Magic: The Gathering Unassessed

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Magic: The Gathering, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Magic: The Gathering on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Magic: The GatheringWikipedia:WikiProject Magic: The GatheringTemplate:WikiProject Magic: The GatheringMagic: The Gathering articles ??? This article has not yet received a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

Archives

• Archive1 - November 2002 through December 2004
• Archive2 - January 2005 through April 2006
• Archive3 - August 2006 - February 2007

I recently noticed that the MTG Wikiproject lists getting this article Featured as one of its goals. At one time I was in favor of this too, but I think that for now I personally am happy keeping the article at GA status. That said, if someone is willing to take a shot at getting this to FA status, a few likely comments that could hopefully be preempted before the peer review.

This article currently has 34 footnotes, but some of these are just footnotes and not really references. I would estimate that an article of this size would require around 50 in-line citations to be seriously considered for FA status (arbitrary? Yes, but take a look at some recent candidacies). Plus, and here's the big one, they'd almost certainly like to see more _printed_ publications cited. Yes, some are listed at the top of the Refs, but they aren't in-line cited and are closer to a "Further Reading" section. I know this since I was the one who went in and added most of the first set of cites in response to the threatened GA re-review above, and not owning any Magic books, I exclusively used the Internet. Citing something like the Magic encylcopedia directly, that Flores book (Deckade I think?), the book on Jon Finkel (see here), or even back-issues of the Duelist would probably go over well. They might even offer a few new factoids worthy of the article.

(Side comment: I'm a fan of the "extra information" footnotes so that new editors don't think we "forgot" some tiny exception to a general statement. A footnote allows us to place the information there to be seen without cluttering up the article or flow, so the non-reference footnotes have a place.)

It's possible that some people will complain about the Awards section being a list as opposed to prose. I have no problem with the list myself, but if someone can find some good, independent sales data and critiques, there might actually be promise to using prose instead, renaming the section to "Popular and critical reception" or the like.

Lastly, there are still a few comments that have cite requests still on them, and those would definitely need to be cited first. SnowFire 04:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think the entire subsection on SGC burwood is completely unencyclopedic and is more of an advertisment for this card shop. Unless there is some great historical significance to this place, i think the entire section should be deleted.

That section was just spam and has been deleted. — Aldaron • T/C 03:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Magic is the first example of the modern collectible card game genre (By McGeddon)

This doesnt flow very well, also MTG has been around for 14 years, so it isnt really Modern, as far as the life times of card games.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.87.127.18 (talk • contribs).

Absolutely - I'm just charitably describing the CCG genre to which Magic belongs to as "modern", in contrast to the 1904 baseball game. Collectible card games did not exist as a recognised game genre before 1994, so I wouldn't have any issue with "modern" being dropped entirely, for flow. --McGeddon 00:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Each card has an illustration to represent the flavor of the card, often reflecting the setting of the expansion for which it was designed." First part is ok, but second part...If somone could explain, say how the first 10 white cards pictures from Ravnica set represent Ravnica, I would be most impressed.--203.87.127.18 01:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As the article goes on to say, each block of cards now has its own style guide with sketches and descriptions of the races and locations used in the expansion. Perhaps "often" could be toned down to "occasionally" after a look at the numbers, but it's still relevant - many Ravnica cards have city backgrounds to intentionally reflect the setting. --McGeddon 08:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes occasionally is more accurate, but then again you could say "most of the time the artwork does not reflect the setting of the expansion for which it was designed".--203.87.127.18 06:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that would be a logically identical wording, but a needlessly backwards way to word it. --McGeddon 23:04, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MCGEDDON "powerful wizards, who use magical spells, items, and fantastic creatures depicted on individual Magic card"

fantastic has many meanings, but lets just use the one you have selected, that it means fantasy! we will skip the powerfull wizards and the poor list of things on cards.

Fantasy creatures, some people me not being one of them (I think humans only exist in fantasy eg on magic cards) believe that humans actually do exist! To be neutral on this point maybe we should include the point that some "people believe humans are real and not a fantasy". There is plenty of refrences on here about people believing humans do exist, apparently they live on the planet earth (Prehaps if you are ever near it, you can go and see if they actually exist?), theres suppost to be over 6 billion of them! they must be lying around in massive piles!--203.87.127.18 07:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please try to remain WP:CIVIL. If your point was that "fantastical creatures" does not cover the human cards in the game, you should have made a clearer edit summary than "some creatures are definately not fantastic". --McGeddon 09:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thought thats what the discussion is for, people are ment to read the discussion, not go editiing the page because of the comment. Check with the discussion first?--203.87.127.18 10:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, we should be bold. If editors are genuinely at cross-purposes then it can go to the talk page (and thanks for eventually bringing it up here, I'd just assumed you were misunderstanding the article's use of "fantastical"), but there's no need to slow down the editing process by questioning every single edit that we disagree with. Clearer edit summaries are much more useful. --McGeddon 10:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

some creatures are definately not fantastic (Dindt you understand this comment?)

MCGEDDON "inaccuracy - nearly all Magic creatures are drawn from fantasy rather than the real world" Nearly all?, but not all. Its not a matter of rounding up. You knew there was atleast one exception (Most probally alot more) but you pyt false information back on thepage.

MCGEDDON "means "of fantasy", and "one or more of" is inappropriately specific for a generalised intro" Hey if you dont like the Wiki rules of formating, which I told you about before, compalin to Wiki, dont just ignore the rule you dont like.--203.87.127.18 10:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's right, as I said above, I didn't understand your comment - from your edit summaries I assumed you were misunderstanding what "fantastical" meant.

"One or more of" seems needlessly clumsy wording for a general overview of the game, to me, but I'll leave it to other editors to tidy the paragraph. --McGeddon 10:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You also didnt seem to understand, when i said what you where doing was against Wiki rules as you kept doing it repeadly--203.87.127.18 11:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The top/first picture on the article isn't a picture of the back of a Magic card. Actual card backs don't have the TM next to the DECKMASTER text. Can someone replace that picture with an accurate one? 129.174.176.4 05:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That appears to have been done, though I wonder why we choose to use such a low-quality image. The artifacts on it bother me. - Boss1000 05:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If wanted I think I could find a better picture of a back of a card; as the artifacts are kind of annoying. AnimaMage 05:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That one is from wizards.com anyway. Is that fair use? An individual photo from an Wikipedian would ensure it to be safe over this possibly questionable image, though, right? Why not use one? I might take one myself when I get time. - Boss1000 02:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A photo wouldn't help at all. The artwork is what bears the copyright more so than the image itself. That will not be in the public domain until 2088 or so, assuming no further extensions of the copyright act. Otherwise, a guy with a video camera in the theatre would mysteriously have copyright claims on his video- which he does, but that doesn't obviate the movie producer's claims on what was actually taped. The case where the photo will work and be free of copyright is something like a picture of a person, a car, or a PlayStation. While the internals of the car & PlayStation may possibly be protected, the appearance is not (unlike Magic artwork), so there's a difference between a photo taken by Toyota/Sony and one taken by a random person. SnowFire 02:56, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the image was just scaled up a bit. Someone changed it to the images native size, and it looks much better.—MJBurrage • TALK • 03:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like the idea of making a list of software that lets you play Magic for free.

These clients play without the rules, against another person other Internet.
Apprentice - http://www.magic-league.com/download/apprentice.php
Magic Workstation - http://www.magicworkstation.com/downloads.php

This project you play against another person other the Internet WITH the rules
Magic-Project - http://sourceforge.net/projects/magic-project/

This project lets you play against the computer with the rules
MTG Forge - http://sourceforge.net/projects/mtgforge/

207.203.80.15 23:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The legality of such programs is dubious. I seem to recall Magic Workstation specially being banned from being mentioned in the official forums. Considering they let you play the game for free when there's an official method that requires payment, I really don't think they should be mentioned in the article at all.--SeizureDog 10:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about MWS being banned from mention in the official forums, but I do know this about Apprentice and MWS: Wizards has no problem with people using Apprentice (I believe at one point they were working with its makers...don't quote me on that, though), as it doesn't use any representation similar to actual card images. MWS has a basic frame to represent the cards, and uses the mana and tap symbols that Wizards has trademarked, in addition to the ability to use card images (though they don't come with the program itself). For these reasons (copyright and such), Wizards doesn't really like MWS. That said, haven't heard of any cease and desist letters being sent to MWS. --Temporarily Insane (talk) 03:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Although I'm not sure it'd be appreciated on the main page, I appreciate seeing it here as I previously had know knowledge of these programs. Stealthymatt 02:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MWS does not use any trademarked wizards symbols. In mws, the tap symbol is a circle with a T and the mana symbols are letters in colored circles. MWS does not ship with any mtg cards installed either. There are downloadable plugins to get the mtg cards, and themes to use the actual trademarked symbols, and places to download the copyrighted card pictures but those are all created by 3rd parties. MWS is on firm legal ground and one of the reason it has not been shut down like some other free mtg software projects Laplie 18:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article currently says that Korean and Traditional Chinese stopped being printed after Urza’s Saga (October 1998), but I have seen Korean 7th Edition (April 2001) , and Trad. Chinese 8th Edition (April 2003) for sale from reputable dealers on e-Bay.

Wizards of the Coast’s website confirms that 9th Edition was not printed in either language but does not say for earlier sets. Does anyone know—and hopefully have a source for—the last sets actually printed in those two languages?

—MJBurrage • TALK • 13:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Magic: The Gathering sets is currently nominated for Featured List status at Wikipedia:Featured_list_candidates#Magic:_The_Gathering_sets. Some users have raised objections to the images used on the Magic: The Gathering sets page. I don't believe those objections are valid; if the objections are valid, then I think they would also apply to the images used on the Magic: The Gathering article and render them unusable...could editors of this article familiar with image use policy contribute to the discussion about image status on the nomination page? —Lowellian (reply) 20:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I am confident that the images are used appropriately, but some editors disagree, and one has written that "I will not retract the objection until all the images are removed". —Lowellian (reply) 18:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These should be split into separate sections, as they are quite large right now. Is there an easy way to do this with tags? --Temporarily Insane (talk) 00:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually researching just that issue a week or so ago. It can be done via the older {{note}} and {{ref}} tags, but it'd be a massive pain, and doesn't cope well with comments that are both footnotes and citations. A shame. Wikipedia talk:Footnotes#Mixing footnotes and references has more on that issue. SnowFire 00:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should consider updating this image. All but one of the cards are from 9th edition, not one is old bordered, and there are no instants. Also, if you want to properly represent each color and MTG in general, I'd remember what MTG.com did with the timecapsule question. With that said, what if we used these: Worship (same), Counterspell or Boomerang (probably old), Terror (old), Fireball (same), Llanowar Elves (old), and Icy Manipulator (same)?

This way you get more expansion symbols, a feel for all card types, and a feel for all colors. Clone doesn't really do blue the justice one of its stable instants would, and while the spider shows green's inability to fly, its mana production really outdoes that. As for terror, isn't that what you think of when you think black?

Just a suggestion. If this has been discussed before, don't hate me, kay? - Boss1000 01:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that including a mix of new and old card faces is a good idea: it would give readers the impression that old and new card faces are intermixed, which simply isn't the case (except in Time Spiral, obviously). I feel that the Game Play section (where the image in question is found) should focus on the modern state of the game, with the new card face.

As to the specific cards shown, I like the current picture, but your suggestions seem fine too. My only issue with the cards you suggest is that there is only one creature, and it's a "utility" creature as opposed to a "combat" creature. Since creatures are the core of Magic (I can source this comment if you want me to, it's from WotC), I would like at least one "fatty" or combat creature to be shown. --Ashenai 08:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Updating the collage is fine, though I'd recommend proposing your ideas for card choices here first. However, I agree with Ashenai that they should all be modern cards from the core set and with the same frame. I'm not sure if now is the best time to think about updating it, since 10th edition will come out very soon and make 9th edition obsolete. Might be worthy of thinking about then, though.

Also, I don't see the benefit of standardizing on single spacing after a period. I don't want to get into the issue because it's a religious war, but double spacing after a sentence makes sentence detection much easier for readers looking at the edit box. And it doesn't matter at all, because HTML compresses all double spaces for the actual article. So no, there's no benefit to standardization as far as the actual article is concerned. SnowFire 21:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know; I realized it didn't matter halfway through doing it, and I didn't want to stop. >_< I'm a double-spacer anyway, for the record.

I think it's only necessary to decide here before changing it. You're right about 10th edition, though; it can probably wait. You really don't think even one older card would be beneficial in the 6? I know we have the gambling one, but you're losing out on most of the history of the game here, unless you include one in the history section...? Anyway, yeah, let's wait. I agree that green should have a beefy creature, too. We'll see. - Boss1000 00:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are actually 4 cards in the article with older frames which should be fine. I also agree that if we are to change the six cards, lets do it once 10th is out :) --Mjrmtg 01:12, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps there should be an article for "The Colors of Magic"? I was just thinking that since the section is so long, we could shorten the gameplay section like wanted AND add more information on the colors, which I'm sure we could all do, by making it a separate article. - Boss1000 14:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's... a possibility, but I'd be skeptical. First off, one of the main reasons to split off an article is to "save space" in the main article (like with the Variant formats article). The colors of Magic are so fundamental to the game that I'd say pretty much all the current text needs to stay here. Now, it's possible that the colors of Magic deserve an article anyway that can go into more detail than the current one with added information... but I rather suspect it'd be a giant OR magnet, if the history of the colors section in this article is any guide. SnowFire 21:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Colour section is not very good, wishy washy, let alone alot of the descriptions are either old or opinion, I dont think even wizards have official desritpions of the colours. Should be split of fso as to improve the quality of this article.--203.87.127.18 11:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's our policy on italizing the word "Magic"? I don't know if WOTC has one persay, but they always seem to bold it when they say it. If that means italizing for us, shouldn't the article title be the same? I went through the article and italized lots of Magic's, but what's the deal on that? - Boss1000 14:36, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Magic is a game that isn't completely absorbed into culture a la hopscotch or chess; therefore, it uses italics, just like Axis & Allies or Metroid. See MoS:T for more; basically, it's a "work" rather than something so common to be closer to a thing, and helps distinguish the game from vanilla magic. Also, they do use italicized Magic officially. Bold is used for very specific purposes on WP, generally things like defining terms. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) has more on that. SnowFire 21:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't a huge deal, since as the main template says this topic is treated better somewhere else, but I don't think it's at all unwarranted to call the patent controversial, especially since it's a type of patent whose general existence at all has been controversial, ignoring anything specific to the WotC patent. It's not taking a stand on the issue; it's just recognizing that there have been some cases where it nearly got brought into court to see if it would hold up. Aldaron, you are correct that most patents are controversial, or at least most patents worth talking about... but so what? Most elements in chemistry are solids at room temperature and normal pressure, but articles on elements still mention this fact. SnowFire 03:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit more like saying that the theory of evolution is "controversial" every time it is mentioned. Anyway, there's a separate article where this issue can be discussed, if it turns out to be a valid one. — Aldaron • T/C 04:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is mentioned exactly once in the article, and as it stands there's nothing indicating why this random fact is being brought up (not all patents are bad! Just saying "Wizards got granted a patent" should probably elicit a "So?"). Yes, there's a reference to another article - a short summary of that article is appropriate here. I agree that excessive detail would be bad, but we're talking one word with an explanatory sentence. Anyone else have any comment? I won't revert any more, but I still disagree here. SnowFire 17:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to include one word, perhaps "misunderstood" is better than "controversial". Much of the patent is pretty narrow (for example, to infringe claim 1 you would have to rotate game components on every turn; claim 2 is only infringed by playing a trading card game with a hand limit and card reorientation). The broad claim that gets people excited (claim 3) is perfectly valid and covers (playing) the central (and real) innovation of Magic: the trading card game (just cards, BTW; the author of the article you cite is confused on this point). (And even that claim has some surprising limitations, for example, who is the infringer? It looks like it's the player himself -- hardly a lucrative target for litigation -- and moreover a player who plays with others, all of whom "construc[t] a library of a predetermined number of cards by examining and selecting cards from the player's pool of cards". So someone playing with a pre-consturcted deck, or playing with anyone playing with a pre-constructed deck would not infringe.) In a vacuum, "controversial" might be an acceptable word, but in the current all-patents-are bad climate (esp. here on Wikipedia) its connotations are clear and inappropriate. This is a perfectly valid (though surprisingly narrow) patent that attempts to capture a legitimate invention. — Aldaron • T/C 20:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The confusion in the patent section seems to be continuing. There's still a very strong implication in the current version that the patent is invalid, but nothing mentioned or cited supports this view. There are some confused and inaccurate statements about what the patent covers, and mention of some games that had similar elements, but no support for the argument that any game prior to the date the patent was filed anticipated the actual claims in Garfield's patent. — Aldaron • T/C 17:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WOTC applied for the Patent on 17 October 1995, in 1994 there where atleast7 CCG released including Spellfire and in 1995 before the application by WOTC atleast another 30 released (Listed on Wiki). USA Patents work on the first to invent, not first to file, like most of the rest of the world. This could make interesting court case, as I dont think many CCG would have document the day they first decided to "tap" a card etc etc. --203.87.127.18 01:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"a novel method of game play" is in the Abstract this description is by the people who prepared the Patent for WOTC. (A patent was granted to Wizards of the Coast in 1997 for "a novel method of game play") is misleading as the "a novel method of game play" was not the reason the Patent office granted the patent.--203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's also a lot of imprecise and confusing language regarding the patent and what it covers. I've change he section back to to something less POV. — Aldaron • T/C 18:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks much better. Cheers. DbishopNWF 19:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Considerable "confusion" among detractors? That just reverses the problem by making the anti- side look like they're misguided. It's possible to understand the patent just fine and disagree with it- and "choosing some cards from a larger pool" means that they pretty much get all TCGs. My understanding is that practically all TCG makers do in fact pay WotC royalties. SnowFire 04:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually less than half pay WOTC (Cheaper option, thento face the threat of huge legal battle), the majority just say NO Thanks and dont pay.--203.87.127.18 01:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've clarified the language describing the patent. Among other things, WotC was not awarded a patent "for" tapping in isolation, but only as part of a set of rules covering a game with numerous elements in combination. I've also restored the quote that 203.87.127.18 was confused it's directly from the patent (which he really ought to read) and is more accurate than saying that the patent was awarded "for concepts". I also deleted the rambling and misleading sentences about the legal battle. The suit was about many things, mostly about misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, and "tortuous interference with a business relationship": the central issue was that Nintendo ended a Pokémon-related relationship it had with WotC at about the same time it hired away some executives who WotC alleged had access to some of its trading-card-related trade secrets. A trial would almost certainly have focused on these issues and would not have been a test of the "validity" of the patent. — Aldaron • T/C 20:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aldron if you are going to quote somthing you have to reference it (Didnt you learn that at Uni,College,Shool?), especially for the reason stated above. The way it is represents is as a statement from the Patent Office.--203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You should try goole.com and see the top 20 articles about the case, they ALL talk about case refering to "infringement of Patent" as the first or second part of the law suit. The case about WOTC trying to get money out of Nintendo for Pokemon breaching WOTC's patent on MTG. You say a trial "would not have been a test of the "validity" of the patent" well its part of WOTCs claim against Nintendo, so you are saying they would not have bought it up in court, even tho its in the legal papers? You assume they would forget about this part of the case, that if correct WOTC would make lots of money out of?--203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fighting somthing out in court, throught all the courts is a pretty good way on deciding what the legal standing is! Or do you have a better way of deciding? Patent offices can't check things over 100% so if it seems not too bad they ok it and then leave it up the courts decide if people want to challenge it.--203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aldaron - You said a trial would almost certainly have focused on these issues" (Excluding Patent Infringement) where do get this "feeling" from? Lots of web refrences? It seems to be just an opinion which contradicts the news articles on the subject. --203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about if I quote a document supplied by the patents department?

"Beware of the Publicity Trap Don't go public with your invention until you file your patent application. Telling somone else about it can put your invention into the "public domain" and prevent you from getting a valid pattent. This could mean the end of your rights in the marketplace"

Magic the gathering was sold in stores for 2 years before the application was applied for! (With the first application being rejected). Putting somthing on the shelves of lots of stores is not the way to keep trade secret under wraps!--203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you learn more about patents. — Aldaron • T/C 17:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aldron well your the self appointed expert, thats why im asking your brilliant legal opion (You know what the court caswe would have been all about). Did you look on google and see what all the news articles said? and how they are wrong, cause you are right.--203.87.127.18 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've shared some of what I know, but you seem to have difficulty understanding it. This isn't a course in patents. If you're interested though, there are many excellent resources online. — Aldaron • T/C 00:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes but what you know contradicts the news articles and the facts of the case.--203.87.127.18 01:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"a novel method of game play and game components that in one embodiment are in the form of trading cards" Under the rule Verifiability Any unsourced material may be challenged and removed. This quote is not refereced, which it should be. --203.87.127.18 06:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the patent should have been referenced. I've added it. But you have to keep NPOV in mind when you write. Just saying "The patent should not have been granted" violates this rule, which is why we've been removing it. You would want to say "Some believe the patent should not have been granted," and then cite a source. There is already a sentence on this opposition, so I don't believe more is necessary. --Temporarily Insane (talk) 15:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for citing (I didn't know how to cite a patent and was hoping someone else would). The section looks good now, and we can only hope that 203.87.127.18's experience of being blocked will have taught him a lesson and he will stop his NPOV edit wars here and elsewhere—and his tirades on talk pages. — Aldaron • T/C 20:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aldron, you still have to reference the quote from the patent (by a person employed to work on the patent). Guess you are not willing to supply any more of your legal opions :( I was under the impression Wiki was suppost to factual, but i guess you get enought people who want to cover up the truth and editing it out, then that becomes the official truth? :( —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.87.127.18 (talk • contribs).

See above: Temporarily Insane cited the patent a while ago. — Aldaron • T/C 12:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that this subject is discussed at Reliability noticeboard.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't this article, as with many other articles related to fictional settings, have at least a summary of references in pop culture? I'm sure Magic has not run out of these things; it's been around a long time. I think it would be great if someone got to work on that, or at least there should be a link to a separate article mentioning these references. Mission imaginable 03:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It seems really unlikely to me that there's enough non-trivial references to Magic out there. Sure, Magic is referenced within its own subculture and a few adjoining ones (pen & paper RPGs, for example), but it hasn't struck me as having a large impact elsewhere. We'd be stuck with "In episode 5.12 of Law & Order, some students in the cafeteria appear to be playing a card game similar to Magic." type references. SnowFire 15:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, Although there is a large correlation between pen and paper gamiong and magic, magic is almost unheard of in the wider scheme of things. whenever I mention magic I get a blank stare, then when I explian it they're like "Is that based on pokemon?" despite the fact it far preceded it. anyways, I don't think its warranted. Avatar of Nothing 21:54, 12 June 2007 (UTC)Avatar of Nothing[reply]

"For a few years, some schools banned Magic games altogether from being played on school grounds."

Some schools? I think I have a pretty good idea where thoose schools were located, if were to believe the statement, and I'm not sure that's a correct representation of the global market for this card game. If we were to say that 1/10 of 1% is "some" schools (and by school I presume any classical educational facility) in a country, then considering the staggering amounts of schools in the world, in countries were magic cards exist (not necissarily sold), that would be a shitload of "some" schools. A factual number would be ALOT better here, than the word some.

"6 US and 5 UK and 1 bla bla school banned... bla bla and so on"

Also, I for one would like a reference, to either confirm my creeping suspicion or, with a lack of reference, show that this was not a widespread global phenomenon. Since it's mentioned in relation to the demon theme it would be nice to have that in the reference too. The schools could have banned it, if they did, for any number of reasons. ANTE for one.

A google attempt or two gave me nothing anyway.

213.141.89.53 22:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Readers and editors of this article might be interested in participating in the discussion on Talk:Magic: The Gathering sets regarding the use of images in the Magic: The Gathering sets article. —Lowellian (reply) 08:09, 21 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the old archive #3 there's still my post about the current values of Alpha and Beta. Why was one of the image captions reverted back to 'Beta Black Lotus', even though I already gave thorough reasoning why Alpha is more expensive in the modern market? Why was a justified change reverted? Anyone can check http://www.magictraders.com/pricelists/current-magic and see that nowadays Alpha is most of the time far more expensive than Beta. I'll change the caption again, and in case someone reverts it back, please state why you think - despite all the evidence to the contrary - that Beta Lotus is more expensive than Alpha Lotus. Thank you. Matti Nuortio, Oulu, Finland 19:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pure accident, probably. Feel free to change it back with my apologies, since I suspect that was my fault; every once in a while I check the difference between the version from a month or so ago, and revert some parts. That probably accidentally got caught up in that. Sorry. SnowFire 05:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Magic:_The_Gathering#The_6-Card_Image 10th is there. So...? 200.255.9.38 17:38, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any criteria or has there ever been for the un-official sites’ links to be listed here? I think all the links here are appropriate but some are not updated regularly or at all. I could think of several unofficial links that I believe should or could be added here. Specifically, I would like to add MTG Playersor www.mtgplayers.com to the unofficial links. The reasoning is because this site is attempting to document Magic the Gathering and is updated frequently. Although it is a relatively new site it is focused strictly on Magic the Gathering. It consist of a blog documenting Magic the Gathering history and current events, forums for discussing rulings, new sets, and anything in general related to Magic the Gathering, and an image gallery for use of card images and various other Magic related art. The sites purpose is to document Magic the Gathering, Past Present and Future and provide a place for players to meet. It seems fitting and appropriate to be added here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beezlebubba (talk • contribs) 13:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From what I see of your contributions, all you've done is add external links to pages. You've added this one several times (and been reverted), so to us it appears like you're spamming. That's why we've been removing it. As for why I think it shouldn't be there: as you said, it's a new site. I went there yesterday and saw nothing. I went there today, and now it's mostly nothing, and a number of the internal links 404. Most of what you say it provides is either accomplished by other external links already in place. History and current events, generally magicthegathering.com. Rulings, there's Crystal Keep, storylines - Phyrexia, image galleries - gatherer or magiccards.info. And in general, we just don't arbitrarily link to forums. Overall, it doesn't belong because it doesn't follow Wikipedia's guidelines (see WP:EXT#Links normally to be avoided). --Temporarily Insane (talk) 21:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reply to Temporarily Insane:

If you went to the above mentioned site yesterday and saw nothing then you did not go to the correct site, if you went there and saw a bunch of external links, then again, wrong site. There is an RSS feed of external links Directly to Wizards Site for recent articles, but that is pretty much it. All links work, this site has been tested using ie 5.5, 6, 7, and Mozilla and it displays fine and all links work. I am not sure what you are seeing, as for my contributions, I am new here and to Wiki, but I plan on and will contribute here. Just getting my feet wet so to speak. I will also review the guidelines for external links. I won't add the site back as I am not a spammer and don't want to place any unwanted links, but do plan on contributing here nonetheless.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Beezlebubba (talk • contribs).