This is the Bunbunmaru Shinbun, now on Wikipedia as a newsletter named Bunbunmaru Shinbun: Wikipedia Edition (or bbm for short). I've been waiting for this newspaper to come to this wiki for a long time, I wanted it to happen. In June 2020, I get the chance to make it for free, and it's been going on since then, even though it's sometimes less than active.
Wikipedia's fastest and most accurate report of reality!
Content
Feature
Let's mention the Request board:
WikiProject Video games has a page named "Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Requests", also known as the "Request board", where users can request a video game article to be created. The request entry must meet the inclusion criteria, and should be accompanied by independent reliable sources that significantly cover the topic represented in the entry. If it doesn't meet the notability criterion, then it will be deleted, and users are encouraged to work on an article named on the project's to do list. However, such a formerly non-notable article will become more notable enough in the future when more reliable sources report on the subject. After the request is created, then the user may remove the entry from the list. The user will optionally sign his/their/her requests because it helps people notify the one who added the requests.
The Request board was created on April 4, 2006 by a user named CyberSkull, with an alphabetical list of several entries including Microsoft Flight Simulator X (created by Caleb09 on June 19, 2006), Barcode Battler (created by Cpuwhiz11 on July 18, 2006), and Psycho Soldier (created by Nall on April 15, 2006); these days the list isn't alphabetical, it's arranged by dates. On of the top of the page was a link that directed users to edit the source of the page; that link has now evolved to "Click here to request a video game article.". One of the entries listed in this first revision, GT Advance Championship Racing (created by Fableheroesguild on April 23, 2006), became a good article (GA) on February 22, 2008 due to the efforts of Nomader; his GAN was reviewed and promoted by David Fuchs one day after a WikiProject peer review. Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device is now a redirect to Cathode-ray tube amusement device, a good article. Gamer Unlimited (an article deleted on September 3, 2005 by Tony Sidaway per a Votes for deletion page) was accompanied by a source, which was the website gamerunlimited.com, but others didn't have sources to accompany the request. Some entries were accompanied by reasons why they were requested to be made; for example Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom (created on August 21, 2006 by PresN) has one with "Myst-like adventure game from the mid-90's", meaning that Qin: Tomb of the Middle Kingdom is an adventure video game released in 1995 with similarities to the seminal 1993 computer game Myst. Metal Max (created by Y control on April 10, 2006) and Mytharria (deleted by Juliancolton in 2009 due to a PROD stating that it lacked notability) were the first two entries to be removed from the page; the removals were done by Andrevan on April 14, 2006. Black Lotus (Command and Conquer: Generals) was created when CyberSkull started the Request board, but was deleted shortly afterward on April 4, 2006 by Brookie with a reason: "Nonsense as no context and NN". ("NN" means "Non-Notable")
Back then there wasn't much stringent rules on requests as there is now; in 2006, the basics were needed to make an article exist. From there, the standards were raised significantly, so that meant what was a professionally written article about something worthwhile in the past hasn't been updated much since then and as a result is now simply some brief information with prose reminiscent of a start-up effort struggling for recognition, unless it's rewritten to comply with modern standards. The 2010s were full of re-evaluations of how good an requested article is, so ultimately you now see this text in the Request board that says:
If you think an article about video games should be added to Wikipedia and know that it meets the inclusion criteria above, please list it below with URL links to the reliable sources that prove its notability (e.g., reviews or dedicated coverage from IGN or Polygon, but not forum posts, blogs without a professional staff, or the official website of the subject).
That's the text, this is where the expected and necessary quality of the requested article is at now. The page also tells you that you can read Wikipedia:Articles for creation for more information about this whole "request" thing. And there's a template of the top of the Request board page now that says the page has a backlog wanting attention from editors. We currently have to consider the inclusion criteria and several reliable sources with significant notable coverage as an utmost requirement, because there must be energy that keeps the article going. When we do this properly, we're lucky. A decent example of a recent request that has now become a GA is 868-HACK, it was created on June 21, 2017 by Zxcvbnm (who received an interview in the previous issue of this gaming-themed wiki-newspaper), and it has turned into a GA a few months ago because of the work of CAPTAIN MEDUSA; she successful nominated it for GA status back in 2019 and it was reviewed by Kingsif, who promoted it to GA-class on January 6, 2020. It has also appeared on the Did you know (DYK) section of the Wikipedia main page on January 30, 2020, saying "Did you know
...that the player controls a smiley face in 868-HACK?". (here's how it became a DYK) I think it's a good idea we can improve requested articles beyond simply creating them, we can take them to featured article (FA) status with enough skills, and possibly it can be maintained well.
If you study something like Wikipedia:Writing better articles and extensively research the request you're creating, then quality is expected. Still, that isn't the end. Currently a lot a requests ranging from 2017 to this year are waiting for somebody to start the articles. As an option, you can do multiple requests at a time, yet you should be careful though. The standards have still been updated since 2017 and continue to grow over time, so please consider that high quality is what you should do when doing these requests, and experience is also helpful. You have to check out and read a lot of sources, and you have to make sure the articles can end up being created on good notes.
Monster Truck Madness GA postmortem: Monster Truck Madness is a Wikipedia article about Terminal Reality's 1996 monster truck-themed racingvideo game of the same name, the first in Microsoft's Madness series of racing titles. It was created by Krooga on October 7, 2005, who also uploaded an image of the game's front cover art on October 10, 2005. He made a few edits to the article (in fact the creation of the article was his first edit), and after editing some more articles, disappeared in 2007. He didn't make many edits. A member of the Monster Truck Madness (MTM) community, Kmaster, edited the article for quite a long time, and did decent work there. It went through some changes back in the day.
I joined Wikipedia on December 29, 2019 because I was interested in being able to write good and featured articles. I decided that my first edits would be to de-orphan a big list of articles because so, which is another reason why joined Wikipedia, signing in as I'm Aya Syameimaru! (current signature: Iias!:postb□xI). I knew that Midtown Madness received a GA and then a FA back in the late 2000's (it's still an FA to this day), but MTM and Motocross Madness weren't subjected to that before, and my opinion is that the Madness series of classic racing games is all great. Ultimately, I decided to do some GAs in February 2020, when I came to this very article to make another Madness game a GA.
This Monster Truck entry was in a bare-bones shape before I started editing the article. At the time, I was doing plenty of fancy userboxes (as you can see in the userbako sub-page of my user page). My edits before then were rushed, like they were plenty of topics I edited but they're not enough compared to something like MTM, so I betted to myself that if I concentrated on this article then the skills will show that it would be on par with the new quality content. This article deserved to experience miracles and wonders; I believed the soul of the article is expecting good information, and the body of the article feels like the subject needs attention. More references had to be added, and I considered strongly integrating the words from the citations into the text. I searched for it and came across reviews and some previews, and made the article as accurate as the citations. But two of the sources, Gamezilla and PC Multimedia Entertainment (PCME), weren't reliable. I showed to JimmyBlackwing my progress so far at this point, merely to showcase my interest in taking an article to GA status. He liked it and sent to me two review sources: PC Gamer US and PC Games, to replace the unreliable Gamezilla and especially more unreliable PCME. I did this easily.
I rewrote the prose to make this future GA easier to understand and keep it fresh. The prose before I came in was rusty. I treated old and new Wikipedia articles equally, this one was old and wanted improvement not only in the prose, but everywhere else. So I maintained the articles for several edits before nominating it for GA on February 25. As a result, the article's prose became cleaned up now, and the rest of the article was also very renovated. I was expanding and reworking it a lot, even after transforming the article into a GAN, handling the task of overhauling the article extensively to the point that it ended up being over 1,000 words and more than 25,000 bytes. I gave all the images alt-text for further explaining, and shaped the article into a decent effort at creating a respectable outing of fresh prose and tight references. I edited it so frequently that Monster Truck Madness appeared on Most Edited Articles in March 2020 with 944 edits, and received The Tireless Contributor Barnstar from Swordman97 for it. I ended up editing the article 1,147 times, which is crazy! Most of the edits happened before it even was subject to a GAN (good article nomination) review. Currently, it's at 1,187 words and 26 kilobytes.
I included a couple images in it, both with captions. The screenshot was taken in preparation for the GAN, with me driving a Bigfoot in first-person perspective at A Crazy Eight for 20 laps with 7 computer opponents. For the second image, I cycled through various monster truck photos until settling with the one with the Samson truck.
I also nominated Monster Truck Madness for Did you know (DYK), but took the Did you know nomination (DYKN) down to review Aranya's John HuntingtonDYKN entry. I reviewed John Huntington because I felt required to earn DYK credits. I took it easy and suggested some makeover. It was a success, and it's nominator liked it, and it was promoted to DYK status in the end. It was promoted by Yoninah on March 3, and appeared on the DYK section on March 9. I reinstated my Monster Truck Madness DYKN on February 28, reviewed by Narutolovehinata5, who wrote the GA, DYK, and failed FAC Puella Magi Madoka Magica and many more anime/manga-themed articles (including some more GAs and DYKs like Shakugan no Shana and Free (TV series)). Initially, I considered a hook telling that the game appeared on Microsoft Interactive CD Sampler, but I thought it was unspectacular. The reviewer told me I needed an "ALT" hook, so I did the ALT1 hook about the game being developed to realistically simulate the events where you see monster trucks, for example circuit tracks and drag races. Narutolovehinata5 liked it, and suggested adding the year of release. I added 1996 into this hook and had to go on to alter the hook to my liking (including adding a link to Monster truck), and fatedly, the DYKN was a success. We checked Earwigs to find any copyvios and close paraphrasing and we found none. Earwigs struggled to function until it before Narutolovehinata5 checked in, when it was now working properly. The reviewer was going to the Earwigs' Monster Truck Madness page, and we were right, no close paraphrasing and no copyvios. The reviewer said the DYK entry was ready for promotion, and moved it to the queue, approving only ALT1. It was promoted on March 28 by Cwmhiraeth, and appeared on DYK on April 3 with the entry's hook saying: "that the 1996 racing video game Monster Truck Madness was designed to accurately simulate monster-truck events such as drag tracks and enclosed circuit races?".
At the same time as the DYKN, I was also doing the Beatmania IIDX (video game) article, which I also attempted to get to GA and DYK, albeit with failure. It was unsuccessfully nominated for GA also on February 2020; I took down at Namcokid47's request because he saw that the article need more work. As an April Fools joke, I turned Beatmania IIDX (video game) into a GAN again, then took it down hours later before anyone could review it.
I asked Lord Sjones23 to assist in the article, and he reviewed it. His GAN review was actually the second one for the article, the first one on March 25 was done by a user who never did a GAN review before, Drealjosegood, who reviewed it because he saw Monster Truck Madness appear at Most Edited Articles; I call the first one "GA0", the zeroth GAN review. Little happened at that 0th GAN review (initially titled "Talk:Monster Truck Madness/GA1", so GamerPro64 suggested to me that I should speedy delete the review and start over, so I moved its original title to "Talk:Monster Truck Madness/GA0", turning "Monster Truck Madness/GA1" into a redirect that I requested to be speedily deleted. It was deleted anyways, and on March 29, Sjones23 recreated "Talk:Monster Truck Madness/GA1" to begin the article's second GAN review, perhaps its first proper one. He said that the lead should be two or three paragraphs long, and that he found one dead citation which was 100% fixed. He continued reading and assessing the article before concluding with an last rating. Usernameunique did a March 31 drive-by comment (appropriately enough) stating that Samson's mentioned in the second image's caption, and that "Although it makes sense to only list those of the game's twelve trucks that have Wikipedia articles (which I think is what's being done in "Gameplay"), it might make sense to include the other eight in a footnote."; I implemented his suggestion with a footnote, much to Usernameunique's appreciation. He slightly adjusted it and mentioned that "Also, although it's an uncontroversial statement, I would still add a source to the footnote.", so I inserted a source into the footnote. Sjones gave the final verdict on April 15:
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It's a quickpass. He quickpassed the Monster Truck Madness article and liked it. I would go on to make more userboxes, some wiki-ads, some featured content, this newsletter, etcetera. I'm planning to do some more GAs and a FA. I love my Monster Truck Madness GA, I felt like I set standards for my own works.
Misc.
I was creating a bunch of new File talk and Category talk pages during June 2020. Also, I delistedXCOM: Enemy Unknown from GA status, even though I didn't nominate it for GA review (OceanHok did it anyways). 2 new userboxes (1 with 1 switch) and 1 wiki-ad were made during the time in-between the first and second issue publications.
