reliable. Finally, If I were hellbent on abusing these sources, I could probably create endless spinouts of the best-selling games. Easter eggs in Grand Theft Auto. Ghost themed levels in Mario franchise. Undertale ending. I'm not sure you could. It's not good sense that prevents us from creating those articles, it's policy. Policy demands that notability be demonstrated via reliable sources, and those listicles you talk about wouldn't stand up at AfD. I hope this doesn't come off as overly wiki-lawyery, because I do think there are interesting questions about the change in how journalism is funded nowadays. I just don't think the biggest issue is former marquee publications switching to listicles and then editors going "oh well, now I have to let this article through". If that's not what you mean, then I think I need a specific example, because I have a hard time recalling a borderline source as you're describing it. Alyo (chat·edits) 17:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I think you're expecting the GNG to do a lot more heavy lifting than it does. Don't get me wrong, I'd agree with your interpretation, and I've worked pretty hard to help clean up the VG WikiProject in my time. But Easter eggs in Grand Theft Auto would have several sources covering it[12] as[13] the[14] main[15] topic[16]. (And those are just the articles that treat it as the main topic.) IGN, TheGamer and Business Insider are considered generally reliable. Other sources like Screenrant and Stuff.tv have clear editorial policy that meets the letter of WP:RS. I don't know what your reaction to this would be, but I'm legitimately concerned. The sources would be enough to support a low quality list. I would likely take this to AFD, with a combination of WP:GAMEGUIDE and WP:NOTDIR and WP:SYN claims, but it's not to say it would end in a clear consensus to remove it. You should read the comment of User:David Fuchs below, because it shows how much of Wikipedia does depend on common sense, and good faith editors working towards consistency. If someone wanted to crash through the guard rails there are weaknesses there, and I'm concerned that the rise of low quality journalism is going to make that harder to control. I have seen other editors raise "churnalism" around several sources, even sources that have generally been reliable. But if you don't see it, then that's a very short discussion and I'd rather not waste my energy going in circles. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:05, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
  • No that's a valid concern, and it certainly helps to have a clearer idea of what you see as the issue. I certainly agree with David's comment--I think common sense factors into determining the context of reliability. So for example, I still wouldn't treat those linked articles by themselves as enough to create List of easter eggs in Grand Theft Auto because listicles generally don't go into significant enough detail about the general topic of easter eggs in GTA as a whole (or "as a group or set", as WP:LISTN would say). Even though you're right that you have some ostensibly reliable organizations publishing pretty bland lists of eggs, I don't see them as conferring notability on that topic without some other additional sources. But I'll be interested to see what others say! Alyo (chat·edits) 20:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
I get that common sense doesn't often factor into Wikipedia discussions, but common sense seems like it should be a solid way of dealing with this stuff. We already understand game guides don't confer notability or are generally useful for sourcing. We understand that the more pedestrian or esoteric the list, the less likely it is to be relevant (and I think we generally understand that summary style suggests we not be reciting best of lists that characters have appeared on outside of the aggregate or particularly noteworthy examples, anyhow.) Likewise, I think it's clear from tone if a journalist in an op-ed says "XYZ is the worst game of all time, I vomited non-stop while playing it", it's clearly hyperbole and should be treated with more care than sober, evidence-backed claims. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:06, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
WP:INDISCRIMINATE is the policy to cite when dealing with such issues as listicles and trivial game minutia made into articles. Even if they are from reliable sources, "Wikipedia treats creative works in an encyclopedic manner, discussing the development, design, reception, significance, and influence of works in addition to concise summaries of those works." If the significance and influence can NOT be found discussed in a serious way, it is not notable. Listicles rarely bother to do this, since they are made to garner clicks rather than provide well-reasoned analysis of characters or games. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:23, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Dualshockers

Find video game sources: "Dualshockers" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

Hi! This site is currently listed as unreliable on WP:VG/RS, but there seems to be a very poor consensus as to why. As it was brought up at Talk:Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes#Unreliable sources, I think it would be wise to reassess. The about us page suggests it has an editorial roll. Previous discussions [17] no comments, suggested COI, [18] one comment, also mostly COI, [19] has some comments, but mostly suggesting the previous entries were somehow suitable to suggest it was unreliable. This is seven years ago, so probably needs a better look. The about us page [20] suggests it has a decently strong editorial backbone. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:07, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't know why this was concluded to be unreliable. They seem fairly professional, and other reputable sources like IGN, Kotaku, and Gamespot have credited them, going by the about page, which another indicator for reliability. So, I would say reliable. MoonJet (talk) 14:30, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
The first two discussions for Dualshockers really didn't establish anything. The third is more in-depth but it's primarily Czar's view and we didn't see much participation from others. I'd say it's ripe for re-evaluation. -- ferret (talk) 14:35, 20 April 2022 (UTC)
I'd say it needs reevaluation as to whether it's reliable or not. It has some original interviews that I've come across once or twice but there seemed to be a consensus that it wasn't usable, so I had to pass. --ProtoDrake (talk) 12:14, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Drake. We need to have another discussion regarding the validity of Dualshockers and get a definitive consensus if we should or shouldn't use it. I had used it myself sparringly. Roberth Martinez (talk) 13:05, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, we have three calls to re-evaluate... but no clear re-evaluation ;) As MoonJet notes, other sources do frequently report DualShocker stories, and as they proudly claim, they are frequently cited by the industry for accolades and the like. They physical attend and report on industry events. Despite our label as unreliable, the site is widely used on Wikipedia. We have fairly long established site, with a clear staff page with designated roles. Not exactly much in stated staff credentials, but if you work at a publication for 10 years and your stories are being picked up by other outlets, isn't that experience in and of itself? It is however a relatively small staff, and there is, however, a set of freelancers, and the editorial oversight of them is unstated. The terms of use page specifically uses the phrase "editors and contributors" in regards to content being produced. I want to say reliable, but my heart says "Situational, direct staff only, replace with other sources if possible." -- ferret (talk) 02:18, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

To me, they remind me a lot of Nintendo Life, where they just barely clear the bar for use, and, while usable, its best to use other sources when possible. For example, there's no reason to focus on Nintendo Life's review on a mainstream, popular Super Mario game that has 100 different reviews on Metacritic, but it could be useful for an obscure indie game that only received 6 or 7 reliable sources commenting on the game. I wouldn't be opposed to adapting a situation like that. Sergecross73 msg me 16:34, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
I think "situational, replace if possible", is suitable. I've seen it brought up a few times at GAN, and just had people remove the info, but to me this site is reliable enough to not warrant that. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:12, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

So is there consensus to consider the site situationally reliable? I do see the site has some editorial oversight and a decent set of writers. In addition, a brief look at the VG/RS search tool shows that several of its articles have been used in sites like Engadget, Anime News Network and even Ars Technica. The previous discussion also listed that sites like CNET, Time and VG247 have also cited articles from theirs as well without necessarily critiquing its editorial backbone or implying DS was unreliable, so that may be promising. I would personally place it as "other reliable" but would be fine if others placed it as situationally reliable. The question is, what are some specific cases where it wouldn't be fully reliable, or would be quite unusable for? Controversial claims about people, even when their claims are backed up by other reliable sources? PantheonRadiance (talk) 19:40, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

As noted, they have freelance contributors who is it unclear whether or not they fall under editorial oversight. So that would make them situational, on the basis that only staff articles should be used, and it would still be best to rely on other secondary sources where possible. -- ferret (talk) 20:39, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Fair enough, like content written from Forbes contributors they should be handled with care. Have you also by any chance noticed any faults in their articles that may also deem them more situational, like factual mistakes and/or issues regarding living people? Or would you say it's no less inaccurate than how other RSs cover them or anything? PantheonRadiance (talk) 22:00, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Having read everyone's comments and checked out the site myself, I am inclined to support Lee Vilenski's stance on the source's reliability. I can see a disclaimer that any controversial claims for BLP should be avoided as a compromise for caution, but no one has presented any actual evidence of unreliability which suggest issues like a history of making up fallacious claims or that its freelance contributors lack editorial oversight (sites like IGN and Eurogamer use freelance writers too), and Czar certainly does not speak for the wikiproject. Haleth (talk) 16:59, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Cliqist

I've run into this site a few times while conducting research, currently cited by 20 pages on Wikipedia. The site's defunct and primarily covered indie games. Although the prose is good the staff seemed to be small, and their about page is brief. I'm not quite sure where this would land in terms of reliability. LBWP (talk) 20:51, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Not reliable juding by the site being "passionate about games" and the editor-in-chief "a lifelong gamer and an aspiring animator", with no transparent editorial policy or any other hallmarks of reliability. "New Normative", the site where Cliqist's executive editor is the editor-in-chief, falls under the same terms as far as I can see. IceWelder [✉] 21:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Option 3/Generally unreliable probably, but perhaps Option 2/Marginally reliable for mundane details. The articles actually has not bad prose (1) 2, but I am concerned by the about us section. There's two editors, none of which seem to be writing in other RS. The editorial control is middling at best: We’re passionate about games, especially indie games. Our goal is to shed a light on the world of indie gaming, inform readers on the benefits of crowdfunding, and call out any shady behavior that may seek to take advantage of customers, and the editor-in-chief doesn't have qualifications: Joanna is a lifelong gamer and an aspiring animator, which means she spends way too much time obsessing about fictional worlds. But this certainly don't count towards GNG IMO, probably avoid its use where possible. Many thanks! VickKiang (talk) 02:06, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Xboxygen and Game Legends

Find video game sources: "Xboxygen" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo
Find video game sources: "Game Legends" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo
Hey everyone, I'm inquiring about two foreign publications. Xboxygen (French), as the name suggests, covers Xbox news whereas Game Legends (Italian) centers on broader pop culture topics, including technology, film, Manga, etc. One English Wikipedia article references Xboxygen and none reference Game Legends (Yes, I'm really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for sources here). As for the French and Italian Wikipedia, both have been referenced in a few high quality Halo articles, including the French Halo Reach article and both the French and Italian series articles. As for the sites themselves, their staff pages don't provide much information and neither has an ethics page. This is why I am hesitant to use them, despite their decent graphic design and inclusion in some foreign Wikipedia articles. It's worth noting that there's a message at the bottom of Game Legends articles that states it's "registered with the Court of Rome". For reference, these are the articles I am considering for use. At least through online translation, they seem to be well written and thorough enough. You can find all the other sources I was able to find on this game at the requests page (some are reliable while others aren't). LBWP (talk) 12:04, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Based on what you state, neither is reliable. The one use of Xboxygen was in appropriate anyway, so I removed it. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 12:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

esensja.pl

Link. This is an old Polish geek (sf, fantasy, horror, games) zine: pl:Esensja (est. 2000). It sometimes publisher video games reviews too (here is their games subpage, note it may contain board game reviews too). It has an editorial team ([21]). It won a bunch of awards, or was positively reviewed in its first years of existence (their award/mentions page seems to to have been updated since 2004/2005 or so, https://esensja.pl/_redakcja/info/tekst.html?id=1297 ). They are obviously notable (based on said mentions, the pl wiki article is meh). For example, in 2003 Polish sf/fantasy magazine Nowa Fantastyka, considered reliable, wrote about them that "I don't think I have to introduce "Essence" to anyone - it is one of the best Internet magazines in terms of content." The are open to submissions but those are presumably reviewed according to criteria listed here: https://esensja.pl/_redakcja/info/tekst.html?id=1315 Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:19, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Rename this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Reliable sources?

Shouldn't this (sub)page use "reliable" in its name? Common abbreviations are WP:VGRS/WP:RSVG not WP:VGS/WP:SVG (those go to different pages) for a reason too. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:08, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

A bit misrepresentative, as it also covered situational and unreliable sources, documenting them alongside reliable. I personally use the shortcut WP:VG/S -- ferret (talk) 13:01, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't oppose this but don't think it would really benefit the project and worry some it could break things too. ~ Dissident93 (talk)

Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media

This journal has been added by @Lijil without discussion. Does anyone have any concerns? -- ferret (talk) 16:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

It should definitely have been floated before being added, but I don't see any issues with it. Submissions are anonymously peer-reviewed, and has a pretty distinguished editorial board (including people like Ian Bogost we generally recognize as field experts). It does have submission fees, but they appear only to be if you want to freely publish your work, so I don't think that's disqualifying.[22] Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:44, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, I am new to Wikipedia projects and am learning the ropes, and was assuming the edit boldly rule applied. Thrilled to see all the info here about editing video game articles so I'm glad to be learning! I figured this was an uncontroversial addition since it's one of the main academic journals in game studies. I'll ask first next time - I assume here would be the correct place to make such suggestions? Lijil (talk) 19:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes. I did not revert because I felt it wouldn't be a problem ultimately, but still wanted to ensure no one saw an issue. -- ferret (talk) 20:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
See no problems with it, peer reviewed, non predatory publisher. I've used it to a good degree in core topic articles. Masem (t) 20:00, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

How-to Geek

Find video game sources: "howtogeek" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

What do you guys think about the reliability of How-to Geek? I'm leaning generally reliable but unsure. Thoughts? — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 14:47, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@PerfectSoundWhatever Why are you leaning reliable? It helps the rest of us if you explain your reasoning. -- ferret (talk) 15:45, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
@Ferret: Not experienced with determining RS's but this it what I've noticed. Appears to have editorial oversight. Cursory look at articles and prose seems good and not spammy/low-quality. Linked to in other publications: [23], [24]. Though, they seem to publish articles frequently (every hour?) which I don't really know how to interperet. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 00:32, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
It looks like an editorial team and guidelines are present. 🐶 EpicPupper (he/him | talk) 00:07, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
The About page is rather promising as a statement. My pain prod at PerfectSoundWhatever is that if you're nomming, and say it's reliable, you should say why :) This is a big site, so the question might actually be: Is it Video Game Centric enough to include here, or is it just a general use reliable source? -- ferret (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the process here! Just genuinely wanted to find out whether I can use the source for the article. I don't think it'd be a bad thing if VG/S widened its scope a bit, since there's a lot of overlap between video games and general computing and internet culture, but obviously this would be up to the WikiProject. Though, I think there's enough information to use the source, so I'll go ahead and use it. — PerfectSoundWhatever (t; c) 01:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

GameSpew

Find video game sources: "GameSpew" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

Site looks reliable for reviews; has a review policy explaining ratings, their non-acceptance of payment for reviews, and their aggregation on Metacritic. The About Us page lists the three-person team running the site: they have two editors-in-chief and one staff writer. My only concern is that I couldn't find the two editors in other RS, though the staff writer has written several freelance pieces in other RS. A quick look through the reviews found that they were all written by one of the three, though the About Us page also says they accept freelance submissions that the site will pay for. Yeeno (talk) 19:13, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

There's something odd going on with this site. I was combing through some of the staff writer's (Marmaladebus) articles, and I kept finding them verbatim on other sites with different author bylines. Sometimes it was altered, minor word changes. If I didn't find a weird verbatim copy, I found that it was reporting 2-3 days after another site (such as say, PCGamer) had already reported the same thing. Weirdness aside, what we seems to have here is a six year old blog team. The only hits among our existing reliable sources are that Emily Morrow at Dot Esports claims to have worked at Gamespew. Otherwise all we find is Metacritic. Neither EIC seems to have any credentials or experience with journalism beyond their own site. It doesn't look like anyone else is quoting or citing them. I'm leaning unreliable. -- ferret (talk) 20:11, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Tabletop game source page could use your help

Dear video gamers, your friends at tabletop games project have created a page about sources, modelled on your impressive initative here, and we could use help in our discussions: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Board_and_table_games/Sources --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:20, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:GAMESOURCES" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Wikipedia:GAMESOURCES and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 August 13#Wikipedia:GAMESOURCES until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:21, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

PC Joker

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PC Joker was the first German-language computer games magazine for IBM PC-compatible computers, and had the same publsiher as Amiga Joker (which I believe should also be made a reliable source). German Wikipedia page: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Joker -- Coin945 (talk) 11:55, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Redlinking the sources to encourage article creation

Many of the sources in this list - both reliable and unreliable - are indeed notable. I wonder if anyone would object if I (we?) redlinked the names of magazines/websites/etc. to encourage article creation.--Coin945 (talk) 11:43, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you really think that's what people are looking for/thinking about when they visit this page...? Sergecross73 msg me 11:52, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
If an editor sees a source listed and wants additional context, I think it's rather handy to be able to click through to the Wikipedia article.--Coin945 (talk) 11:56, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree with that, for sure. I just don't think many people browse the list with the intent to create articles if there's no context to be found. They're generally reading here for insight on source reliability, not article creation ideas. Sergecross73 msg me 13:17, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Coin on this: this is exactly the sort of inspiration that could motivate me. I think it's a decent idea. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:23, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm not opposed, I just think it's right up there with stacking the "requested articles" page with hundreds of entries. It shows a need, but doesn't particularly generate interest. Sergecross73 msg me 13:29, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm opposed. Many reliable sources AREN'T notable, and in fact, sources on this page have previously gone to AFD and been deleted. Redlinking should never be "matter of course", but when there's truly some indication the topic is notable or close to notable. Just blanket redlinking is bad practice. -- ferret (talk) 14:16, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
A bunch of them turned out to be blue links anyway, so I've filled them in. Also wondering if those 'Other reliable/situational/unreliable' sources meant to eventually be added to their official lists?--Coin945 (talk) 16:28, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I am also opposed to redlinking everything. However, there are quite a bit of entries here that could be bluelinked. It should be understood that no link = no article (and possibly not notable enough to warrant one); it would just need to be checked/updated every so often. – Pbrks (t • c) 16:31, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
Definitely blue links should be done. Blanket redlinking though no way. -- ferret (talk) 16:41, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. Sergecross73 msg me 17:55, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Rappler Esports

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I came across this in the context of some East/Southeast Asian esports and thought I'd bring it to this project's attention/get some more opinions. WP:RAPPLER is considered a RS over at the RSN and they have a dedicated esports vertical. Promotional and ad content is clearly indicated, and I see no reason why their editorial standards wouldn't apply to the esports section. Maria Ressa is the founder and CEO. It mostly covers Filipino esports, but I think it's reliable for that. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:12, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

If the main site is already considered reliable then there shouldn't be any issues with a sub-section. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 14:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Does the Video game journalism template bear any resemblance to our Sources page?

Coin945 (talk) 16:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

There are some that we wouldn't consider reliable but are otherwise notable enough to have an article. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 14:22, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Permission to add Russian magazine Igromania to non-English reliable source table

Find video game sources: "...Igromania..." – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

According to a discussion from 2013, the site/magazine Igromania is reliable. Could i add it to the table? 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧-𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙚-𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚(🕷) - (✉) 13:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

It should be reviewed again just to cover any changes that could have made it unreliable in the near-decade since then. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 14:21, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Is there a specific way to review to sources? I would do it although i don't really know how to 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧-𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙚-𝙗𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚(🕷) - (✉) 15:59, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Media Clip

Find video game sources: "Media Clip" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

Media Clip is a Japanese review site for eroge and erotic manga. Most of its staffs have experience in eroge magazines such as BugBug, Megastore, and PC Angel, as well as general game magazine Game Labo:

  • Admiral I Yan (イ・ヤン提督) - PC Angel, Megastore, BugBug, Game Labo
  • Suno - PC Angel, Megastore, BugBug, Game Labo
  • Ryo - PC Angel, Megastore, BugBug
  • Hayanagi (葉柳) - BugBug
  • Maiya Iori (伊織舞也) - Megastore, Game Labo

--So47009 (talk) 14:43, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Is Indie Games Plus reliable?

Find video game sources: "Indie Games Plus" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

@IceWelder: Is Indie Games Plus, previously IndieGames.com, RS? The latter was on WP:VG/RS under reliable, but only had 2 discussions, with 1 acknowledging the lack of editorial policies, and another quickly mentioning it (I'm not sure why it's added under RS?). 2 discussions were also made for Indie Games Plus, but are all very short with no consensus, IMHO, on if it's an RS. This was raised at a GAN, if this discussion is inconclusive I might ask at RSN, but many thanks for your time, and thanks IceWelder for nominating a very good, interesting article! VickKiang (talk) 08:53, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Previous discussions here and here. Was previously said to be the same as IndieGames.com because staff carried over but needs more opinions regarding the current state of the site. Pinging previous contributors @GamerPro64, TheJoebro64, Ferret, Kidburla, and Alexandra IDV. IceWelder [✉] 11:45, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I'd say the new site is generally unreliable- no editorial policies or even an about us page, except for a colloquial contact us page listing just (five!) staff members. The advertising is equally poor. I don't know why the older site was listed at generally reliable, based on two very short discussions, with 1 editor even saying there's no editorial policies. Similarly, there were 2 discussions for the newer site, with also no cnsensus (just very short discussions). At best, IMHO we could move this to situational, but I'd like it to be in generally unreliable. VickKiang (talk) 23:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

ROMchip

Find video game sources: "ROMchip" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · WP Library · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk · LinkSearch · LinkTo

ROMchip is a scholarly journal that was first published in 2019. It seems to be similar to Game Studies and Games and Culture, but with greater emphasis on the history of games. According to the journal's website, it has an editorial team (a core editorial group and a general peer review board) from academic institutes and a two-tier review process for articles; interviews and materials (game-related object discussions) are directly reviewed by the board. Based on those aspects, I would consider the journal to be reliable, but I would like to hear some other opinions here. CascadeUrbanite (talk) 09:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Since no one has objected towards the inclusion of this journal over the past week, I will go ahead and add it to the source list. CascadeUrbanite (talk) 23:59, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
@CascadeUrbanite wince. This page doesn't really operate under a silent consensus model. Items added to the front page with no responses are frequently objected to and later removed. -- ferret (talk) 01:39, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
@Ferret I apologize for the bold move; I was getting impatient with the lack of responses since I'm trying to improve the NES article right now (before I resume university classes next month) and found the journal as the only source resembling a reliable one for some claims. With its background as an academic publication, I feel confident with the journal's credentials and editorial process; I'm open to listening to any concerns if you have any. CascadeUrbanite (talk) 02:56, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
@CascadeUrbanite FWIW there's nothing stopping you from using the source on the NES page anyway and making an argument about reliability on that talk page. Sources don't have to be listed here to be usable on pages related to video games--this is just a repository of some of the sources that we've found to be generally good. That said, I actually do agree with ROMchip being somewhat reliable. The editorial group is led by a curator at Stanford, and three professors. It is funded by NYU and the purpose seems to be a fairly rigorous examination of video game history. I don't think it's a fly-by-night operation. Alyo (chat·edits) 14:22, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
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