User talk:Pentharian

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I'd also refer you to WP:COI, WP:PSTS, and WP:NPOV as some good reading. Thanks. Old64mb 23:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Achaea
Obviously I'm not an experienced or very knowledgeable Wikipedia user, so thank you for explaining that more in-depth. I'll attempt to explain myself here and maybe you can help me in deciding how best to post that so it's in compliance with Wikipedia standards. The thing that I was responding to was, itself, a post on the forums, which was in turn taken from the survey given in game. The survey was accessible to any active player, meaning it was, very likely, voted upon multiple times by the same person using different characters. To truly explain the dynamics of the player opinion on the Wikipedia page would be pretty futile, as I would imagine an entire book could be written on it. Essentially, once this survey showed possibly negative results, there was a meeting amongst the staff and one of the results of that was that the producer, Minae Lee (Maya, in game) appointed myself and two others to supervise sections of the extensive forums so that the players who said they were having a negative experience because their ideas and suggestions were not being heard now had an ear. While I, of course, have a bias toward the section providing criticism, that particular bit of criticism was a) likely added by someone with a bias against the game, such as a supporter of another competing game, and b) handled as I have just explained, which I think warrants inclusion. Additionally, and somewhat unrelated, the comments that some things cost "4000 credits" is untrue, as the highest costing item we offer, and I believe have ever offered, is 2000 credits. While it's not a huge difference, I still feel like the entire section is written with a POV from someone who supports another game and wrote it trying to defame Achaea. I hope you can give me some advice on how to best express the fact that the staff does address complaints, rather than the current text of the article that seems to end on the note that nothing is done about it. Pentharian 02:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Greetings. I know I'm not the most experienced or knowledgeable Wikipedia contributor either so I can't say that I'm the best resource to explain a lot of the policies and guidelines, but I'll give it a try.


 * If I understand your concerns correctly, your major concern here seems to be that you disagree with a section of criticism that you believe that 'defames' Achaea, and that the inclusion of a survey that may be from someone who was the supporter of a competing game and was done (essentially) out of malice.


 * Let's start with the former. In general, if there's a question about the suitability of a contribution to an article, the first and best place to raise the question is on the discussion page of the article, as described in WP:TALK.  (You'll note that's where I moved your contribution.)  You're more than welcome to address what you believe might be a trend towards unjust criticism on that page, and others may or may not disagree.  It's what it's there for.


 * But if you do so, keep in mind another major philosophy. While we all disagree with each other a lot, WP:GOODFAITH pretty much points out that unless there's direct evidence to the contrary we're all in this together and we're not going to accuse each other of rampant bias unless there's a pretty good reason to do so.  In this case, you believe that the person adding the survey was supporting another competing game and wrote it trying to defame Achaea - a pretty tall leap over WP:GOODFAITH unless you have evidence to back it up.  Unless documented, those kind of accusations are those that I would avoid in the future.


 * In this case, however, I can directly address your concerns. I added the survey myself, and if you'd like I'd be happy to explain why on the discussion page (it may take a while as the Achaea article is very, very low on my priority list, though, and I've spent way more time recently messing around with it than I'd like).  A short summary is that I believe that there's been an awful lot of turmoil recently that cannot be documented to standards of WP:V, but the survey does based on any number of criteria - not the least of which that it (may) have led to some of the actions taken by the producer and staff.  That alone makes it worthy of inclusion.  (I'd also point out my editing history suggests that I'm not promoting any other games or such.)  Keep in mind too that the criticism section is very, very carefully footnoted and worded to adhere to WP:V and WP:NPOV - and its not a single user but rather many that have contributed to that section.  If there's a bias it's one that is backed up by a bunch of verifiable facts.  The entire point is to present the facts and let the reader decide.


 * Your points about an response may be something that is worthy of inclusion in some way. However, the biggest problem with you including anything about the response is that because you are a major contributor to that response as well as the game in general WP:COI pretty much clearly indicates it's a topic that you should not touch with a 10 foot pole.  You are a stakeholder that cannot prove that they are not 'receiving other benefits or considerations' and on this particular topic WP:COI very strongly urges you to avoid contributing here.  If you absolutely feel you must add to the article, you are (to quoth WP:COI) strongly encouraged to submit proposed edits for review on the article's talk page.  I'd also note that there's actually nothing in the article that even mentions staff response one way or the other; given you picked it up it may suggest that you're waaaay too close to this to touch it.


 * My advice? Work on many of the other of the nearly 2 million articles Wikipedia has to offer for a month or two before jumping in to this particular one; WP:COI is a very tough thing to get around, and if you really feel you absolutely positively have to it'll give you a better feel for what is and isn't considered good work and good verification before you start tangling with that mess.  Read a lot of the WP:FA articles as well while you're doing that and you'll be off to a great start.


 * Finally, I've added a footnote in the main article to address your concern that the 4000 credit item for sale is 'untrue'. It appears to be for sale.  Old64mb 16:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Then, in response to your statement that the survey is worthy of inclusion because it led to action by the Producer, is not that action by the Producer itself also worthy of inclusion? In my mind, it would be like an article in some kind of news compendium that talks about the Duke Lacross players without then going on to say that it turned out they were innocent and that the prosecutor was later found to be being malicious. Can you think of any way to include this information in such a way that it meets guidelines? Also, as to the 4000 credit item, I do apologise as I for some reason thought that the particular one you cited was, in fact, 2000. Obivously I was wrong! Pentharian 13:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)