Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games/Archive 7

William Tell cards
Hi, I'm running a DYK for the card game of Jaggln and a reviewer has asked whether the William Tell cards depicted are out of copyright i.e. "pre-1923". I'm pretty sure they were designed in the 1830s and the 'modern' printing doesn't look much different, but are there any card experts here who can verify that? Bermicourt (talk) 20:18, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Superfight (card game)
Was wondering if someone from WP:BTG can take a look at this and assess it for notability, etc.? It appears to have been created per User talk:ObseleteCody/sandbox and has a WP:GAMEGUIDE feel to it, but trimming out the inappropriate content might be preferable to deletion if WP:NEXIST is a real possibility. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:21, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Warhammer
Portal:Warhammer, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Warhammer and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes ( ~ ). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Warhammer during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Guilherme Burn (talk) 18:16, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!
A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.
 * – Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Strategy games for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Strategy games is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Strategy games until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. North America1000 06:12, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

abstract strategy game
Current wikipedia definition of abstract strategy game (An abstract strategy game is a strategy game in which the theme is not important to the experience of playing.) is a definition of abstract game. Abstract game is a hypernym of abstract strategy game. Notable example of non abstract strategy abstract game is Ghosts.

First reference of abstract strategy game article distinguish abstract strategy game and abstract game. Current WP definition is WP:OR and incorrect. --Sharouser (talk) 17:25, 20 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The lead has to summarize the body. The lead-quoted Thompson article states that perfect (no hidden) information is important to the definition of abstract stragegy game, while the article body explains that some games generally also regarded as abstract strategy do incorporate hidden info (e.g. Stratego). --IHTS (talk) 17:49, 20 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Game Preview by Nicolae Sfetcu mentioned that there are two definitions of abstract strategy game. Purists define abstract strategy game as game with no hidden information and no luck and etc. Pragmatists define abstract strategy game as a game which is abstract game and strategy game. He supported definition of purists. In my view, main definition should be definiton of purists. We may seperate abstract game. --Sharouser (talk) 08:19, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

In Monopoly (game) reference 4 is missing, in web.archive.org too
--Gryllida (talk) 08:30, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Leaving this open, but why here rather than Talk:Monopoly (game)?
 * I tried various patent templates to see if any of them would produce a link to the USPTO image file for patent 748626, but no, they all want to go to espacenet.com. How the title of the patent and the name of the inventor acquired the extraneous hyphens is another mystery.  — jmcgnh (talk) (contribs) 13:34, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think the patent does anything for the article. The New York Times article (reference 1) has the same information and additional context. I'll just remove reference 4 altogether. Huon (talk) 16:34, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Notability for board games?
Hi, I work in an archive at Brigham Young University and one of the things we collect are LDS/Mormon board games. Most of the games (like on this BGG list) are based on existing games, but with an LDS theme. There are some original games out there too. If reviews for the games exist, they're generally on blogs like this and this. I did find a passing reference to three LDS games in an academic book. Am I correct in assuming the blog reviews aren't sufficient to establish notability? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 21:00, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I am probably not the best person to answer this but since nobody else has replied yet, I'll give it a shot. There aren't any subject notability guidelines for board games, so we're just operating under the general notability guidelines which require reliable sources. Self published content like those blogs certainly wouldn't be considered reliable sources, so yes, you are correct in assuming that they would not establish notability. Lowercaserho (talk) 23:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
 * okay, thanks Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 22:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

I would like to put forward some ideas for a board game specific notability guidelines. As I say these are just ideas. In fact they are more to start a discussion than something I necessarily believe. I am doing this to try and work out some dissonance I am experiencing.
 * 1) Nothing in these board game specific guides should be taken to contradict general wikipedia general policy and must be taken as at best interpreting it.
 * 2) Expansions, Sequels, Prequels, Accessories, minor variants etc. should almost never get their own page. Usually they should all be merged into a single page. In some extreme cases a separate "History of X" or a series page maybe appropriate.
 * 3) Any game that has become popular, notorious or famous in the general public is notable. The boardgaming community does not count for this purpose.
 * 4) Popular childrens' boardgames (toys?) so long as they are suitably documented should qualify.
 * 5) Traditional games so long as they are suitably documented should qualify.
 * 6) Games that reach the top 100 on Boardgamegeek should qualify. Boardgamegeek will be considered a valid source for THIS PURPOSE so long as it has been archived.
 * 7) Games which do not meet these criteria may be deleted by the normal propose, but failure to meet these criteria should not be taken as a reason to force deletion. Maybe it will elucidate additional criteria that should be added.

My dissonance is that quite a lot of the games I see on wikipedia seem to me not to qualify for notability. But many of these survive deletion attempts. Yet many other games that I do feel are notable are not on Wikipedia. I feel conflicted because I am not a fan of big purges. I think trying to get some sort of clarification would help.Slimy asparagus (talk) 09:47, 26 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Because of the reliable sources guidelines, Wikipedia will miss significant cultural content not covered by "reliable sources." For example, the children's game Outfoxed is very popular. It is well-designed. Its method of allowing you to check that a given card is or isn't the culprit is original and ingenious. But the first page of hits on a Google search don't give any indication that it has been reviewed by news outlets or other reliable sources. Why would it? People don't go to The Atlantic for board game reviews. They go to YouTube, blogs, Facebook parent group posts, or BGG. Of course, I've never made a board game page, so maybe there are some periodicals (?) of board game reviews that it would appear in, or maybe being a "game of the year nominee" in 2020 or "2018 As d'Or - Jeu de l'Année Enfant Winner" would aid its notability. But I think the problem is with the reliable source guidelines themselves. Maybe one way to get around that would be to have similar notability guidelines to books. If a book receives a "major literary award", it is considered notable. Are board games that receive certain awards considered notable? Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 15:58, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah I meant to put winning in an award in as one of the possible conditions and I completely forgot. I think it would probably count already, but I believe that is more common sense than an actual guideline. Slimy asparagus (talk) 16:02, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool
Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Which games and game topics to list in WP:VITAL?
See Wikipedia_talk:Vital_articles/Level/5 for a related discussion. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 01:43, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Template:Infobox game and player age ranges
Ordinarily I'd ask this at the talk page for the infobox, but my last question there garnered no response, so... Is there a convention for including the recommended age range for a game? The Talk page for the infobox references including such a field in a taxobox, but I'd never stumbled across that term previously and know very little about them, much less whether they're in use with regards to this project. Thanks for any insight you can provide! DonIago (talk) 16:00, 31 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert on Template:Infobox game, but the topic has come up on the talk page for the template. Some people have discussed there why it's not included in the template. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:10, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Board game sequels
Should we introduce a new category called Category:Board game sequels? I'm just thinking that with Return to Dark Tower, which is technically a sequel to Dark Tower, it may be helpful and necessary. I've always been a super casual board game guy, but now as I get into them more, I'm interested in the scene and what the WikiProject entails. Are there enough board game "sequels" to create a category?  D ÅRTH B ØTTØ ( T • C ) 21:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I've taken the liberty of adding the category myself. I believe this was a big missing component for those looking for connections to other installments, as well as those interested in sequels as a concept.  D ÅRTH B ØTTØ ( T • C ) 20:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see why sequels should ever get their own page. So why should they get a category?10:38, 26 July 2021 (UTC) Slimy asparagus (talk) 10:38, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Euchre variations
Hey, if someone's looking for something to do, I just happened to notice that Euchre variations and Euchre game variations are two separate articles that should probably be merged, if not just merged into euchre to make a more comprehensive single article. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 21:36, 10 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Good point. And neither of them are referenced so the new article may need to be a complete re-write after some research on what reliable sources say. I've just done this for Hearts but I'm no expert on Euchre and am too busy planning a trip to Germany to research modern-day Bruus, Knüffeln, Zwickern and Fipsen right now lol. Bermicourt (talk) 22:02, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Trivial Pursuit infobox with a bunch of pramaters that are broken
 Maccore Henni  Mii! Pictochat Mii! ( Note: respond on minha (my) talk page) 18:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I removed the parameters that are not in use. DonIago (talk) 19:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Card game style guide
At the suggestion of other editors, I have drafted up a style guide specifically for card games here. It draws on those aspects of the existing style guide for board games (on the project page) where they are relevant, but there is a lot that is necessarily different and a lot of the detail does not apply to board games. In doing so, I've also tried to address those areas that often cause confusion, such as the names of individual games, cards, card suits and bonuses, by carrying out a systematic survey of English-language card game sources.

Please feel free to comment. If it is felt useful, we could link it from the project page or restructure the project page to incorporate it alongside the board game style guide. Bermicourt (talk) 15:40, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * My main concern is capitalisation. Card game writers frequently capitalise the name of the game to disambiguate it from the game's terminology. This is inappropriate for a general encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not modular, nor consists of self-contained projects, so capitalisation should be consistent across the site. The manual of style for capitals is found here: Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters.--Countakeshi (talk) 02:06, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Style guidelines for computational complexity and mathematical analyses
Many game articles contain information on computational complexity or mathematical analysis of the game.


 * Most of these analyses do not pertain to the game as actually played, but generalizations needed for the theoretical analysis (e.g., complexity of chess or checkers is studied as a function of increasing N where the game is played on an NxN board).  Such analyses should be separated in their own section of articles and it should be stated how the generalization differs from the played game that is the subject of the article.


 * In the rare cases where theoretical analysis does reach the played game (e.g. application of surreal numbers to Go endgames) it is sophisticated and remote enough from the experience of most readers and players, to deserve its own section.

Both considerations suggest generally putting such material into a separate section with a title like "computational complexity of generalizations".

Do people agree with this and are there other suggestions on how to document mathematical analyses in game articles? 73.149.246.232 (talk) 19:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

History of the board game Monopoly FAR
I have nominated History of the board game Monopoly for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 23:39, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Should we have a category for out of print CCGs and minitature wargames?
Please see Talk:Collectible_card_game. As I explain there, for most board games being out print is not an issue, which I probably is also true for RPGs. But for CCGs and miniature wargames which reply on a constant flow of expansions and tournaments, I think it is much more of a defining quality. For now I created Category:Defunct games, as a parent to an already existing Category:Inactive online games. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:06, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Online source database for board and tabletop games?
I know that if you look up the individual pages for role-playing games at rpg.net, novels at isfbd.org, and video games at mobygames.com, those pages have listings of known reviews in trade publications for the item in question. The listings are far from complete in each case, but they tend to be extensive and very helpful for both proving notability of the topic, and for finding sources that can be used to build the article. Does anything like that exist for board and table games? Boardgamegeek does not seem to have what I am talking about, at least not that I have found.

For an example of what I mean, see the bottom of the page here:, here: , and here:. BOZ (talk) 21:40, 16 July 2020 (UTC)


 * RPGGeek.com has a similar functionality, see for instance https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/43697/middle-earth-role-playing-1st-edition: Scroll down to the "linked items" module. It should be set to show linked periodical articles, including (but not limited to) reviews. It's probably a good idea to also use the advanced search (searching description fields) and the regular search, but limiting the search to "articles" (in the dropdown right below the search bar). Include "review" in your search terms.
 * Luding.org is a smaller database but also links reviews. --Jonas kork (talk) 08:24, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You are right about rpggeek, I should have mentioned them as well - I have always wondered why rpggeek includes that functionality but bggeek does not? I know that for wargames there were several wargaming magazines that printed reviews of wargames, but I am unaware of an online database that lists them in a way similar to what the above websites do, and I would love to know if there is generally anywhere that I can see reviews listed for board and tabletop games in general. It is frustrating to have that unavailable, when I have sites for other types of publications that I can go to. BOZ (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I do not know about the decisions behind it, but RPGGeek got data structure for periodicals, issues, articles with some options which allow to link review articles from magazines to entries for rpg items in the database. BGG never got the periodical feature, although obviously there are several board game magazines out there, some of which publish game content (meaning: playable stuff). *shrug* Just never was implemented. The situation (with board game reviews) in general is what it is. --Jonas kork (talk) 09:46, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Board game reliable sources
I've been getting into contemporary board games recently and was surprised to see some of the most-talked about games in hobbyist circles not having articles! I've been writing Spirit Island (board game) and found it surprisingly hard to find references. Most I've found seem to be in primarily technology/video game publications, but I'm not sure if this is my own bias in evaluating sources (having written a lot of video game articles), or if there's simply a dearth of board game sources. I couldn't find any source guidance in the WikiProject - do folks have any recommendations for board game websites I should be looking at to find reliable sources on modern games? Sam Walton (talk) 15:07, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


 * It can be a real hassle, especially for games that are lower-profile than Spirit Island. BGG is a great resource for players, but reviews and advice from random players are a weak source for encyclopedia articles. I hardly ever see big publications like the NY Times cover games in depth, with the article you linked ("Should Board Gamers Play the Roles of Racists, Slavers and Nazis?") being one big exception. The general ambiguity of whether a tabletop game is notable seems like an obstacle to improving coverage. Ungulates (talk) 08:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)


 * BGG also isn't considered a reliable source. That may be what you were implying, but I wanted to make that clear. There's been previous discussion at RSN. DonIago (talk) 13:15, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Fashionable isn't the same as notable. There are plenty of reliable sources covering table games, but the commercial deluge of such material means that games which are temporarily popular may not be well reported unless they win a recognised award. This is true of a lot of niche areas. Bermicourt (talk) 16:59, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Playing Oh Hell during lockdown
Hi, I created a page called Australian Whist in March 2020 which you have now reviewed and assimilated into the Oh Hell page. This is a good decision, I like it and am very happy with what you have done.

However, I did include a paragraph on my page describing how it is possible to play the game remotely using video conferencing systems like Zoom. This is generic advice, not restricted any particular version of the game. Since the world is living with various styles of lockdown I suggest that this advice is both relevant and helpful. Please can I encourage you to add this description to the Oh Hell page ?

Thanks. Mike Pryor Mikejpryor (talk) 17:05, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi Mike. Like you I have been playing card games online over Zoom with friends and family. In fact, we're looking forward to an evening of food, chat and a game of Grasobern online tonight with family! So it's a great thing to do. However, I'm hesitant about adding it to the article as Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and we're not supposed to share our personal experiences. Once Zoom card games are recorded in 'reliable sources' like a book or the online press, we can then cite it. Don't get me wrong, I'm an evangelist for this; but don't think Wikipedia protocol lets us do this. But happy for other editors to pitch in. Bermicourt (talk) 19:22, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

AfD nomination for Nines
The article on Nines (card game) has been nominated for deletion as non-notable here. Bermicourt (talk) 17:30, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

King (variant of barbu)
Please see Articles for deletion/King (card game).

Short version: WP:CFORK from a section of Barbu (card game); it's unclear to the casual observer what from that page needs to merge to the section. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:47, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Featured article review/Chess/archive4
I've started a FAR for this article as it needs much improvement to meet modern standards IMHO. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 08:15, 16 December 2020 (UTC)