Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games/proposed project page

Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to board and table games. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list there.

For more information on WikiProjects, please see WikiProject and WikiProject/Best practices.

Scope
This WikiProject seeks to unify the article formatting on all articles relating to board games and tabletop games. This, however, excludes articles relating to these topics that are under the jurisdiction of its sister projects.

Parentage
The parent of this project is the (inactive) WikiProject Games.

Similar WikiProjects
Other WikiProjects with similar scope include:
 * WikiProject Contract bridge: for articles relating to contract bridge.
 * WikiProject Chess: for articles relating to chess.
 * WikiProject Computer and video games and its descendants: for articles relating to computer and video games.
 * WikiProject Poker: for articles relating to poker.
 * WikiProject Role-playing games and its descendants: for articles relating to role-playing games.
 * Wikipedia:WikiProject Magic: The Gathering: for articles relating to Magic: The Gathering

Participants
If you want to participate in this WikiProject, feel free to do so, and add your name to this list.


 * JocK
 * kelvSYC
 * Percy Snoodle
 * Rray
 * Jake34567
 * Ptkfgs
 * Some P. Erson
 * Stellmach
 * 2005
 * Morganfitzp
 * Saxifrage
 * Ryanminier
 * Elocina
 * Greroja

If you are a fan of userboxes, you can also put in your own user space to let others know that you are a member.

Structure
Structure conventions and notability criteria for inclusion is under development at this time. Articles under this project's jurisdiction should at least have the following information:


 * A brief synopsis of the rules. Lengthy sections should be avoided -- after all, Wikipedia is not an instruction manual.  If the rule synopsis is still too long for the main article, the article's rules should be either further summarized, or placed in its own article: for example, the the rules of the fictional game Meeples of Catan should be at Rules of Meeples of Catan.
 * A brief strategy section. Making this too extensive would constitute as original research, so the focus should be on why it is entertaining, etc.
 * If the game has won any major awards (eg. Essen Feather), they should be listed in the article - after all, it's a point of notability.
 * For board games, a link to its BoardGameGeek entry.
 * For commercially released games, a link to the official site of the game from its publisher(s), or the publisher's website in lieu of an official game site.
 * Links to any official full descriptions of the rules.
 * Links to the website(s) of any governing bodies of the game.
 * Where appropriate, an infobox created using Template:Infobox_Game

Style Guide for Game Specifications
For commercially released games, exercise restraint in listing out the game's parts or other specifications (such as the distribution of number tokens in Settlers of Catan), for several reasons: A good general style guideline is to give only the detail that is necessary to understand the context of any descriptions of gameplay and strategy elsewhere in the article. Any more is extraneous.
 * Saying too much raises concerns of a derivative work that could infringe copyright on the game instructions or other protected material.
 * Exacting detail is rarely necessary to give the reader a good general idea of how the game works appropriate to an encyclopedia, and...
 * Once again, Wikipedia is not an instruction manual.

Goals
The long-term goals for this WikiProject are as follows:
 * 1) Establish notablity criteria for inclusion
 * 2) Establish a uniform style for articles under this project's scope
 * 3) Ensuring that all conventions established under this project's scope are adhered to.

Tasks
As a member (or nonmember), these tasks should be helpful to the cause of this WikiProject:


 * 1) Find existing articles that can come under the jurisdiction of this project, and label them with the template  on their talk pages.
 * 2) Label stub articles with board-game-stub or card-game-stub.
 * 3) Rewrite existing articles to follow the conventions described in this project.
 * 4) Complete open tasks in the task box.

Categories
Category:Tabletop games is the root category of the project - as the category existed before the project, the category structures also existing therein also acts as categories for this project.

Stub articles

 * Board game stubs
 * Card game stubs

Wikipedia articles on board and table games
For more information on board and table games, consult the following Wikipedia articles:


 * Board game
 * Tabletop game
 * Card game