New category requests thread
 

NOTE: If the mods don't believe this is a good idea, then please delete this thread.

I'm creating this thread because this way we have a centralized location for users of the wiki to request new Category pages, which to my knowledge only Moderators on the wiki have the power to create.

Since I'm first up, I'd like to request that a Category page for the author Cormac McCarthy be created, like the pages already made for the late great authors Elmore Leonard and Tom Clancy.

Cormac McCarthy already has a number of pages on the wiki based on his written works (being The Counselor, The Road, All the Pretty Horses, and of course, his blockbuster No Country for Old Men). I'm sure that the acclaim he's achieved means that more of his works featuring firearms will be adapted soon (though they should hurry; at 80 years of age he isn't apt to last much longer).

What was the final ruling on the threshold for writers? I thought it was ten.

I would like to think that the significance of the author and his/her written works has some work to play, rather than purely on the number of works s/he published. If Cormac McCarthy keeled over dead back in 2012, I'm sure his works would still be considered significant today.

Anyway, I'd like to know what it would take to make a Disambiguation page. Do you need moderator privileges to do that? I'd like to make one for Silent Hill because one could mean either the first game in the series, or the first movie, or the category. A disambiguation page could go some way towards correcting this.

You can argue the same for William Shakespeare, but he won't get a page until he meets the minimum either. Rather than ask us to lower the requirements, why not just create more pages to meet the requirement?

Anyone can create a disambiguation page. Just create a page for "Silent Hill (disambiguation)" and remember to add the disambiguation pages category at the bottom.

You know, if I had the discs for Kenneth Branagh's uncut version of Hamlet from 1996 (transplanted to the 19th Century, period-accurate firearms included, and starring such great names among actors like Kate Winslet, Robin Williams, and Derek Jacobi), I would make an entry in the wiki for that film. But I don't, sadly. I also don't know of any other Shakespeare film adaptations that use firearms, other than Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.

As for the last Category I suggested, I recently got my hands on a DVD copy of A Scanner, Darkly and will be making an entry for that film soon. Should help to fill out the Philip K. Dick category.

And what about creating categories for game series (such as the Time Crisis game series, which has 3 entries on this wiki so far)? That still requires moderator privileges, right?

Yes, but will search queries for "Silent Hill" actually be redirected to the new disambiguation page after it is created?

There's also Richard III from 1995, Coriolanus from 2011 and Macbeth from 1998 which was a first day incomplete. I know there's at least two other modern versions of Macbeth that would be eligible, a TV movie starring Patrick Stewart from 2010 and an Australian version starring Sam Worthington from 2006. I've flipped through both, they both have guns.

Anyone can create a category, but that doesn't mean you should. One of the Time Crisis page is a first day incomplete, and another is on extremely shaky ground.

I'll take care of the redirects, you can fill the page.

Those 5 combined with Romeo + Juliet and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet make 7. The Philip K. Dick category was created with only 6 of his eligible works available (I'll be adding A Scanner Darkly soon).

So if we want to do that, we just enter "Category:(Something)" in the "Create New Page" form, then press that button?

I'd be making more video game pages myself, if I had reliable method of getting screenshots from console games.

Thanks a lot--the first version has been created.

Netflix had both Macbeths streaming a while back, but now you have to get the discs.


That works. I usually just edit an eligible page, add the category, and then click on the red link.

Video games, especially console video games, are hard to do. Not only do you need a good device for capturing screenshots, you also need to spend hours playing the game, unlocking all the weapons. (I'd finish the Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel page tomorrow if I had a decent capture device.) You also have to cover DLC, so for a Call of Duty or Battlefieldgame, you're paying out $120 just to do a page. Compare that to doing a movie, which is just two hours and it costs a dollar or two to rent. (Or free if you go to the library.)

Since they're both Shakespeare movies, I wonder if they'll be available in libraries (probably not the Blu-ray versions, though).

Thanks for the tip.

I think we need to make a stickied thread showing just what kind of console-game-compatible screen capture devices we've used for this wiki so other users can learn from those experiences. And DLC expenses are becoming the standard now, ever since big-name publishers learned that they get more profits by selling game content in dribs and drabs (though expansion packs on discs came long before DLC ever existed).

I can't really fault game companies for DLC prices. I believe video games are far cheaper than they should be. Twenty five years ago, I remember getting TMNT: The Arcade Game for the NES on sale for $40. A game today, with many more hours of content, only costs $60. I think there's just some psychological price barrier people aren't willing to break through, and DLC is just trying to compensate for that.

As for capture devices, I don't think an HD one exists for less than a hundred bucks.

I believe this is partly because of the rise of digital piracy; if you're trying to sell something, you can't beat "free and easy" (in the mind of the consumer) by cutting prices and still have the producer stay in business. You can read a revealing piece written by a PC game developer destroyed by piracy here.

Note: "Free and easy" is what counts. I'm sure a lot of firearms owners here wouldn't mind the lowered ammunition costs of handloading, if setting up a well-stocked and well-functioning reloading apparatus at home didn't involve a fairly large start-up cost for machinery and componets, and a lot of time spent getting things to work. Once it's up and running it you can assemble your own ammo for a lot less than buying it at retail, but the work involved undoubtedly puts many people off of such a prospect.

Ever since gaming went mainstream people have been less and less willing to pay higher prices for games. Furthermore, as hardware has gone up in capability and complexity, so have development times/difficulty (and the money needed to pay such skilled people) for anything not casual-oriented or meant to be played on limited hardware like phones.

Take a look at Diaspora: Shattered Armistice. It's an excellently made "total conversion" mod for the famous Battlestar Galactica TV show that, in my experience, is the best simulation of combat in a Colonial Viper available. But it took 4 years for the first release (containing only 6 missions) to be finished, and this is even with an older engine that has had both its source code and mod tools released. Yes, if it were a full-time paying job for the developers rather than something they did in their spare time they might get it done faster, but it does highlight just how much work is involved in game development. Work that, by all accounts, is being respected less and less, with people feeling entitled to more and more content for less and less money to the developers and publishers, assuming the consumers aren't outright pirating the content.

There's also the fact that people will, in all likelihood, prefer to pay a lot of money in dribs and drabs rather than all up front. You can see this phenomenon in the success of "microtransaction" games, and you can read an article about how one such monstrously popular title regularly drains its customers dry here.

Damn, that puts a damper on my prospects. And to think that for PC games, screenshot utilities can be had for free, or are built into the software platform (such as Steam). I wouldn't be surprised if some of the game screenshots on this wiki actually came from console games played on PC emulators for that reason.

(I actually heard once that some HD games, such as the best-selling Metal Gear Solid 4, are actually still lower-resolution, just upscaled so as to keep framerates constant. This may change with the now-current PS4 and Xbox 1.)

Anyway, I'm done going off-topic. I made this thread so that users here could petition the mods for mod-privileges-requiring activities like Category creation or redirect-page alteration, but now that I know how to create Category pages without requiring such privileges, the mods here can close this topic or create another "petition the mods here" thread if that's a good idea.

DO NOT go about creating categories willy-nilly. If a director or writer has met the requirements, then proceed, as well with as any necessary "<country> Produced/Filmed" categories. Please consult the admins before creating any genre categories.

I didn't say I would go and do that, did I? Besides, I'd rather stay a "straight shooter" here and have my work remain than risk being blacklisted. If I need to create a new category I'll do as you suggested and make some pages for the mods' scrutiny first.

I believe now it would be a good idea for there to be a sticky thread titled "Message the mods here" about category approval requests and the like that needs to be brought to their attention. It'd be a far more efficient method of contacting the mods than leaving messages on their talk pages (you only contact one mod per talk page message that way and many may not have the time to respond). Perhaps a separate "report spammers" sticky thread would also be warranted.

There have been very few spammers since the new registration system came into play. We've only had to ban seven of them since August 2012. I've thought about a "Ask an admin" page on the main wiki for a while now.

That's a relief. I hope that means the "massive influx of spam" is over.

Still, how about categories for game series with a number of titles in there and possibly movie/TV tie-ins, such as the Hitman series or the Max Payne series? Those already have disambiguation pages listing all of their relevant titles.

Why not just go with a template?

Could you enlighten me as to just what the difference is, aside from the Template putting up links to all the entries in a game/movie series right on a page itself whereas you have to click on the Category: (Something) link to find out the rest of related items? Which one would be better in your view?

I think we should stick with templates for series and reserve categories for exceptionally large series. I don't think we have any hard and fast rules about it though... yet.