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The existence of Military conflicts has become a growing concern for me due to their lack of citations or verifiability since their creation as well as their redundant repetition of other articles that they could be better placed on instead.
An example would be Freeside NCR Squatters Incident being redundant and better placed on Freeside's page itself.
Regardless of being redundant, I find a majority of the information on the conflict pages speculative and constitute grounds for removal due to their complete lack of citations in many instances or unverifiable citations in others. Upon subsequent removal of such unverifiable content, the question of whether or not the pages deserve to be their own page comes into play.
I think these pages should be looked into and ultimately removed if they cannot be cited, or moved if they unnecessarily repeat information or have novel information better represented elsewhere.
I would like to hear any and all comments about the matter and sort these pages out. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 22:11, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
Comments[]
Because the difference between a conflict page and just listing the content on the article is that a page for the conflict can actually go into 100% detail and depth on nothing more than the conflict itself. If you place the conflict informaiton on a crammed article, you can't put that infobox on, nothing would follow the MOS, and it wouldn't go as in-depth. And why do citations matter that heavily? We haven't properly began the referencing project yet, and every conflict page I've made holds truthful information any extensive Fallout player would know. OfficialLolGuy Talk Blog 22:56, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- The conflict pages are a welcome addition for me. I haven't seen other users create new content these past few months like Lol does now and they improve the wiki. They lack some referencing but so does a lot of other content. It's just something we still have to work in the time to come. The pages are ok to stay for me, and try to add references where you can, LoL. If you see pages that can be combined, Ever, you can always discuss that with LoL. Jspoel 23:26, February 25, 2014 (UTC)
- Yes but each conflict is either heavily dependent on a quest (such as Battle of Project Purity and Project Impurity) or associated with a particular faction, (such as the Brotherhood-Enclave War involving both the Brotherhood of Steel (Capital Wasteland) and the Enclave). This means that each conflict could be condensed down to an ==Outcome== subheader in case of quests and its own unique subheader (ex. ==War/Relationship with the NCR/Outside/Wasteland==) in case of factions.
- Each of those types of pages already include the typical leaders involved as well as the information about what happened, at most the conflict pages summarize it, something best served as a summary with the main-article being the quest itself. (ex. Brotherhood of Steel (Capital Wasteland)#Battle of Project Purity - Main Article: Project Impurity)
- Therefore, I'd argue the infoboxes -though quite aesthetic- are unnecessary and repetitive, making the information's page-status void. The only time I'd consider a conflict page necessary as a stand alone page is if it is mentioned only. So the First Battle of Hoover Dam would be appropriate but the Second Battle of Hoover Dam would not.
And citations mean everything, without them, the information we put on pages is pure conjecture and gives off the message of, "Just take our word for it.". If there's anything I've learned in the past year it's that this wiki is full of information just like that that is incorrect and false when looked into, looking into which is quite arduous and laborious if the information lacks a usable citation. It took Chad and I three hours to falsify a quote that was sitting atop Vault 8's page for at least a year and there was no citation for it.
And all of them are defended with, "Truthful information any extensive Fallout player would know." which I have come to know and love as a No true Scotsman informal fallacy. No offense meant to you at all but I wish I was kidding when I said our information is so in-grained in conjecture-as-truth that even our most veteran editors are surprised to learn that particular information is not verified anywhere, myself included. I mean, would you be surprised if I told you Aradesh didn't come from Vault 15? Because after looking into the claim I discovered only Avellone makes that connection in his Bibles and he isn't corroborated by anything else.
If I can be convinced that the conflict pages aren't redundant or useful page summaries then at the very least can we interlink them to the appropriate quest pages they are most definitely related to? Nowhere do I see a link to any of the related quests on at least Project Impurity and Who Dares Wins. I greatly appreciate the input and hope to see more. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 02:21, February 26, 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not in favor of mass deletion of these pages however I think they do need to be overhauled. As a military historian, some (if not all) of these pages do not have adequate sources and that should be rectified. We should also be mindful of canonicity. In my mind, the only conflicts that should be detailed are ones that exist at the beginning of a game by default, have been confirmed to exist in a canon game, or have a definable canon outcome. If there are too many possible outcomes, they must all be listed and then it becomes redundant to do so when the details are also in the quest pages. A Follower Talk 02:29, February 26, 2014 (UTC)
- This is the approach I endorse (If I gave off the impression that I wanted them all deleted with no exceptions, allow me to rescind it now). The ones that have quest equivalents have too many possible outcomes and have no canon outcome.
- To make it even worse... where do we stop? Do we make a conflict page for every conflict a quest makes or incites? The only conflicts that I think should be created are the mentioned only conflicts like I was elaborating above. ----The Ever Ruler (talk) 16:13, February 26, 2014 (UTC)
I'm with J. While we should try to organise content in a way that does not create a greater number of articles than necessary, a lot of this is new content in that it focuses on the conflict itself, instead of the location it takes in or the quest it's portrayed through. As for referencing, we all know that's a work in progress. There is a lot of lore that is un-sourced and will need catching up on. --Skire (talk) 02:43, February 26, 2014 (UTC)
- This is where I would beg to differ. The ones I linked in no way provide new information that the quest pages do not possess or could not be better represented on the quest pages.
- I am open to the idea, however, that the pages provide the best way to represent a conflict's more in-depth information that would be better left off of quest pages and that we really ought to find a way to integrate them onto faction and quest pages a better so they don't seem like islands in a void of wiki content. (If you'll pardon my analogy) --The Ever Ruler (talk) 03:43, February 26, 2014 (UTC)
- I would support that as well. Ultimately, as long as the content is accessible and organised soundly, whether it's all on one page or several is more-or-less a non-issue. With quests, we want to stick to just the quest itself, and the background/history would be more fitting elsewhere. For factions, there's more room to explore background and history. We must also consider consistency: content must be organised consistently so readers know what to search for or where to look for relevant information. --Skire (talk) 19:43, February 27, 2014 (UTC)
A little late on this perhaps, but I really don't like these pages. You could make a "Battle of" page for just about anything. Is there no Battle of Goodsprings page or Battle of Fort Constantine? When does it end? Where do we draw the line and say "No. That page is unnecessary"? The whole thing just seems like something to slap on a user's resume when he/she applies for extra user rights. Into the wild blue yonder... 02:41, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- No need to attribute malice... I do agree, however, that we need to draw the line somewhere. Unnecessary repetition is against FW:ORG. When an article introduces little new information of worth, then it should exist. Combine information whenever appropriate. Also, sourcing is particular important when dealing with history. If we don't have proper sourcing for some pages, they must face possible deletion. An example is the "Battle of Beijing" page, where I left a notice for a valid source to be presented, since the contents are in contradiction with canon. --Skire (talk) 02:45, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- I wasn't trying to. What part of my post are you referencing? Sorry if it sounded that way. Into the wild blue yonder... 02:47, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- "The whole thing just...user rights." But it's not that important, just wanted to make sure we're still assuming good faith here. For now let's just try to make sure all the pages created are appropriate and adhere to policy. We can make a few deletions if totally necessary. --Skire (talk) 02:53, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- Kind of true when you think about it. They really don't add much new information (other than the major ones like Operation: Sunburst, etc.), and it just gives users the right to put "I created all of these pages" on rights request. I wasn't trying to be rude about it. But you're right, not important. How do we go about deleting pages that don't adhere to policy? Discuss it with other administrators, perhaps? I have a feeling I'd get a lot of flak from other users if I just went by the policies and started deleting pages. It's expected, and I don't really mind it, but it would get a little annoying after a while. Into the wild blue yonder... 03:04, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- Consensus amongst a few admins following a discussion with editors should be enough, I think. 98.118.116.114 03:17, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- That's what I was planning on doing, collaborate with some other editors to discuss a policy and then propose it for posterity. We need to know what deserves a conflict page and what doesn't to make sure we're consistent. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 22:25, March 1, 2014 (UTC)
- Consensus amongst a few admins following a discussion with editors should be enough, I think. 98.118.116.114 03:17, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- Kind of true when you think about it. They really don't add much new information (other than the major ones like Operation: Sunburst, etc.), and it just gives users the right to put "I created all of these pages" on rights request. I wasn't trying to be rude about it. But you're right, not important. How do we go about deleting pages that don't adhere to policy? Discuss it with other administrators, perhaps? I have a feeling I'd get a lot of flak from other users if I just went by the policies and started deleting pages. It's expected, and I don't really mind it, but it would get a little annoying after a while. Into the wild blue yonder... 03:04, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- "The whole thing just...user rights." But it's not that important, just wanted to make sure we're still assuming good faith here. For now let's just try to make sure all the pages created are appropriate and adhere to policy. We can make a few deletions if totally necessary. --Skire (talk) 02:53, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
- I wasn't trying to. What part of my post are you referencing? Sorry if it sounded that way. Into the wild blue yonder... 02:47, February 28, 2014 (UTC)
Conclusion[]
I think I've gathered enough feedback to satisfy my criticisms. My current stance is that the pages should be focused on individually and further refinement is included.
The perceived solution is to work alongside other editors each page at a time which I discovered we do have a project for.
So let me thank you all for your time and input. They are appreciated. --The Ever Ruler (talk) 00:19, February 28, 2014 (UTC)