Template talk:Video game reviews/Archive 1

Template bug
When the template lacks "compilation = true" and a compilation score, it causes the template and any text below it to have a lot of white space before either.


 * Fixed. Anomie 12:46, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks! ♦TH 1 RT 3 EN talk ♦ contribs 16:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Bad template
It's arcane, it's limiting, and it's hostile to anyone trying to include reviews. IE. It's non-inclusive and unnecessary. FURTHERMORE, it's inconsistent. Some articles are italicized, some are not.

Furthermore, where's the link to the actual reviews? Do you want people to actually have to VISIT THE SITE AND HUNT FOR IT? Either that or have every reference for every review either in the text, written out, or off the template - which makes it sort of DEFEATING THE PURPOSE, huh?

This is a bad idea for a template. JAF1970 (talk) 14:51, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * First off, calm down. Secondly, consider the advantages. One standardized look for the templates, of which I've seen dozens of different permutations. Popular, notable publications are already coded in. Generally, people will be (or should be ) linking to the article in question for each publication in the main body of the reception section, so that's not necessarily an issue, just a habit some editors have. If an editor wants to add a different publication, they have plenty of room to do so. David Fuchs ( talk  ) 18:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, some publications are just that- publications. Others are only websites, which do not get italisized. So that complaint is something to take up with the English language, not the correct implementation here. David Fuchs ( talk  ) 18:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Wow, what unnecessary vehemence. Put the reference in with the score, for example . It doesn't seem any more arcane than any standard infobox, do you hate them too? As for being "non-inclusive", if there are any publications that will be used on many video game articles that are not in the template, feel free to suggest them here. Anomie⚔ 12:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

text alignment and hidden awards
Would it be possible to get at least the "Score" column aligned to the left? As it is, it looks pretty messy in use because depending if something got a two-character score (i.e. 10), a one-character score (i.e. 9), or a three-character score (i.e. 9.1) out of 10 and whether it's referenced or not and whether the platform (if it's for a multiplatform game) is stated afterwards, the scores center differently. It would look better if the scores were all aligned on the left-hand side of the box (title still being centred.)

Also, could someone add a hide/show tag to the Awards section, seeing as it might get pretty long? I'm thinking about one like the one used in Template:Infobox Chinese actor and singer, which can be seen in use in, for example, the Cecilia Cheung page. The coding used is but I tried incorporating that and I don't know how to make it work. If someone could add those two things, I'd be so grateful! clicketyclick yaketyyak 01:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Room for a caption/title for the table?
Can we get something to make room for a caption or title? When a different version of the same game gets different scores it would be easier to split them up and show the scores that way. E.g. Puzzle Quest which has many different versions out for various consoles. Strongsauce (talk) 18:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Dealing with different scores is easy, look at The Orange Box. Captions would be unnecessary and could easily result in tables for each platform across articles on video games on multiple platforms. And that would be painfully messy. -- Sabre (talk) 11:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that example Strongsauce (talk) 20:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Notability requirements for inclusion?
Seems that this template is getting filled up with multiple websites. Allgame, PC Powerplay, and Official PSM (UK) were the most recently added ones. How exactly do we determine whether or not a gaming website should be included? Allgame and PC Powerplay don't seem to be very notable (I've never even heard of PC Powerplay, and I assume Allgame is part of the Allmusic network of sites). Strongsauce (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Edit: seems that PC Powerplay is an Australian-based magazine. Strongsauce (talk) 21:00, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I added PC PowerPlay because a score from them was quoted in the World in Conflict page. Don't know about notability.  Of course, if there is a wikipedia page about the magazine, it must already be notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. OliAtlason (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * While I suppose PC PowerPlay's notability "#1 best selling magazine in Australia" is fine. However I don't think that just because there is an entry in Wikipedia makes it notable nor does that warrant an inclusion into this template. For example looking at the Allgame entry, while it exists it is a very poor article.


 * However, you can add reviews from sites not in the template by using the rev1,rev1score attributes. I started this discussion since including every possible game review site is a bad idea. There are several in there that are Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft centric (which isn't that big of a concern). But in general we want this template to work for as many games as possible. Strongsauce (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't know about rev1, rev1score. Maybe it should be emphasized in the template documentation ? OliAtlason (talk) 22:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I added Allgame as it's quoted on several pages on wikipedia. Also it's one of the few sites that not only reviews modern games but also on older games for systems including Atari 2600, Intellivision and other systems. It's related sites All Music and All Movie are excepted by the wikiprojects for music and film, so I think this is just as fair to be added here, even if it's not as popular as GameSpot or Nintendo Power. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:57, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I suggest that we just have one field for UK/US versions of the same magazine, with an explanatory (UK) or something in the actual reviews- that would cut down on quite a few extra parameters. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 20:31, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, perhaps limit the newspaper fields, and keep it to all-game/media related publications? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 20:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think thats really applicable to every publication with different versions in different countries. From what I've seen of the two main PCGamer magazines, the original UK version and its later US offshoot might as well be two completely different magazines, sharing little more than name. The two can disagree drastically. For at least the PCGamer option, I'd recommend keeping the UK and US magazine entries separate. I'd also argue that the newspaper entries can be more useful for establishing notability to non-VG editors, as they are independent not only of the developer but the industry as a whole. -- Sabre (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there are a gazillion possible newspapers- cherry picking the Tribune and NYT, and you leave out the Post, et al- it just seems pointless to include them with their own dedicated parameter, bloating the template and thus reducing its usefulness. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 22:13, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Synchronization with WP:VG/S
I have opened up discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Video_games/Sources about a synchronization between these two pages. Please contribute, for the love of NPOV. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

OPMUK not working (FIXED)
The OPMUK code listed doesn't seem to work. Can someone please fix this? ChimpanzeeUK (talk) 10:20, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems to work now. Don't know what i was doing wrong?! ChimpanzeeUK (talk) 10:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Collapsibility
I see -Majestic- made this table collapsed by default and Rockfang made it show by default. Could we add a field called hidden at the top that would accept a yes or no (or blank) definition for customization between different articles? --Pixelface (talk) 08:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Go ahead, as long as the default is to show if nothing is defined. -- Sabre (talk) 10:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty inexperienced at template coding, but I've found if one includes "|state = collapsed" in an article, the table will be collapsed or hidden by default. I've added a note about it to the documentation. --Pixelface (talk) 15:45, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Also, if you want to hide the [show]/[hide] link on the right altogether and have it always expanded, use "|state = plain" attribute. Updated the doc. ---Majestic- (talk) 02:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

These specific codes are ridiculous
There's no reason we should have 40+ intial codes for specific publications. These infoboxes would be way cleaner and easier to input and manage if we just eliminated them all and stuck to rev1, rev1Score, rev2, etc. I mean, do we honestly need the code "CE" for The Cincinnati Enquirer? There are dozens of publications suitable for dozens of games, and while some are more frequently used than others, I don't think anyone is at a serious advantage by typing "1UP=" rather than "rev1=1UP.com". The way things are set up now, it's incredibly discouraging for novice Wikipedia editors to adjust to. Pele Merengue (talk) 00:04, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * There's various discussions around the VG project to cut down the number of sites listed, tied in with reliable sources. Only the most commonly used sites should be listed here. --M ASEM  00:07, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the more commonly used ones should stay. Changing to revx completely would be a bad decision in my opinion.--Rockfang (talk) 01:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

IGN/IGN UK
While I'm not a member of the VG Wikiproject, and I don't care much either way, I'd like to point out that, contrary to this edit summary, nowadays IGN UK does seem to do separate reviews, at least on some products (I don't use the site, so I'm not sure if they do separate reviews for all games now). See for example the US and UK reviews of GTAIV. I don't have any opinion on whether IGN UK should be a parameter in the template, just wanted to point out that there are separate reviews of some things (or maybe all things - again, I don't use the site and can't be bothered checking). Dreaded Walrus t c 13:11, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, this brings up a point. Why don't we just merge the regional websites/magazines into one parameter? That would clean up four more slots. If we want to reference two or more scores, or to point out which publication did what, just stick a (UK) or (AU) next to the ref. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk  ) 15:31, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * For IGN regional variations and things similar to it on small scale, that makes sense, the two aren't drastically different in terms of style, formatting, reviewing techniques, etc, and this UK thing seems to be fairly recent. There's certainly nothing stopping people from using both versions of IGN's reviews in the prose. However, a blanket removal wouldn't be productive. Take PC Gamer for instance. The only thing that binds the two together is the name, with the US version coming a year after the UK version. Looking around, they significantly differ between the way they do things and review things. A good example of contrast is the Sam & Max episodic games: PC Gamer US loved it, gave at least one of them a GotY award, PC Gamer UK critically panned it. Here, the regional differences are far more pronounced, and so for PCG at least (which is also the best selling PC journalist magazine in both countries, a bit of an edge over IGN/GameSpot and other online sources), the two entries should remain for UK and US should remain. -- Sabre (talk) 15:55, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Style
I propose that the visual style of VG Requirements be copied into this template. Particularly, the floating title looks better when a table is incorporated into the article content (as opposed to infoboxes or navboxes). SharkD (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * General consensus seems to be against the profileration of more lavender in this template. I'd like to be able to convert these to inherit from infobox eventually, but that means making  look good with the infobox template. I'm raising that issue over on that template's talk. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:19, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The lavender color can be omitted, but the floating title bar should be implemented, IMO. SharkD (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Here's an example of the proposed changes. I also propose changing "compilations/compiler" to "aggregates/aggregator". If necessary, a link to the definition of "aggregate" can [edit: also] be provided. SharkD (talk) 17:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That looks great for now, yeah. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There's just one issue I don't know how to fix: the cells for the table captions ("Reviews", "Awards", etc.) are a bit too tall, IMO. Do you know how to reduce their height? SharkD (talk) 21:30, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I also suggest that the "Awards" section be split into two columns: "Publication" and "Award", but this would require modifications to the parameters [Edit: and break compatibility]. Any recommendations on how to proceed? SharkD (talk) 21:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Cell padding fixed. I've also bumped the font size up from 80% to 90% so that it's legible. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing out the cause of the problem. I modified it further and I think it looks better. IMO I think 90% font-size is a bit large. How about 85%? Other than the font size, is it OK if I copy the changes over to this template? Also, any suggestions on what to do about the changes to Awards I mentioned above? I suggest adding "award1Pub", "award2Pub", "award3Pub", etc., parameters. If they exist, then the two column format I suggested will be used. If they do not exist, then the template will behave as before. SharkD (talk) 01:06, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I added a second example here showing the changes to the Awards section. As you can see, the supplementary syntax is backwards-compatible with the current syntax. I also added a few general optimizations to keep the parser node count down for the whole template. SharkD (talk) 01:38, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Another idea I had was to make each section individually collapsible instead of the entire template. I'm undecided whether this would be an improvement, as I can think of cons as well as pros. SharkD (talk) 01:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm going to chime in here and say that the overall improvements are nice, but I really dislike floating text. I'd prefer the lavender again (I thought it was a good mix of "pretty but not distracting"), but I'll do without it if it just means the text gets a background of some kind.  Same goes for the VG requirements template. Nall (talk) 03:11, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the thing I like most about the template(s). I think it incorporates itself better into article text. For instance, the default HTML behavior for table captions is to add them as floating text since it doesn't represent actual data being categorized. Chart and table captions in Excel also seem to be floaty. SharkD (talk) 04:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * See BioShock for an example of an article that makes use of both templates. SharkD (talk) 04:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm with Nall on this, the floating elements are frankly horrible. I was reasonably okay with the idea that the top title would be floated (although I am still very much of the opinion that "if it ain't broke don't fix it" as there was nothing wrong with the old design), but the floating "aggregate scores" and "awards" bits are just plain ugly and do more to break the table away from the text than incorporate it in. Reincorporate them so it is one table and not three disguistingly split up tables and add back some colour, like the old one. If you were hoping for a more professional look, floating the "aggregate scores" and "awards" titles is going down the opposite path. -- Sabre (talk) 10:49, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Nall and Sabre. Making aggregate scores and awards float makes it look like they're not part of the template. Besides, I don't think it was necessary to remove the blue color. It's not like it was overdecorative or anything. The Prince (talk) 12:17, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I would like to understand why the changes to the template regarding separate column widths for each section were reverted. The current template suffers from the problem where the "Publication" column is much too small for the magazine names, and the "Scores" column is inordinately large for a review score. There was no discussion of this revert before it was made. SharkD (talk) 02:48, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There was also no consensus for the changes you made. It made the template look all weird, and it didn't look good, so I reverted it. Can you please explain why you made those changes? The Prince (talk) 13:20, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you define "weird"? The only changes that were made were to allow columns with more text in them, such as the "Publication" column when compared to the "Score" column or the "Award" column compared to the "Publication" column, to be wider than columns with less text. SharkD (talk) 01:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Bear in mind that on occasion it might be necessary to fill up the space in the score column, especially with multiplatform games. Taking that space away from the scores column (which I'm assuming is what you did, I never saw that version in action before it was reverted) is probably not the best idea. -- Sabre (talk) 10:27, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Aha, I think I see. I have the same problem here, where the score from IGN and MC aren't on the same line. I apologise for reverting then. My bad. The Prince (talk) 19:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't "take the space away". The space is now just calculated automatically based on the size of the cell's contents. If the cell contains a lot of text, then space will increase to compensate. SharkD (talk) 22:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox issue
User:Hahnchen caught a Firefox issue that I didn't look for. I have since fixed the issue in my sandbox versions, here. However, one result of the fix is that an additional row must be added to the top of the table in order for it to collapse properly. Compare "VG Reviews 2" with "VG Reviews 3". "VG Reviews 2" has the additional row (in this case, a floating row titled "Reception"), whereas "VG Reviews 3" doesn't. The former collapses properly, the latter doesn't. There may be an alternate way of "fixing" the table so that it renders properly in Firefox without having to add the additional row, but I'm not aware of it. I was wondering what your opinions would be of the "fixed" version ("VG Reviews 2"). SharkD (talk) 22:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * VG Reviews 2 looks fine to me. No excessive floaty bits, looks properly organised, putting text with the scores balances out with the publisher column if stretched, no problems as far as Internet Explorer goes, I'd be fine with that one. -- Sabre (talk) 09:27, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * For the record, this revision was able to collapse properly without the added floaty caption, but it didn't work in Firefox, this is the original version, and this is the current version. SharkD (talk) 01:23, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Floating Title
The floating title is ugly, but worse yet, if the table is set to collapsed or autocollapse it makes it hard to notice that its an expandable table even there. It needs some kind of border. Mukake (talk) 11:54, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's that ugly, and the W3C recommends adding table captions for accessiblity reasons. That said, a way to make it more apparent that a table has been collapsed would probably be a good idea, though I can't think of any ways to accomplish this (not to mention the fact that the "show" button is somewhat self-explanatory). SharkD (talk) 01:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The floating title has an alignment problem.

For example, I set up a VG Reviews box for RayStorm, and gave it the title "Reception (PlayStation version)" to emphasize that the reviews in it did not (necessarily) apply to the original arcade version from which it is based. The "Reception" part is perfectly centered on IE8 Beta 1 (in IE7 mode), Firefox 3.0.1, and Opera 9.52. However, the "(PlayStation version)" part is off-center to the right in all three. I tried changing "padding-left:5.7em;" near the top to "text-align: center;" but (in the same three browsers) the caption only centers to the first table column; adding a "colspan='2'" attribute does not change that.

I'm not sure what I could do to make long captions like "Reception (PlayStation version)" look well-centered over the box. I also don't want to break such a widely-used, intricate template. --an odd name 20:33, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Fixed, though not the best way I'd like it. Basically, I've created a second "subtitle" parameter that is optional that you can use to put in as overflow text if the first title gets long.  See how it works on the RayStorm article.  (The behavior of divs with collapsible tables makes a more simplier solution less practical). --M ASEM  21:08, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think this was a problem with the previous version of the template, as well. Anyway, I remember noticing it and thinking it was ugly. SharkD (talk) 22:50, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Awards vs accolades
The awards section seems to assume all awards are granted by magazines, meaning proper organisations - like BAFTA in the BioShock example - are listed as publications. Would separate sections for magazine accolades and proper awards not work better? Or am I just being pedantic? Flowerparty ☀ 01:10, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe a substitute for [ed. the word] "Publisher" could be found in this case. SharkD (talk) 01:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional publications
I notice there's a bit of an edit war of sorts regarding the addition of additional publications to the template. I would just like to add that each additional publisher adds another couple of nodes to the parser count, causing the page to take longer and longer to load. Just keep this fact in mind. SharkD (talk) 01:35, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, I think the page should be put under indefinite protection, like Infobox VG, so to force discussion on additions to the table. -- Sabre (talk) 10:09, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Game Ratio
The template has language that calls Game Ratio, but that aggregator site doesn't have an article -- if it's not notable enough for coverage in Wikipedia, is it worth/appropriate pointing to it as a review site? --EEMIV (talk) 17:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Floating title a bit messed up
Take a look at Myst IV, the custom title has broken itself into two staggered lines. I've noticed this on a few articles now, the problem seems to be with this template rather than the articles its in. Can someone who has an idea of how this code works take a look and try to fix it? -- Sabre (talk) 12:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've set it to nowrap, which partially offsets the problem, but the main cause is the "padding-left:5.7em" in the style for the title line which is a hack to center the line. That needs to be reworked. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Nowrap is not a good idea in this case. It causes the table to become stretched and otherwise even uglier for very long titles than it was before. I've fixed the template so that, at the very least, each line is properly centered. SharkD (talk) 00:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * There's nothing that can be done about that - the "hide/show" bit takes out ~5.7em of space from the header that cannot be recaptured, and thus the only fix is to drop the collapsable bits. --M ASEM 12:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I started a thread on the talk page for "Common.js" to decrease the size of the margin by a bit. Currently, more is used than is required. Maybe you'd like to pitch in. SharkD (talk) 00:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Publication inclusion?
How about including a newish magazine called Total PC Gaming? It's into its 12th issue and UK based. I can't see a reason why it wouldn't be included when all its rivals are. 217.43.183.35 (talk) 20:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)