Forum:Repeal of Gun Speculation rule

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Forums: Index > Wiki discussion > Repeal of Gun Speculation rule

About two years ago, I tried to put just a little blurb about what gun a New Vegas weapon was based off of. It was removed and I protested, the admin told me that he ends discussion by banning people. So I left the wiki and came back just this morning to tinker around, to discover (after a few edits to painfully obvious weapons) that this rule was still standing. The rule boils down to "If JE Sawyer says this Hi-Power is really a 9mm pistol, and that he designed it himself, than I don't know what a Hi-Power is". Now this is utterly ridiculous, even someone with a rudimentary knowledge of firearms can tell that this [1] WAS the inspiration for this. Instead of using easily-obtainable knowledge and a little wiki magic to keep away trolls and stupid people, we have to wait for the god Sawyer to come down and say "Well, I kinda based this off of a Browning Hi-Power"

So I ask you, Wiki contributors, revise the rule so that we can show initiative instead of waiting for the devs to deliver information to us, and display correct information. I am not asking for every gun to have a clear comparision, some, like most of the Energy Weapons and the 12.7mm pistol from New Vegas, are complete fanstasy. Nor am I asking to change the title of every gun page to it's real name, all I seek is a little trivia section on guns that are clearly based on a real-world model saying that "In-game gun A is based off real-world gun B" and if necessary, "but in the wrong caliber, or is too small, or has elements of real-gun C thrown in". A disclaimer saying "This is speculation and might not be 100% correct" could be added and a few good administrators can keep the wiki from exploding over gun names.

Remember, the only people I had to fight over the issue was were the admins themselves, not ill-informed editors.

Bearded Hoplite 03:42, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

My answer - no. 03:48, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

Negatory. -- Bacon-Man ^{Talk to me goose!} 03:50, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

I'm perfectly fine with the rule as it stands. The Gunny 04:06, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

Well, I feel that the articles should be about the actual in game content, in other words, not referencing the real world unless the devs say so. I feel this way because the Fallout world is seperate from ours. So I am fine with the policy as it stands.-- 04:16, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

I am going to disagree with everyone and support the proposal. Looking at many pages, I see stuff like "blah blah is a reference to blah blah." Some are bleeding obvious, like the Automatic rifle IS a BAR. I would also add more realism to know that I am killing someone with a real life M4A1. Shockingly Awesome

That's nice but it isn't going to happen. Clearly the majority of users are for this than not. --Skire (talk) 19:19, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

Ah well, whats the point of a democracy if we cant express our views? Even if its not going to happen, I had my vote, and I used it. Shockingly Awesome

It isn't quite a vote, only a discussion. Typically, discussions like these may result in a vote if a consensus can't be reached. In this case, a vote would be a waste of time since there is overwhelming support for the retention of this rule. That's what democracy is, rule by the people, and the people (almost all) agree that we should keep this, so we will. --Skire (talk) 19:25, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

Nah, that came across wrong. I just meant if no one says they want something no one will waste their time making it happen. If everyone thinks the change is not wanted, its not going to happen, even if the majority want it but are just hiding under a rock or something and no one hears that they want it. Clearly I am in the minority on this one, but so what? I am still going to express my opinion, just like everyone else. Shockingly Awesome

Of course, that's what the forums are for. And I don't recall saying otherwise :) --Skire (talk) 19:33, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

You didn't, I was just getting all defensive. In reality it probably wouldn't work anyway, what with different variants and the like. :)Shockingly Awesome

First off, this policy was enacted to prevent random speculation and to prevent edit warring. A prime example is the .45 pistol page. We had people speculating that it was a M1911, a M1911A1 and all other variations of it. We finally got a precise answer that it was loosely based on it. Let's review your points

• Instead of using easily-obtainable knowledge and a little wiki magic to keep away trolls and stupid people, we have to wait for the god Sawyer to come down and say "Well, I kinda based this off of a Browning Hi-Power" - Well, Sawyer is not a "god" he's a developer and thus he would know what items in the game are based off of. Logic wins that one.
• So I ask you, Wiki contributors, revise the rule so that we can show initiative instead of waiting for the devs to deliver information to us, and display correct information. If a developer does not confirm it, it is not correct information. These rules of "citation" apply on any wiki, why not here.
• all I seek is a little trivia section on guns that are clearly based on a real-world model saying that "In-game gun A is based off real-world gun B" We have that, it's called the Behind the scenes section and yes it would be there if a developer confirmed it. Again the whole "citation" thing.
• A disclaimer saying "This is speculation and might not be 100% correct" could be added and a few good administrators can keep the wiki from exploding over gun names. This wiki deals with facts that come from the game and the development team. We do not allow speculation.
• Remember, the only people I had to fight over the issue was were the admins themselves, not ill-informed editors. The reason why admins dealt with you is because you were adding speculation in violation of the guidelines.

Remember, the guidelines are there to help preserve the integrity if this wiki's article content and it's accuracy. If we added random speculation to any pages, this place would cease to be a place filled with factual articles. I'm sorry but the policy remains in place.--Kingclyde 05:31, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

As discussed in Chat, the default position unless there is no doubt otherwise is to assume a gun is completely imaginary. The only people who can state without a doubt are the Devs unless there is other compelling evidence. The picture itself has not proven to be evidence enough in the past. Agent c 10:11, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

I think my standpoint has been very well covered by the others already, particularly Kingclyde. The rule is there for good reason, and ultimately it is to ensure the quality of our articles is at the highest. SigmaDelta54 (Talk) 10:41, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

From a question answered from the Fallout Answers wiki, here's a quote:

“A lot of the guns are based on real life weapons, but they've all been changed cosmetically in some way, and a lot of them aren't chambered for the same ammo as in real life. Most of the melee weapons are improvised from things (lead pipe) or tools (fire axe) that are found in real life.”— From "Which weapons in Fallout: New Vegas are in real life?" question

So yeah, it can come into question which F:NV weapon is reference to a real gun. MS: Destiny conquers all. 13:18, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

The articles would be flooded with possible information and would degrade the quality of them. The rule is fine how it is. Kiwi 15:51, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

It's not hard at all to get dev confirmation over aspects of the game such as weapons. It's always an assumption to compare in-game weapons to real-world counterparts, and that's because developers might decide to make small changes in their designs. That's the nice thing about making games, you can essentially create whatever you wish or even modify things you might not find satisfying. So something that might seem obvious can turn out to be completely different because of a few minor changes the devs made to any said weapon in this case. ^Skål! 19:32, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

This is specifically true in the case of time/budget/mechanics constraints the devs may have to work under. There are only 2 animations available for use with shoulder arm guns. Neither of these animations would work with, say, a true M16 model, since the charging handle for the bolt carrier group is on the top rear of the receiver, rather than on the side, where the game animations show the character racking the action. Just to make a true M16/AR15 style weapon, the devs would have had to add a separate animation. Rather than that, they modeled the weapon to suite the game mechanics and animations, ergo the service rifle is not a true AR platform weapon. It would be ludicrous to try to determine which of the 17,000 AR platform weapons it is closest to, so it is far more accurate to simply state that there is no equivalent. The Gunny 19:45, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

The policy should stay the same way. If you want to think something that isnt proven true, fine, but keep that off of this wiki. If your looking to post speculation on any wiki, then post it here: [[2]]. -Cc99910 Talk 19:37, April 27, 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Beard. I find it idiotic that somebody could look at a Browning Hi-Power, shockingly resembling the 9mm Pistol to the finest detail, and say it is speculation to say it is based off of it. Broccoli. 23:43, April 28, 2012 (UTC)

It's always been this way, because if we let people add information about real-world guns, every Average Joe who thinks they're a gun expert will come along and write volumes about real-world weapons. Can you imagine the amount of people who'll be adding false info thinking they're right, or implying that certain guns are based off Call of Duty weapons? It's just too much hassle to deal with, not to mention it's not really important in terms of a Fallout Wiki. 23:49, April 28, 2012 (UTC)

We could do what the COD Wiki did, where they only accept proper Wikipedia and Image Sources, and to counter the people pretending to be Soldiers, people must prove they are in the Army. The COD Wiki did those two things and it was fine. And yes, US & UK soldiers are perfectly able to safely prove their Army membership, as the COD Wiki proved. Broccoli. 00:09, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

That's an awful idea. Anything can be faked, especially identities and papers. Even more especially so when considering this is over the internet of all places. I say let's stick to facts. Which are provided to us by the developers. ^Skål! 00:12, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Garoux, it definitely would not work. And there is no way to assess how successful that implementation over on the CoD Wiki is because no one can ultimately prove their identity over the identity. Sure there might have been some real ones, but you never know. Impersonation over the internet is quite easy. --Skire (talk) 00:15, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

You know, I never realised there was this much opposition. If anyone wants, they can make a vote just to finalise this discussion. But I think the vast majority is clearly for the retention of this rule, due to points nicely illustrated by Clyde, Yessie, Gunny et al. --Skire (talk) 23:52, April 28, 2012 (UTC)

This is just getting silly. Prove your in the army? So that mean gun shop owners, weapon manufacturers or hobbyists don't anything about guns? And if you want to widen it to they can prove their profession, how can a hobbyist prove his knowledge? All this red tape to change a small line on an article? and to suggest people would fake paperwork to change a line on an article is absurd, no one wants to vandalize or speculate that badly. Lets just forget the whole thing, its getting mad.Shockingly Awesome

You must be new to the internet to say that people wouldn't go that far just to add in a few lines of information. :') (Or remove information.) xD Yes they would, actually. Let me give you a couple perfect examples of how far people will go:

• Every now and again we'll get someone who creates a bot to replace article page content with obscene images or text. Do you realize how difficult it is to create a bot? And you have to personalize it as well, to work on different sites.
• Anonymous users who create proxy accounts so they can vandalize article pages and then they're able to circumvent any bans we give them. There's times where we have to deal with proxy accounts for hours before they give up, as there's nothing we can really do about them.

^Skål! 13:14, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

I believe that those for inclusion of real world weapon references are missing a major point. This is a wiki about the Fallout games, set in the Fallout universe. It is not Wikipedia, or a gun forum. Regardless of how much any weapon in these games resembles a real world one, it has absolutely no bearing on whether it's germane to include that information here. We include information that is pertinent to the games, period. Real world weapon information is only pertinent to the Fallout games under the two scenarios already listed ad nauseam. There is no legitimate reason to include anything else, since it has absolutely no bearing in the games or the game universe. Personally, I know that the .45 is a Colt 1911, the trail carbine is an 1894 and the .22 smg is an American 180. But that information is completely irrelevant to the purview of this as a gaming wiki. Doing so is akin to claiming that the cans of pork and beans are modeled after the Campbell's brand since the label is similar, and is clearly as specious.

If these games portended to represent real life weapons, such as a large number of first person shooters, then that information would certainly be relevant. But when an actual developer, Josh Sawyer, the man that designed most of the weapons in the one of the games, says that they were purposely not directly modeled after real world weapons, then we have a clear mandate to exclude any such information. It simply does not pertain to our mission: Detail the Fallout universe and the games made based on it. I will bluntly give the same advice as was given me when I wished to discuss real world weaponry at the BSW forums: There are plenty of gun forums. Perhaps you can share you real world weapon knowledge more readily at one of those. We do not include such information here. I'm sorry for being so blunt, but this is a simple premiss that should be inherently understood. The Gunny 13:13, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I have changed my mind about this policy after reading about how silly things would get to implement it. And with regards to what Garoux said , I'm no computer wiz, but I would hope it is harder to forge military documents than run a computer program, not to mention it would be highly illegal and expensive. Although I can see security being laxer for smaller nations, are we really going to believe someone who produces paperwork for the National Army of Kazakhstan?Shockingly Awesome

You'd be suprised. Your average 419 scammer has many passport images with names and photos changed. Agent c 18:43, April 29, 2012 (UTC)

I think that this rule should not be removed, the goal of any wiki is to provide 100% accurate and reliable information. While it can be difficult to not compare the weapons to any real life versions. Imagine what would happen if people were to constantly put information about real life weapons on the wiki. --Illage3 06:10, May 2, 2012 (UTC)