Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Games/Infobox

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Monopoly
Publisher Parker Brothers
Players 2–8
Setup time 5–15 minutes
Playing time 1.5–6 hours
Random chance Medium (dice rolling, card drawing, luck)
Skills required Dice rolling
Counting
Social skills

BoardGameGeek entry

Here is the current syntax for using this template:

  1. Insert this starting as the first line of the article.
  2. If no information is available, leave it blank (ex. "quote= ").
    • Don't wiki-link the subject_name parameter.
    • Do wiki-link the others parameters as needed.

Parameters in green are required fields.

Parameter Explanation
title The title of the game.
show_name A subtitle of the game, if relevant.
image_link An image relevant to the game. May be resized.
image_caption A caption explaining the image.
designer The designer(s) of the game. Separate multiple people with line breaks (<br>).
illustrator The illustrators(s) of the game artwork. Separate multiple people with line breaks (<br>).
publisher The publisher of the game.
players The number of players.
ages The age range for the game, if relevant.
setup_time The time it takes to set up the game.
playing_time The time it takes to play the game.
random_chance The degree to which random chance comes into play in the game.
skills The skills required to play the game. Separate multiple entries with line breaks (<br>).
footnotes Any footnotes.
bggid The ID number for the game at BoardGameGeek, listed in the URL after "game/"
bggxrefs Internal cross-reference to BoardGameGeek references (for use with {{bgg par}} and derived templates).

Suggestion for taxobox entries:

Don't Break the Ice
Children's games
# Players: 2 or more
Age range: 3 +
Setup time: < 5 minutes
Playing time: 20 minutes
Difficulty level: Easy
Strategy level: Low
Random chance: None
Skills required: Manual dexterity

(see Don't Break the Ice (game) for an example)

  • Name - official name of the game (not the exact article name)
  • Category - right now, linking the [[Category:Section]] (can easily be boilerplated)
  • # of Players - straight from game's rules (how to handle team games?)
  • Age range - recommendation... usually will be "# +" (change to "Minimum Age"?)
  • Setup time - < 5 minutes, ... estimated time in 5-minute increments ..., > one hour
  • Playing time - < 5 minutes, ... estimated time in 5-minute increments ..., > one hour
  • Difficulty level - (measure of rules comprehension needed) Easy, Average, Hard (or Novice, Intermediate, Expert)
  • Strategy level - Low, Medium, High
  • Random chance - (what impact random chance has on the game) None, Some,
  • Skills required - (some examples... Manual dexterity, Strategic thought, Dice rolling, Memory, Team play) We'd need to build a standard list.

Netoholic

Contents

[edit] Suggestion

Here's my two cents' worth.

  • Name - good as stated.
  • Category - good as stated.
  • Number of players - also good.
  • Age range - This should only be stated explicitly for explicitly juvenile games. Games for adults usually don't have an age requirement other than the minimum intelligence demanded by the difficulty and strategy level.
Many games come with recommendations like "Ages 3-6". These are usually learning games which tend to bore older children and adults, although those ages could play technically play it. People will know this, so I don't think we need to say it explicitly. I'd say keep this for all games, adult and juvenile alike. The idea would be to mimic the stated age guidelines (if any) or to designate a reasonable minumum age. -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Setup time - good as stated.
  • Playing time - We should have a timescale with markers increasing at a roughly exponential rate, viz.: <5 min, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 3 hr, 4 hr, 5 hr, >5 hr. Each game's duration should be stated as an interval from one marker to another, viz.: <5 min to 15 min, 30 min to 1 hr.
I don't like interval time because its often too hard to judge. Modifying my original proposal, I'd prefer less granularity in favor of a general scale, something like <5 min, 10 min, 20 min, 30 min, 45 min, 1 hour, >1 hr. Games that take over one hour are very hard to narrow down to a specific range, and the distinction will often not matter. -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Okay, but maybe ditch the 45 min classification. --Smack 18:30, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Difficulty level - Fine, but call this rules complexity.
Good suggestion. -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Strategy level - This should be called strategy depth, and based on the following sole parameter: the number of layers of tactic and countertactic that the game affords. The scale should be something like this: None (there's only one right way to do this), Shallow (you can scheme a bit to improve your chances, but the other players can't do anything about it), Substantial, Profound.
Rules complexity: ----5
Strategy depth: --3--
Random chance: 1----
I don't think people could gauge the levels based on your chosen words. Prefer something a bit more relatable. Perhaps a simple scale of 1-5 for all these "level" definitions? -- Netoholic 21:39, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
1 to 5 could be done, but I think that if we adopt any arbitrary classifications at all, we'll need a sort of glossary page in the Wikipedia namespace, regardless of how we do them. --Smack 18:29, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Random chance - good as stated.
  • Skills required - also good as stated. --Smack 20:02, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Has it been decided what the titles of the various levels of strategy, difficulty, etc. are? Or are the ones that have been chosen for the infobox'd games pretty arbitrary? 209.114.249.74 19:51, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] May I...

May I use this Infobox as a starting point for my own infobox?

Sure, go ahead. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:03, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My $.02...

I know this isn't the best place to discuss this, but I didn't see a talk page. I just saw this infobox on the Cluedo page and, may I say, it's incredibly drab. Hues of gray? Games are supposed to be fun! Please see my Infobox for Arcade games as an example of something more colorful. Please come up with a different color scheme, but don't be afraid to use colors! :-)

Also, I'd like to suggest an additional item: Alternate names. This particularly would be useful for Cluedo, where it is known as "Clue" in North America. Most North Americans have never heard of a game called "Cluedo" and only know it by the shorter name. If a game has no "alternate name," the field can be left out (just like the image entry is). Thoughts? — Frecklefoot | Talk 19:03, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Margin-bottom

The infobox hits the category box on short pages like Java (board game) so I've added 0.5em to the bottom margin.


[edit] Design and illustration credits

As a game designer and illustrator, don't we think it's important who designed and illustrated these things. (I do! ;-) ) I would think that would be a valuable bit of information to put in an infobox. --Yekrats 16:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Would we be able to provide that information for every game? (not being sarcastic, I just really wouldn't know where to look for that) If the information were already part of the articles, your idea might be a possibility. -- Netoholic @ 17:06, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
I love giving credit where it is due (for example, I hate it when mags don't credit people for illustrations), but I doubt this information is readily available. Also, most art for arcade games was produced by a group of people or a department, and most were not credited in the game. Unfortunately, their names are just lost.
Therefore, I don't think it's a good idea to add this to the infobox. The number of games for which we could find the artists is diminishingly small. :-( For the few games we can find this info, it should just be noted in the article text. — Frecklefoot | Talk 17:41, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
The website BoardGameGeek (http://boardgamegeek.com) has information on just about any game, with designer credits for about every game under the sun. (Some, naturally are listed as "uncredited" but most have been tracked down.) Designer credit is extremely important, can be easily tracked down in most cases. For example, see the BGG entry on Java.
I concede that illustration credit would be somewhat harder to track down, but I've found many at Funagain, an online game retailer. (According to the Funagain site, Java was illustrated by Franz Vohwinkel, a prolific game illustrator. --Yekrats 6 July 2005 02:32 (UTC)

I second the move to include designer in the info box. It is basic info that should be available for most games. --Millsdavid 05:32, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Me too, only I would call it Creator since it's a more generic term - that would allow you to state "Persians" in the case of chess. (I think design hadn't been "invented" back then.) -- Tintazul 17:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Agree — Designer (or creator) should be added to the infobox. Val42 20:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Using syntax I borrowed from {{otheruses4}}, I've been able to add "publisher" and "designer" as optional parameters, as well as making "ages" and "image_caption" optional. Percy Snoodle 08:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Age range

For commercially produced, proprietary games, one can put in the age range that is printed on the box. But who decides the age range of a classic board game such as chess, or a playground game such as Chinese whispers? For example, at the moment chess is "Recommended for 8 years or older". Recommended by whom? On the other hand, xiangqi has "Any" down here. It would seem that this attribute is largely, if not completely, a matter of opinion. -- Smjg 12:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bggid

User:AmbientArchitecture recently added a bggid parameter. I'm uneasy about this for a few reasons:

  • It's a duplication of effort, given the {{bgg}} family of templates.
  • It's inflexible; many games have different BGG IDs for the different editions, and some articles cover families of games rather than the games themselves.
  • There are a few wikipedians who regard BGG links as linkspam - see Wikipedia talk:Counter Vandalism Unit/Archive 3#HELP!. I'm not one of them, and I for the moment the consensus is against them, but promoting the BGG links outside the external link section might fuel their arguments.

I haven't reverted the edits; instead I've matched the style against the equivalent IMDB ID section from {{Infobox film}}, whose existence is probably the best argument in favour of the parameter. However, I thought it best to discuss it here to gain consensus about whether we really want this parameter in the template. Percy Snoodle 09:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

What's the reasoning behind the 'sup' change, whatever that is? This again seems to radically decrease usefuless. AmbientArchitecture 14:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's to cover articles on multiple games, or games with lots of spinoffs. In those cases, set bggid to "template" and it'll take you to the bgg template in the exlinks. If there's just the one exlink, set bggid numerically as before, and it will work as it did before. No decrease in usefulness, just another mode of use. Percy Snoodle 15:00, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
I see, now what you did originally -- and your arguments about "inflexibility" and "duplication" -- makes more sense to me. It's not really a different mode of use, but different functionality altogether. What your doing is more akin to citations or a jump to a list of references, while what I was trying to do was simply to provide the BGG ID for the game specified in the title of the article, along with a like to the corresponding article on BGG as a convenience. You should continue to evolve the latter as you wish (as bggxrefs), I've reinstated the former (as bggid) as I originally intended it. I've also reduced the importance of both by making them smaller and putting them at the end with footnotes, which seems more in keeping with some of the issues you brought up initially. (See Carcassonne for an example of both in use.) AmbientArchitecture 17:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Although I disagree with splitting them up (I understand why you did it, I just disagree) I've left them split; Either you or Grimhelm had restyled it so it no longer matched the IMDB style, and inserted whitespace that broke it on every game article; I've fixed both those issues. Percy Snoodle 09:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Why does it have to match the IMDB style? What's a "profile"? I'm really not following the motivations for your changes: they seem not to be guided by the desire to convey information. I made the BGG ID visible because it represents useful information about the game, but you've hidden it behind the word "profile"; my changes in formatting were intended to produce a result that was attractive and readable, yours seem motivated by the desire to match the IMDB style. If there's a reason that this has to follow the IMDB style, I'll leave it as is. Otherwise I'd like to restore the "= <bggid>" form that I had earlier. I'll still leave the formatting as is for the time being though to see how it works. But my feeling is that this organization of information (driven by the IMDB style) is inferior: keeping footnotes, external database IDs, and links to internal references all together "below the line" makes sense to me (though I can be talked out of that).
The reason I've gone for "profile" over some arbitrary number is that the BGG ID itself conveys no information - it's just the order in which the game was added to BGG, and is otherwise meaningless. As regards the rest, I think we've reached a compromise in the current version of the template. Percy Snoodle 10:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
That makes sense, though the number is still useful. I'll think about it. But something other that "profile" would be better. Profiles are for people, aren't they? Perhaps "BGG entry" or "On BGG" or something along those lines? AmbientArchitecture 11:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Profile isn't person-specific, and I dispute that the number is useful; I wouldn't object to "entry", though. Percy Snoodle 13:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Done! AmbientArchitecture 15:12, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think the bgg stuff in this template is linkspam. I suggest we remove it. The proper place for external links is at the bottom of the article, not in the a summarization sidebar. --Micah Hainline 20:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you feel the same way about the IMDB links on {{Infobox film}}? Percy Snoodle 14:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree. We're told over and over again by zealous editors what Wikipedia "is not", and for games that list is so long that a standard link out of Wikipedia to something that is all those things seems essential for making Wikipedia useful in this domain, just as the IMDB link does for films. — Aldaron • T/C 15:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Though my opinions on the IMDB links on the film infobox don't really seem relevant to the issue BoardGameGeeks links in this info box, I think they would be better off at the bottom of the page as well. Even then, they should only be included if there is significant value for that particular movie. Let me say that I like the BoardGameGeeks website. It's a great source of information, a nice place to trade games, and I have an account on the site. I didn't come to wikipedia to see the BGG pages on a game though, I came to see the Wikipedia entry on the game. Having links to other valuable content makes sense, but they should be in a separate space, and we should be sure that each link is adding some real value to the Wikipedia article. If the BGG link seems lost in the shuffle of links at the bottom, by all means move it to the top of the links section, delete some less relevant links, or preferably both. I just don't think the link should be smack at the top of the article. It feels like it's saying "Hey, don't read this article, go somewhere where they have some real info." I'd hate to see Wikipedia start to become a portal site, where we redirect readers to other sites that are more focused on particular domains. People know where to look for more information. We're used to looking down in the links section, or hitting up Google. We have portals. We need an encyclopedia too. --Micah Hainline 05:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I see what you're saying, but I disagree. Perhaps this is part of a larger issue, that should be discussed elsewhere: what exactly Wikipedia is and is not. There's been a trend (which experienced Wikipedians tell me is recent) that takes Wikipedia away from being a comprehensive resource and moves it in the direction of being very narrowly encyclopedic. This trend has resulted in the exclusion and deletion of a great deal of useful content in order to comply with "is not" guidelines. But that creates a problem for ordinary people who are just looking for a great source of information.
Wikipedia has the opportunity be that source of information by redefining what it means to be and encyclopedia and what it means to be a portal by being the best at both. But I don't imagine we'll solve that issue here.
The issue at hand though seems easy to resolve. If games articles complied with "is not" guidelines, most of them would be reduced to little more than an infobox and some outgoing links, and many would be deleted altogether. In that case, I'd argue that the BGG link is an essential part of the template for a game article, however it gets included, and that the infobox is a clean way of encouraging incorporation of that information. I would also argue that, regardless of what other content is in a game article, the BGG ID itself is in fact encyclopedic information, and should not only be included in a link in the game infobox, but actually presented there visually (instead of the current text for the link).
In short, the more I think about this, the more important I think the inclusion of the BGG ID is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aldaron (talk • contribs) 16:20, August 25, 2007 (UTC)
I would like Wikipedia, in conjunction with its sister projects, to be a comprehensive informational resource as well. I don't think we really need to solve all the larger issues with what should and should not be included in Wikipedia in order to solve this particular issue. I think we both agree that we should have a link to BoardGameGeeks in the articles, the only question in dispute is really where that link should sit. I see what you're saying about including it in a template to encourage people to include the information, but I think there are already templates to allow them to do that easily, and including it in this one pushes it to the top of the article, which is the only problem I have with it. I also disagree a bit about the number itself being encyclopedic information. It's just the internal database id for bgg's current system--one they have unfortunately exposed somewhat. The link itself should probably be sufficient I would think. --Micah Hainline 20:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Would anyone raise an objection at this point if I were to remove the link from the infoboxes of some of these articles, but make sure that every article from which I removed it had the boardgamegeek link at the top of the links section? The point Aldaron made about the German-style board games is a good one. I think the community of people that play German-style board games are really the ones that are interested in the boardgamegeek content. I am unconvinced that it belongs in the infobox rather than the links section for any game, but for things such as Chess, Go, or Monopoly it seem particularly inappropriate, and with the id field in the template for the board game infobox, these will inevitably crop up again and again. --Micah Hainline 23:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The boardgamegeek stuff is linkspam. Anyone who sees this is requested to not add it back to the infobox in Chess, where it is definitely not wanted. (This isn't any sort of accusation, just a request to not make WP:CHESS remove it repeatedly from articles in the project.) Quale 00:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the bggid is probably inappropriate for the Chess article. But it isn't linkspam in when used for other boardgames, especially German-style boardgames. — Aldaron • T/C 03:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I think that the BGG link should remain. It is informational for someone who is seeking information on a game. — Val42 03:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits

Down10 has recently been making some edits which Aldaron has brought to my attention as they break the look of the template in various ways for him. I have reverted some of these changes, though not all - some of them have been great edits, such as adding the template to the Game templates category. I think it would be a good idea for the two of you to discuss what you think should be done here, before more changes are made to the article. Percy Snoodle 08:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Percy's recent edits address most of my concerns. One concern that remains is that Down10's changes have introduced padding around the infobox image that creates too much whitespace, which is not only unappealing, but prevents that image from lining up vertically with same-sized thumbnails farther down the page on the right. AmbientArchitecture 12:30, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complexity and depth

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games#how is rules complexity and strategy depth calculated? Percy Snoodle 13:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Random chance???

Listed in the info box is the heading "random chance" (Such as the text "random_chance= High" in Mordheim). This makes no sense whatsoever. I vote that this part be removed; it gives little information, if any and is confusing and makes no sense (random_chance= High or random_chance= Dice rolling???? What is that???). Thoughts? Spawn Man 04:29, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah - it's original research and should be removed, so I shall. It's possible "skills used" should too. Percy Snoodle 09:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
This is not OR (The fact that the random chance for Mordheim is High may be OR, but that is not relevant here.) There are plenty of boardgames that have some kind of chance rating on the box. There are games that have random_chance = None (eg Chess), which is relevant information and is normally well sourced. Some pages include the element introducing the random chance (eg Acquire has random_chance = tile drawing, Backgammon has random_chance = Dice), and such information is also easily sourced. HermanHiddema 10:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
For some games, it may be easily sourced, though I can't remember ever seeing a game article do so. However, most games that use the parameter have something like "high", "medium", or "low" - meaningless and OR. Those articles are improved more by removing that nonsense than the minority of sensible articles are harmed, and the sensible articles can very easily mention it in the prose. Indeed, most of them do because they link to abstract strategy game in their lead sentence. Percy Snoodle 10:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
The fact that editors do not properly source the random chance component of games is not the fault of the template. Removing random_chance from the template may be the easy way to remove unsourced material from a lot of board game pages, but is it the right way? IMO, board game pages that do not source this rating should either remove the random_chance component or reference it (eg: reference http://www.boardgameratings.com/game/2/ which gives Settlers of Catan a 'Luck' rating of 3/5) HermanHiddema 11:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
True, but it makes no sense. If someone randomly said to you "Random chance. High." you'd be very confused... If anything like that is used, it should at least be renamed to something that makes sense. Spawn Man 01:59, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps something like 'Luck' is a better term? HermanHiddema 11:49, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
"Luck: High" is no less a POV call than "Chance: High". The parameter would still cause more harm than good. Percy Snoodle 06:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
IMHO, this is a good field for the infobox. In the two extreme cases, the amount of random chance in a game is pretty straightforward (War (card game), for example, is completely luck-based, while Chess has no luck component.) Between the two extremes, I agree that rating the amount of random chance between "low" and "high" is difficult, but could we not just list the luck based components? For example "dice-based movement", "initial card-shuffling", etc? Perhaps that's too long for an infobox entry... --216.86.105.213 (talk) 04:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a way to use Wikipedia templates within a scratchpad wikia?

I was trying to determine how to use the templates within the Wikipedia as part of a scratchpad wikia that some friends and I are working on, but so far I haven't been successful. Do I need to duplicate each template in the scratchpad (ideally I'd just like to point at the Wikipedia templates)? If they all need to be duplicated, is there an easy way to cut and paste them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jrboeke (talk • contribs) 20:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Skills, Random Chance

Every single time I've seen a game infobox, the information in these two lines strike me as pointless and uninformative, and almost always WP:OR (except, I suppose, when the random chance level is none). Can we just remove these? None of the game articles attempt in the text to classify a random chance level for the game that I have seen; they simply describe the game and the level of random chance is thus described directly. Similarly, game articles talk about strategy but never about required skills; you would certainly never see a claim that "strategy" is a required skill for any game. This kind of line doesn't seem to exist in other infoboxes; rather, the most subjective lines are always at least backed up directly by text in the article. Instead of trying to correct individual articles, I think it's best to adjust the infobox. Mangojuicetalk 05:29, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I would certainly support removing these OR-baiting lines. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I also support removing these lines, and I would also include setup time and playing time, as these are equally likely to be OR. Ham Pastrami (talk) 21:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)