Wikipedia as a game database?

[Tychom]

For those who don't know, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is free for anyone to use, add to, modify, copy etc etc all through the Wiki structure.

With close to 700,000 English language articles it is rapidly gobbling up all information and one could argue it is well ahead of traditional encyclopedias when it comes to oddities of modern culture and wonderous things such as video games.

While there's plenty of weird articles on there, it was a long time back that I noticed more and more articles related to video games, Shmups are up their, Toaplan are up there, the PC Engine is up there. Plugging a hole I immediately put up a Batsugun article which over the last 12 months others have prettified with extra technical details (whilst my rather awkward text survives, for now).

Anyway while researching other things I noticed the video games part of the encyclopedia is really expanding, Mario is there in all his guises as is each of his games including in-depth looks at many of them.

Likewise Devil May Cry is well represented right down to character histories.

Classics such as Katamari Damacy too gets plenty of love, right down to soundtrack details and you'll also find details on ICO, Puyo Puyo, Tetris etc. etc.. It's all rather neat.

I just put up my initial versions of articles on Umihara Kawase and its sequel, both of which need a little cleaning up of the text right now but otherwise are a half decent start.

So is anyone else using Wikipedia? or has anyone else written any articles or perhaps helped out with one already present? it really does seem to be becoming ever more all-encompassing, sucking in details from all manner of sources and in general proves much more informative on subjects than the many Ad-infested information-lite game sites around.

[butchcvc]

i browse it quite alot, but my favorite game "densha de go" has limited info....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Go_by_Train


i think i'll add a hell of alot of info sometime to it!

[$h@d0w]

I love Wikipedia, use it everyday for... everything!

[Lyris]

I love it, you can get lost for hours in there.

[nips]

Some of it is a little questionable, mind. The Nintendo Revolution information was a little suss in parts!

[gossi the dog]

I used Wikipedia for the first time earlier this year to look up definitions of techy terms for a technology module I was taking. I decided to search for a few games and much to my surprise there are some really good write ups. The one for Skies of Arcadia is excellent

[Zanzaki]

Wikipedia is great, I usually get lost in it for an hour or two each day, reading about totally random stuff

But, true, it's kinda good for games. Has a decent article on Pop'n Music, and well, that makes it good

[nips]

After reading that the Revolution will have 50 games on launch at wikipedia... I take it with a pinch of salt!

[Kubrick]

I found out about the controversial dungeon map that's in The Legend of ZELDA through wikipedia.

[Commander Marklar]

http://www.gamerwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

http://www.strategema.net/

If you find something wrong, slightly suspect then change it. That's the point ^_^

[Tig]

It seems 'gamerwiki' is nowehere near as good as straight-up wikipedia for game info...

AC on gamerwiki
AC on wiki

Incidentally, that second page is what convinced me of the amazingness of wikipedia

[Tychom]

Yeah one problem with all Wikis is that information can be inaccurate, wrong or simply fraudulant. Particularly when events are on-going there can be constant changes and mis-steps in the information. Seems just today someone's modified the Rev article to mention the article is based on the little known information we have plus a healthy dose of speculation..

I think they are generally self-correcting however, particularly with the more eyes they have on them, the thing Wikipedia seems to have over gamerwiki etc is this larger user base acting like gravity sucking in high quantity and eventually higher quality information.

[tyagi]

It seems 'gamerwiki' is nowehere near as good as straight-up wikipedia for game info...

AC on gamerwiki
AC on wiki

Incidentally, that second page is what convinced me of the amazingness of wikipedia

The difference with Wikipedia is that it has many contributors to any given section. At the moment, GamerWiki has a handful of regular contributors who are both defining the structure of the Wiki as well as writing content. Needless to say, it's a big job for a few people.

The more people who are able to actually help improve the content, the better it will get. GamerWiki does aim to be more specialised than Wikipedia, but in order to do so, it needs participation.

[NekoFever]

I love Wikipedia. It's not perfect (they should make you register to be able to edit for one thing), but it's unbelievably comprehensive and the vast majority of the community is excellent, and even when there is vandalism it's usually fixed in no time at all.

The other week I was doing some research and looked up the article on Hamas, and then got onto general articles about the Middle East, then onto reading Egypt, and then ended up reading about ten articles about Ancient Egypt, a subject that has fascinated me since I studied it in school. I can just lose hours on there opening up new tabs in the background as I find articles that interest me and spot mistakes that I want to correct.

It's a pretty good resource for games (certainly better than any other encyclopaedia) but anything that doesn't have at least a cult following gets overlooked. However it's a fantastic resource for information on consoles because it has everything from general information and sales to specs and technical information.

[Sketcz]

I don't like Wikipedia, and never use it for games info.

My problem is, there are too many mistakes. Note the massive mess talking about the GB camera and printer.

Because of the mistakes present, I don't use it. For good info, I go straight to the videogame collectors and ask them. They make it their mission to own, collect and know every piece of videogaming paraphernalia there is. They can be your best source of info.


EDIT: For the first time ever, I attempted to edit the Wiki description, changing it. The GB camera section is now a little more accurate, I think. Do they go over and check any edits made? Regardless, I still don't trust it as a source of info.