Hivebrain/Article plan

I like the initial sorting. Here are some ideas/questions off the top of my head:

First of all it's a good idea to make it clear what should be in uppercase and what shouldn't for consistency. Some articles say "Master System Version", while others say "Master System version" (hypothetical example). At some point it'll be nice to have an order to be followed for the systems on the whole article, be it for Physical Scans, Promotional Material, ROM table or whatever else. Roughly I'd say: Sega systems (order to be discussed) > home computers (alphabetical order?) > newer non-Sega systems (alphabetical order?).

I suppose we'll need sub-sections for items, enemies, bosses among others under Gameplay, and a explanation of how to deal with the controls. Describe each version's controls or not, differentiate 3 and 6 buttons controller commands (for MD/32X/MCD) or not, etc. (As a side note: we need more button templates for games with high/strong and low/weak attacks which matter for special moves and the like)

For Credits should we fit all versions in a single multicol template, as it's done in some articles, or use separate multicols for each version (if/when they have X or more lines), like in other articles? It'd be a good idea to also define how to separate the in-game and manual/interviews credits, as well as a template to be followed (take Blackthorne and Doom as a example of inconsistency). And perhaps we could either add references (ref template) to, or even upload, videos with the game ending(s).

How about one or more sections for sprites, screenshots etc (of each version, for completeness?), or sub-sections under Gallery? And possibly a section for magazine articles without ratings (a list or something, not a gallery since it could takes too much space)?

What do you think? --AllisonKidd (talk) 18:16, 6 October 2015 (CDT)

I always use lowercase for headers unless it's a name, same as we do for article titles. Not everyone does this consistently though. Your system order looks about right. For Sega systems, we seem to put arcade and Mega Drive first, and then whatever order the editor feels like for the rest. Maybe we could order them by power (arcade>DC>Sat>32X>MCD>MD>GG>SMS).

Using tables for moves seems to waste a lot of space. Putting them in columns would be more efficient. I'll probably make a template for moves.

Credits need to be kept separate, but still use multicol per version, in order to save space. They should also be sourced. We can use fileref for manuals, and possibly take screenshots for in-game credits.

I'd prefer sprites and misc screenshots to be integrated into the article in a way that makes sense contextually, rather than stuck in a gallery at the end. "Gallery" was more intended for photos of things, like arcade machines, PCBs etc.

Hivebrain (talk) 19:24, 6 October 2015 (CDT)

On NEC Retro I've been ordering versions of games by release date, i.e. the oldest first, the newest last. Although it's slightly more reasonable to do that there - you rarely see games released in more than one region.

Sega Retro... loosely follows the same formula, in that arcade and Mega Drive versions generally come first chronologically... but I agree, it's a mess. Most of the time I've been doing something like DC->Sat->MD->MCD->32X->GG->SMS, with a view that the Mega Drive's add-ons are less "important" than the bog-standard Mega Drive - I think doing it in date order is probably a better way forward. That's vaguely how the releases templates have been organised over the years. Sega systems should take precedence over non-Sega systems.

Regions are perhaps the more important issue - back in 2010 we were ordering things as US->EU->JP->AU... but it all fell apart when we started looking at things properly. I have actually considered abolishing the "EU" naming scheme altogether - there's not really such a thing as a pan-Euro release, and obviously before the Euro, every country had its own currency, and often its own distributors releasing different things at different times.

We were taught in school to use proper case for headers. I think it looks neater, but I'm aware Wikipedia doesn't bother anymore, and looking into it, apparently British newspapers use sentence case too. I can text-replace all counts of "Physical Scans" if you want, although it might take a while to break a five-year habit :P -Black Squirrel (talk) 15:44, 7 October 2015 (CDT)