Talk:People (style guide)

Porting Credits?

It is becoming more obvious that we're going to need a more explicit way of dealing with crediting people who have ported other people's games. I get the impression that contributors want to keep porting credits separate from normal author credits; perhaps we want a 'Porting Credits' section? Also, I would really prefer to see ported game references to be in the style of:

• Ported Game Name (porter: Porter's Name; date; ported-platform). Ported from Previous Game Name (authors; date; previous-platform).

-- David Welbourn 20:04, 16 May 2005 (Central Daylight Time)

Illustrated games?

There's something I don't understand here:

Games that were ported, translated, illustrated, or remade should be listed in the Porting Credits section.

I don't think games that were illustrated by the person should be listed in Porting Credits, if they were never released without graphics! Which section should they be listed in instead? Author Credits, Other credits, or another one?

Also: I think this page should be more precise about which categories the people should be added to (Illustrators, Interviewed, Translators, French, etc.), like in the Games (style guide) page. --Eriorg 11:30, 13 July 2006 (EST)

Good catch. I think my reasoning went something like 'author credits are one thing I can moreorless clearly understand and can be put in one section, and all the quasi-authorship stuff (which is complicated to think about) goes into another'. So, um, I belatedly propose the creation of a new section called Multimedia Credits which can be used to credit people who have done illustrations, music, sound effects, and animation in IF works that they didn't author in the usually-understood sense. And, I'll try to add something more about categories. It's been a while since I last looked at these style guide pages; I guess they could use a bit of updating. -- David Welbourn 22:12, 13 July 2006 (EST)

Graphical adventures

(TODO: Decide how we want to handle graphical adventures. Should we omit them? Have them in a separate section? Merely mark them as Graphical?)

Well, is it decided now? Someone had added two graphical adventures to the Ludovic Deplanque page, so I edited it, but I don't know if I did it correctly. --Eriorg 15:45, 17 September 2006 (EST)

Short answer: it is not decided yet. What I need to do is first write up a proposed IFWiki:Scope article that sets down where the line in the sand should be drawn with respect to which games are included in IFWiki, and which are not. Graphical games are something of a grey area. Certainly the mere presence of graphics in a game should not bar a game from inclusion, but it doesn't make sense to allow every point-n-click adventure-like game ever written to be included either. Assuming we want to list a game with graphics, however, I think we should merely put "Graphics." after the game ref, just like we used to add "Italian." after an Italian game. I wouldn't separate them from the main list unless we were claiming these were the non-IF games which the author wrote, and in which case, we don't wikilink those particular game titles as well. -- David Welbourn 05:42, 18 September 2006 (EST)

Editing own entries

What is the policy here about editing pages related to things you've worked on? Ralphmerridew 11:40, 21 November 2006 (EST)

There's not really a formal policy about that. My personal feeling is that you should be able to edit pretty much any page you like as long as you're sane and sensible about it, and at least try to follow the formats we've used previously. In fact, I would encourage authors of games and programs to create or edit those pages about the games and programs they've worked on, if only to get the pages created a bit faster. IFWiki is still a rather young wiki with very few active editors; we can't afford to turn away anyone who wants to help out.

I'm slightly less enthusiastic about someone editing the People pages about themself; self-promoting a game is one thing. Self-promoting oneself is a bit icky. However, I dislike inaccuracies and misinfomation more, and if you see that a page about yourself is wrong, you should be allowed to fix it. -- David Welbourn 19:16, 21 November 2006 (EST)

Beta-testing credits?

Recently, several People pages (Rémi Verschelde, Richard Hewison and Eriorg) were added to the IFWiki, and they mentioned games these persons beta-tested.

Should we then mention in the IFWiki, as far as possible, all the beta-testers of all the games?

If we do want to add these credits:

• Of course, it would only affect the pages about the beta-testers or about the beta-tested games. (It would be very excessive, and almost unreadable, if we listed all the beta-testers of every game in an Author Credits section or in the Games Released in Year pages!). Therefore, People (style guide) and Games (style guide) should be updated, but not Game reference (style guide).
• What would the name of the section be? Tester Credits? Beta-tester Credits? Beta-Testing Credits? Testing Credits?
• Should we create a Beta-testers category, or would it be useless? --Eriorg 10:17, 14 July 2007 (EST)

I think I've been balking at the amount of work that would be involved in listing the testers for every game, and listing the games for every tester... but only because it's a lot of damn work, not for any other reason. I think, if anyone wants to go to the trouble to add tester credits to the appropriate pages, we should let them, with the understanding that it's low priority and completeness is not required or expected.

Um. Because testing can be alpha-testing, beta-testing, and even gamma-testing, I'd opt for an optional Testing Credits section (on people and games pages) and a Testers subcategory for people. Testing credits can be assumed to be beta-testing credits unless explicitly said to be otherwise. Does that work? -- David Welbourn 14:08, 21 July 2007 (EST)

OK, that seems very good to me. --Eriorg 08:40, 22 July 2007 (EST)

Baf's Guide listings: what now?

The style guide for the "links" section says "The next link listed should be, if available, the Baf's Guide listing for that person." Since Baf's Guide is no longer maintained as far as I can tell, what should we do about the existing Baf's guide links: delete? Point to saved captures at the Internet Archive? And going forward, should the style guide be changed to request a link to the person's IFDB profile instead, or an IFDB search for games they'd authored, or...? bg (talk)

Awards Sections

Since we now have the IFDB Awards (which includes a lot of categories) and the Short Game Showcase (currently assuming it's coming back, EJ and Encorm seemed to want to continue) on top of the XYZZY (which has quite a few categories too), would it maybe be nice to have a separate award section on the people's page to list those? It would make the Authoring section less crowded (especially for recurrant winners), and we could have them organised by Award event. We could also be able to include other mainstream awards if relevant. EDIT: part of this is because I may have added this to some of the newer pages being certain this was a thing in the guide. Manonamora (talk) 00:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Could you link to some examples here where this would be an improvement? Do you mean the "Author Credits" section would only list the games, and all awards (including places in competitions etc) would be in a separate "Awards" section? At the minute the awards tend to be listed immediately after each game citation. Jonathan (talk) 19:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

For example Amanda Walker, who has received multiple XYZZY and IFDB Awards and Nominations. I think this was the first page I did this. Because it started looking too clunky for the winning/nominated entries.

I was thinking name of competition and placement would still stick to next to the title, but the awards would get their separate section. This would open the possibility of including awards given to authors as a person rather than a specific game (or Awards received for non-authorship contribution, like software).

Another way of formatting it, so it would look nicer/more organised on the page, would be to have the awards indented. Like:

• Title of the game (Game info)
  • Competition: placing
  • Awards: name and type

Manonamora (talk) 23:52, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I also like the idea of having a separate "awards" section, and I think doing it per game like in Manon's example makes sense!

EDIT: Actually I think you were saying we could *not* do a separate awards section, but indent the comp placement/awards beneath the game title in the "author credits" section? That strikes me as ideal, making it easier to read while avoiding repeating the games multiple times. Alyshkalia (talk) 00:43, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be better to keep it the way it was (i.e. no separate Awards section repeating the game titles). If there are long-winded awards, like "XYZZY 2021: Winner, Best Game; Nominee, Best Writing; Winner, Best Story; Nominee, Best Puzzles; Nominee, Best Use of Innovation" I agree with your alternative suggestion of having an indented bullet point for that. Jonathan (talk) 10:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, I gave TWO options. One where the Awards are in a separate section, and one where the Awards are just under the game title. The first might seem like it would be a repeat of the Authoring credit (if the author does win all the awards all the time), but it would allow the inclusion of other awards and celebration (like Best Organiser or Best Beta Tester or Best Innovation for something).

The second would link the awards to the game directly and make the page look a bit more organised/easier to read/find the award info (because long lines are not fun). BUT you wouldn't have any space to add other kinds of awards for the person itself.

Should I just make a post on IntFic? Manonamora (talk) 12:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Your second idea is better. Also, "Other Credits" is already there to include "other kids of awards". Jonathan (talk) 13:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

If there were multiple sets of awards, you could even list each set with its own bulletpoint, like this:

• Of Their Shadows Deep (2022; Glulx)
  • ParserComp 2022: 2nd place
  • XYZZY Awards 2022: Nominee, Best Writing; Nominee, Best Implementation
  • IFDB Awards 2022: Winner, Outstanding Inform 7 Game of 2022 - Author's Choice

--bg (talk) 20:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes! Extractly, and it would be clear and nice and neat! Manonamora (talk) 22:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Would you want to do sub-bullets for every game that has a comp placement or award, or only if there are several awards for that game? bg (talk) 02:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

IMO all games. Separating the main game info from the comp/awards would bring more focus to it (it's easier on the eye). And some Comp names are super long (Short Game Showcase, The French Comp...) Manonamora (talk) 10:24, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

:ok: cool. Then I think we should edit the "Author Credits" section to show the formatting (game as is, game in competition, game with awards, games with separate translation?)

Right, but that "Other Credits" section talks about contributions more than recognition. You're not credited by receiving an award, you're rewarded for it/recognised for your work (if that makes sense)? Maybe a renaming to "Other Credits and Recognition" or "Other Credits and Awards" ? Manonamora (talk) 14:13, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

We'll likely end up updating the style guide quite a lot, so this is useful. The "Author Credits" section "should contain nothing but a bulleted list of the person's IF games" but that rule has been broken ever since it was written in 2005 :-) And it's "to your credit" to have been given an award, or you could say you have several awards "to your credit", so maybe "Other Credits" covers awards all right. Jonathan (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Oki! Might be a mistranslation on my side then :P

Then, at least an update of the People page making it clear/more obvious that other awards should be in this "Other Credits" section + the Game related awards in bullet points in the "Authoring" section. Manonamora (talk)