Forum:SH:Notability of board games

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders AnilSerifoglu (talk) 00:24, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Notability of board games

I was about to create an article for the 2002 board game The Game of Life: A Jedi's Path while reading SWGamer-icon "All's Fair in Life and Stratego" — Star Wars Gamer 10, when I discovered it had TC'd in 2018. Upon further digging, I found that another article I had created Stratego: Star Wars had also been TC'd in 2012. I strongly disagree with the decision to not cover board games. There is definitely canonical value to some of them ie Star Wars: Outer Rim, Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side, Assault on Hoth, etc. Even if a board game does not have unique "information" per say, it might have unique art. As a comprehensive Star Wars encyclopedia, we would be doing a disservice to not include these. I know we don't have articles for general merchandise, but I think board games are similar to video games and are thus deserving of unique articles, unlike toys or other merchandise which don't get separate articles. Additionally, board games have been discussed by official sources such as StarWars.com, Star Wars Gamer and Star Wars Insider. In my opinion, it would be highly illogical to just keep some board games that have a bit of canonical information. In addition, even if we didn't have articles for some board games, we should definitely list them in sources via some kind of template like we do for toys. This would be needlessly complicated and it would just be simpler to have separate articles. Sorry for the rant, but I am not that good at organizing my thoughts and would love to hear other’s opinions about the subject. ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 13:27, 8 May 2024 (UTC)

Discuss

  • Carcassonne, Clue, Trivial Pursuit, Pandemic, Monopoly, and yet our Notability policy's clause regarding merchandise only allows video games to receive full coverage lol. Imperators II(Talk) 13:37, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Yea, that's what I realized and hope can be changed if people think that board games deserve coverage. ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 13:47, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Personally, I would be against all of the games listed. Video games are unique IMO as they have a narrative. Board games are just existing games with a Star Wars skin. I believe they should be on the merch wiki, not here. <-Omicron(Leave a message at the BEEP!) 14:18, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I'd love to expand our scope to cover board games. We pull art from them occasionally so having them on site makes sourcing a simpler task. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 14:19, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Seems fine if licensed. Though as with all merch so much unlicensed stuff exists so with care taken to avoid that.—spookywillowwtalk 17:21, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Wookieepedia covers video games, card games, roleplaying games, miniature games, apps, and attractions, not all of which have much canonical value, so I think it's silly to exclude all board games for that reason, especially when that has been so inconsistently applied. SorcererSupreme21 (talk) 17:42, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Heh I was just thinking about making a SH for board games. Yeah it is weird that we don't seem to have any notability rules for them, some have been TCed over the years, and several current ones just seem like merch imo. I think it makes sense to update the notability policy to define how we treat games. Rsand 30 (talk) 18:58, 8 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Agree with this. Wok142 (talk) 18:05, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I'm one of the folks who thinks we should move toward allowing all official/significant Star Wars content on the wiki, and this includes merchandise. But until then, board games alone already have significant reason to be documented here as many outlined above. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 03:44, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
  • I think SorcererSupreme put it perfectly. - JMAS Jolly Trooper Hey, it's me! 18:42, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Covering licensed board games makes sense to me, a page for Monopoly would be no different to the page for Fortnite, a non-Star Wars property in which Star Wars has officially been used. Ayrehead02 (talk) 23:29, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
  • So it seems like the majority is in favor of coverage, I think a simple addition to the Notability policy saying that board games, as well as video games, receive articles would be useful to clarify the issue. ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 21:27, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
  • Just so everyone is on the same page, the two games mentioned by ThrawnChiss are Star Wars versions of popular[source?] games: The Game of Life and Stratego, same as the game listed by Imperators above. Second, I would like to address this comment by ThrawnChiss: "I strongly disagree with the decision to not cover board games. There is definitely canonical value to some of them […]" No such decision exist. Board games are allowed on Wookieepedia, however, it's up to a certain point, as per Wookieepedia:Mofferences/March 4, 2018 (see logs, starting at 04:12:44). The proposal was from Toprawa, and if one is to look at the logs there was very little debate on the subject (everyone was just bored or tired... for the hundredth times, am kriffing glad we got rid of Mofferences). Per the TC in July of the same year, Toprawa commented "For the record, TCs of this nature are no longer necessary unless someone is contesting the deletion. The Notability policy now covers Merchandise articles, meaning all you need to do is slap the {{Notability}} template on them, which gives the article seven days to demonstrate notability or it's automatically deleted.". However, a point can very easily be made that 1) the voting processus leading to this specific policy was rushed, and 2) the policy itself was very much opened to Toprawa personal interpretation; my guess would be that he considered Star Wars commercial adaptation of other games (Monopoly, etc) as merchandise. Hence the confused state in which we find ourselves now, and for this only I'm glad you brought this to the community attention, ThrawnChiss. Dani raised the argument of notability through art uses, which I agree only in half with, and the reason why is because of the parallel we can draw with other product types, such as toys: We can find new depictions and even canonical information from toys, and the example of Hot Toys 1/6th scale figure come instantly to mind, and while I'm sure some would love for us to make article for those, I don't, and thus acknowledging this argument in favor of one product type but not another feels highly hypocritical to me (I say this not in regards of anyone else position but mine only). BUT, then there the issue of allowing video games a special treatment, per policy the merchandise notability policy and the example given by Ayrehead, which is also in turn would be hypocritical of me to, again, say that an argument is valid for a type of product and not for another. Now, if you have followed the twists and turns of this up to this point, you would be confused as to what my position on the topic at hand is, as am I ^^. In the end, I think that allowing anything video games but not anything board games (or even tabletop games at large) just doesn't make sense (or we would have to delete a bunch of video games articles and make Bonzane sad, perish the thought!), but I still stand by the hard line in the sand of "we should not cover toys", thus I'm in favor of supporting ThrawnChiss push for board games inclusivity (again, it should be emphatic toward all tabletop games, not just board games). But just to be clear, don't expect me to support even more merchandising in the future. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 17:14, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
    • Yea, good point to specify all tabletop games in general. I also agree with not covering toys and general merchandise, that what the Merchandise Wiki is for. ThrawnChiss7 Mitth symbol Assembly Cupola 17:47, 13 May 2024 (UTC)
      • I'm going to have to correct myself, as not all tabletop games should be considered notable enough enough for an articles, as I just come across an example that we wouldn't want to cover: Star Wars playing card sets. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 15:21, 15 May 2024 (UTC)