Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Halo/Archive 4

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Main page

Just a heads up to anyone who didn't know/notice, Halo: Combat Evolved will be on the main page tomorrow and judging by the history of Halo articles it will mean lots of vandalism as well as good-faith but bad-quality edits, not only to that article but to other articles which are related. Note that since semi-protection expired on November 1, there have been 125 edits to Halo:Combat Evolved (diff) but only a small change in content. I think this is going to be one of those TFAs which will be sprotected for a few hours. None-the-less, everyone keep a close eye on it tomorrow and be careful not to lose content, quite often some content will be removed and another edit afterwards covers it up. Just reverting doesn't always work. James086Talk | Email 13:22, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

For reference, I placed a permalink to a stable revision (your last spelling fix) at Talk:Halo: Combat Evolved#If all else fails during Main Page mayhem.... Unfortunately, I'm usually busy during the week, so I probably won't be much involved with the reverting fun. — TKD::Talk 13:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
This will be fun :-) I'll be around for at least three hours today and some more tommorow. BTW just a heads up, you guys might want to keep a eye on Halo 2, two users are tag teaming there and adding some information about a mod that allows the game to be played on Windows XP, the only sources for this come from a forum so we better keep this out before somebody complains about the quality of FAs here. - Caribbean~H.Q. 18:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

SPARTAN projects

I have been thinking, should we merge the different Spartan project articles and create a single article titled SPARTAN supersoldier projects (or something along those lines) I think that this will make it easier to promote the content, lets see for example SPARTAN-III Project, the article as it stands can not gather any significant out of universe information and hardly any material for a reception section, if we merge both articles Spartan-II can probably carry the weight of said section. Any opinions or suggestions? - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:05, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

The Spartan-IIIs are definitely not going to have any info... how about just merging in a paragraph mention to the S-II article? SPARTAN supersoldier projects hardly rolls off the tongue, and I'd rather save us from dealing with all the double redirects if we merged both. David Fuchs (talk) 21:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good to me, as long as a SPARTAN-IV doesn't show up ;) - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I just completed the merger, but in my opinion SPARTAN projects would be a more appropiate title. By the way we will need to come with a good reason for notability seeing that the article is tagged at this moment. - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:15, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll try and get on it, but I'm busy with other projects... but it won't be horrible if it gets prodded or whatever in the meantime, since I can just resurrect it as an admin. *Shrug* Lazy... David Fuchs (talk) 23:20, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
GASP! ADMIN ABUSE! No more arbcom for you! :P Personally I think SPARTAN projects would be the best name. James086Talk | Email 11:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Halo ActionClix

Well referenced, so notability isn't a problem, but I had the thought that this would make a good addition to the Halo series article, since its so small. Judgesurreal777 23:16, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

New article idea

The Cortana Letters and Conversations from the Universe are somewhat weak on their own, but as either a part of the Halo series article, or a Development of Halo article, they could be one strong article instead of two weak ones. Thoughts? Judgesurreal777 23:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Conversations from the Universe needs an article, it's like giving an entire article to the beastiarum from Halo 3 (which contained more info). I reckon it should be redirected to Halo 2#Halo 2 Limited Collector's Edition. As for the Cortana Letters I'm apathetic to either a merge or leaving it as it is. If it got some attention it could probably make a decent, albeit short, article. If it's decided to leave it as a separate article I'll add it to my todo list and give it a rewrite. James086Talk | Email 11:14, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

List of official Halo series media

I have made a draft of what I intend to do to List of official Halo series media. Basically you can sort the columns by clicking the little box with triangles so that it's easy to sort by release date, alphabetical order, date that the media occurs in the universe or what sort it is (book/game etc). I have 2 questions, does anyone object because it will be a pretty big change to the article and are there any columns I should add? Obviously it will have references and better descriptions as it is just a draft at the moment. James086Talk | Email 08:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I like your new layout quite a bit. It's visually appealing and, more importantly, very helpful for readers. No objections at all (or suggestions, yet). -- Satori Son 20:32, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
As the person who originally created that page, I think that a sortable table would be helpful (I don't recall whether that sorting ability was yet present when I created the page). As far as I'm concerned, your proposed reworking sounds good. — TKD::Talk 00:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
I've added it and the wording is probably a bit rough so could someone take a quick look if you have time. Thanks, James086Talk | Email 13:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Halo 2 edit war

As many of you probably know, there is an edit war on the Halo 2 article regarding the XP patch and quality of sources. See discussion at Talk:Halo 2#XP Compatbility [sic]. In a good faith effort to resolve this dispute, I am requesting additional analysis of the sources and comments from others. Thanks, Satori Son 20:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Fancruft

How much fancruft could I find in the articles of this project? Can I be Frank? (Talk to me!) 21:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Uh, that's a pointless and hardly constructive question to ask. David Fuchs (talk) 23:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
In case you have the wrong impression, the editors of this project have been gradually cleaning up and sourcing as much as possible. Many articles have passed GA and/or FA because of these efforts. The job is still ongoing; Wikipedia is perpetually a work in progress. If you read through the later archives of this project talk page, I think that you'll find that the editors here are committed to WP:WAF and WP:FICT. — TKD::Talk 00:08, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
And if you look through the earlier archives, you'll find me being a whiny newb. Good god, reading that "but you deleted it!" garbage I spouted is worse than watching Attack of the Clones again... point is, though, except for a handful of bad articles, most of those under the direct scope of our project are decent quality. David Fuchs (talk) 00:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah. Well, in that case, keep up the good work. I only asked because I followed the link to the SPARTAN program when a Halo FA made it to the Main Page, where I found a tag for primary/secondary sources imbalance. Can I be Frank? (Talk to me!) 01:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I would say the major articles which need to be cleaned up/merged/found wanting are Halo universe, United Nations Space Command, and the Halo novels, if you're interesting in the raw side. But with a scope of ~70 articles (with two more up for GA and one for FA as we speak) I'm confident it'll get cleaned up eventually. Real-world info takes a while to dig up, occasionally. :) David Fuchs (talk) 01:27, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Characters in the Halo series

Just letting you know I put the Characters page up for featured list. Thinking about it as well, if we get this to a featured list, and Cortana and Arbiter (Halo) up to GA as well, we could actually have a featured topic for the 'Characters of Halo' or something like that. Which reminds me, we should prolly also focus on getting Halo (series) up to GA if we want a featured topic there too. </rant> 00:00, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

We should probably give Halo 3 another try since thenom failed because it was ignored but not opposed. - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
My computer had a bit of a fit so I couldn't edit over the weekend; what happened with the Halo 3 FAC? Was it actually closed because not enough people had commented? It seems like a silly reason (unless the nom was very old, but in this case it wasn't). James086Talk | Email 09:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I think Raul as a matter of procedure fails nominations that don't receive explicit supports in 4 or 5 days (usually just to keep the FAC backlog down). I think that the implicit understanding here is that such candidates can be renominated sooner than a nomination that fails due to explicit objections. However, I myself plan to be busy in the next few days, between work and preparing to visit family for Thanksgiving, so I don't know that I'd be able to give either article a fair critical review. — TKD::Talk 10:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I see. Thanks for explaining, I was totally confused as to what was going on. I think Raul has been trying to reduce backlogs with the limit on WP:TFA/R aswell. I'm going to have a thorough look at the article tomorrow so I can support earlier in the candidacy next time it's decided to nominate. James086Talk | Email 13:17, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I renom'd it, and we finally have some concrete issues to work on. David Fuchs (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
<sarcasm> Its good to see people are still opposing nominations and never coming back to review their opposes after changes have been done to the article. </sarcasm> - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Halo Effect

A few weeks ago, I pointed out a book, Halo Effect, that I happened to find on Amazon. It (and a few other things) arrived today. It's a collection of articles on various Halo-related topics (a sampling: ethics in the games, the scientific plausibility of a Halo, machinima, development history, a character analysis of the Master Chief), and would be extremely beneficial for many articles under this project's scope. To give you an idea of the depth of material, I skimmed the first article, which spends about 10 pages discussing (with comparisons about a half dozen fictional protagonists) why the Master Chief needed to be presented as a cyborg (and neither fully human nor fully machine) to be a plausible and effective character for his role in the story.

I'm off to visit family for Thanksgiving soon, but I'll be bringing the book with me. Whenever I have time (and if impulse doesn't lead me back to finishing up working on machinima for GA status), I'll try to incorporate what I can into various articles. And, if you'll excuse a momentary violation of WP:NOT#FORUM, in my opinion it's very interesting reading, status as reliable source material aside. :) — TKD::Talk 01:33, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool... want to get Contact Harvest, but I've had to content myself with ordering the OST only. Look forward to the additions! David Fuchs (talk) 02:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Halo series

{{Halo series}} was recently tagged as bloated; I happen to agree, but since the relevant VG project page never gained consensus, and template has never really been stable, let's spend some time to come to a consensus as far as what should be in there and how much. My personal opinion is that is that navboxes should be well-defined in scope, and not resemble a kitchen sink or a category listing; in fact, I originally created List of official Halo series media so that many of the items could be removed from the navbox.

The alternative to a larger navbox is to create multiple smaller navboxes that are more focused; I personally think that this would work better instead of trying to cram I Love Bees into the same navbox as the Halo 3 Original Soundtrack. But maybe I'm in the minority here? — TKD::Talk 06:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted to this version It appears the changes were done by new users who were adding crufty articles to begin with. We already have a characters navbox, so there's not reason to go into detail on that facet, in any case. David Fuchs (talk) 16:11, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Covenant Elite

With the plot developments of Halo 2 it's no longer accurate to refer to the Sangheili as "Covenant Elites." I propose that the name be changed Elite (Halo) with Covenant Elite redirecting to that article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Roman Slayer (talk • contribs) 14:39, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. That's a decent point; I don't think Halo 3 uses the term Covenant Elite at all, but rather just Elite. So this seems to be be a case where we should use the (Halo) disambiguation instead of a term that's only partially accurate and probably doesn't have any grounding in the "use common names" naming policy, since Halo 3 uses just Elite all over the place. — TKD::Talk 00:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I added a notice to Talk:Covenant Elite about this discussion. If no one here objects in a couple days, I think that we can call that enough consensus to reverse the redirects and perform the move. No need to go through the bureaucracy of Wikipedia:Requested moves for a naming matter that requires some familiarity with the actual in-universe material. — TKD::Talk 13:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 Done. — TKD::Talk 00:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Im not sure but... shouldn't we follow the presendent presented by Xenomorph (Alien) and rename this to Sangheili? - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that might be an option if there weren't any other commonly known names that specifically refer to the species (which seems to be the case for xenomorphs), but we have a more accessible and common alternative (Elite) here. The issue was whether the Covenant" qualifer was completely correct. — TKD::Talk 05:37, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
From my experience Xenomorphs are ussually refered to as "Aliens" so the proper naming is probably Alien (Alien), the reason their fictional scientific name is used seems somewhat obvious, but as dull as that may sound I believe its probably the most common name thus it should be the one used per the naming conventions, I'm not particulary interested in fueling the move wheel that apparently happened a while back but it just seemed like a sensible question. - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, thanks for bringing it up for discussion, though. Not that this anecdote is worth much, but, as someone who, about two years ago, was more or less completely unfamiliar with Halo (yes, that is a true story!), I know that I encountered the term Elite before Sangheli. :) — TKD::Talk 22:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah that probably the most common scenario, however I guess most people that became familiar with the original Halo probably came to know them as "Wort! Wort! Wort!" before Elite ;-) - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

For the same reason, I think we should change "They serve as one of the two primary commanding species in the caste system of the Covenant" to "They served..." Any objections? --AnticScarab3 (talk) 02:59, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I changed the lead. We have to remain in present tense, though, because their service within the Covenant and the civil war both occur as the fiction unfolds. The only time that we use past tense to narrate fiction is to describe events that took place before the setting of the fiction itself. — TKD::Talk 03:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Characters in the Halo series

So it looks like we should rename it to List of Halo characters or something like that. A concern is it also doesn't have enough out of universe info for the main characters (so I guess the Chief, Arbiter, Cortana, Spark, and whoever else we can dig stuff up for.) Also, I've begun converting the references into a notes and refs section, complete with divs to link to the source reference, so if someone could help me with that, it'd go faster. :) David Fuchs (talk) 01:25, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I did the refs and I'm currently looking for out-of-universe info. James086Talk | Email 07:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I will try to look for something worthy when the fixes to my PC are done. - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:24, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, now that the flc failed, I renamed; I'll begin removing double redirects, but as you can see it'll be a long slog. David Fuchs (talk) 23:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Jiralhanae

I've been thinking lately that the Brutes deserve their own article. True, there's not as much to say about them as say the Elites, but I believe that there's enough to merit a whole article. I'd have a draft right now if I wasn't so busy, but I decided I should put the idea up for discussion. Roman Slayer (talk) 23:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

If there is enought "out of universe" info to prove its real world impact go ahead and post it right away, if not its probably best to avoid creating a new article that will ultimately fall to deletionist hands. - Caribbean~H.Q. 23:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I suggest drafting it first in userspace, or perhaps on a subpage here, say /draft. That way its notability can be established properly before it goes up. Also, following Elite (Halo) it should prolly be called Brute (Halo). David Fuchs (talk) 23:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Peer review

I put List of official Halo series media‎ up for video-game-peer-review here, I'd like to make it a featured list so any help would be very welcome. Thanks, James086Talk | Email 13:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Halo 3#cyborg?

People here might be interested in this discussion about whether the Master Chief can actually be called a cyborg. — TKD::Talk 00:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Halo 2

As a heads up, I nominated Category:Halo 2 for deletion here. — TKD::Talk 01:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it was kinda pointless. David Fuchs (talk) 02:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, as I noted in the nomination, the category used to be larger. Remember when New Mombasa was a separate stub article? I think that we can take solace in that the category is now nearly empty because a lot of the overly detailed in-universe stuff has been dealt with.

Fear not, for we have made it so.

:) — TKD::Talk 03:45, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
If you're going to quote the games, we'll have to throw you to Halopedia... :P David Fuchs (talk) 15:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Can I quote from Red vs. Blue, then? :) — TKD::Talk 15:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Category:Stub-Class Halo articles

My goal is to try and clean up all the articles in this category to 'start' class at least; I think I might begin with Marty and then work on the soundtracks. If anyone else wants to help, jump in! David Fuchs (talk) 02:08, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Halo 2 OST Merger

See this; the proposal is to merge Vol 1 and 2 into Halo 2 Original Soundtrack, or something similar. David Fuchs (talk) 00:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Featured topics

We actually have two valid featured topics which are only one article short each of working:

Main page Articles
Halo (series) Halo: Combat Evolved - Halo 2 - Halo 3

and

Main page Articles
List of Halo characters Master Chief (Halo) - Cortana - Arbiter (Halo) - Elite (Halo)

Halo (series) and List of Halo characters are the articles we need to improve. Thoughts? David Fuchs (talk) 22:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

It's true! If we could just get someone to review the Halo series article, we'd be there with one of them, and as far as I know the other characters article still needs a bunch of work right? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and we need to merge in the remaining characters that aren't GA to the main list so comprehensiveness wont be a problem. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:41, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge these, get the List article to FL, and we'll have two featured topics. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I've been wanting to merge the Hiearchs back for a while- there will be a mess of redirects, unfortunately, but that's the way of the world... I think Gravemind might be able to stand on its own, but probably individual merge requests should be down for the other one. As for the Forerunner, a merge into Halo (megastructure) might make more sense, or vice versa. David Fuchs (talk) 18:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
How about Sergeant Johnson and Guilty Spark? They could probably be merged couldn't they? Also, I think we should merge Halo structure to the Forerunner article, then merge Forerunner into the main characters article, as both are not that strong. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
But the characters and factions are two different subjects. There's a ton of content about the development of the Forerunner, etc- just because they're weak doesn't mean we should give up on them. I'll work on Johnson next, I guess, but I think almost all the characters in the main list should be streamlined- get them to about a paragraph or two in universe, and then whatever out of universe content we can dredge up. David Fuchs (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I was bold and merged Spark and Johnson in, as much as it pains me. But I want to put my foot down about Gravemind. Since he's essentially the antagonist for the last two games, I'm willing to work at making him better. Plus, I have a good chunk of development information I can use from The Art of Halo, so all we'd need are some reliable sources and a reception section. Could be worse (I'll have to scoure HBO). David Fuchs (talk) 22:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Gravemind as the main antagonist in the series is bound to have sufficient material, Forerunner can even absorb some information dealing with the development of their architecture, but Spark had as much out of universe info as I could find online. - Caribbean~H.Q. 22:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Eh, well I threw in his reception to the characters list, at least its good out of universe info... I'll get on adding the Gravemind development stuff, and we'll see how it looks after that. David Fuchs (talk) 22:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
With gravemind there might be some useful info at Halopedia (although that can't be used as a source it might prove a good starting point) Gravemind. Also Halopedia says that the brain form (that absorbs Keyes) is related to a Gravemind citing the Art of Halo. Could someone with the book take a look as it might be worth mentioning. I found a link comparing Gravemind to "Audrey II" from Little Shop of Horrors (film), and it is remarkably similar in appearance [1]. It's quite hard to find out of universe info though. James086Talk | Email 07:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I added in the Audrey part (actually, the comparison was evidently drawn by lots of people) and added reception; somebody also added in some development info from Halo 3. Unfortunately, I've exhausted Art of Halo, and I don't have Halo 3, so if there's any more it can give us, i can't add it. I'm going to source the appearances, work on attributes, and try to expand the lead and reception this weekend. David Fuchs (talk) 01:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

While we are on the subject

  1. Halo (megastructure)
  2. United Nations Space Command
  3. SPARTAN Project

These articles seem weak and ripe for merger as well, and I wanted to ask if anyone thought these could be significantly bulked up or should they be used to bolster the series article and the Forerunner article in the case of the Halo article. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

UNSC will prolly be hard to find good details on, but it would definitely leave a gap in coverage; the SPARTAN Project, I dunno, I haven't gone digging for sources. As for Halo, I think it might make sense to merge Forerunner into the megastructure article, as there will be more info on the ring itself than the shadowy people who made them (we can mention them there). David Fuchs (talk) 12:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Where would UNSC be merged? now we don't have a Halo universe article, wich leaves us with no place to put it. - Caribbean~H.Q. 20:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
That's true- the problem was we really didn't have a set scope for the universe article, so it was lacking any comprehensiveness or unity. I guess once we finish with the games and characters, getting those up to GA, FA, and making featured topics out of them, we should focus on the factions and try for some reorganization. Either way, I'd rather work with what we have and not jump into some deck chair reorganizing right now. David Fuchs (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

While we are off the subject

Ok, this is very off-topic, but I think it's interesting. As of January 4, Halo 3 is the 18th most visited Wikipedia page,[2] with an average of 2 million views per day or about 25 views per second. That's more hits per day than sex, but less than Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Hmm. James086Talk | Email 12:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Twenty-five per second? ouch we will not be able to unprotect this one in a while, how is the vandalism level in Guitar Hero? who knew that people actually looked up "Wiki" more than most polpular topics. - Caribbean~H.Q. 20:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
As they say in spanish, jesus christo. With that many looks its amazing those pages aren't continually being vandalized. David Fuchs (talk) 21:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Well Guitar Hero was protected until today (and it's had vandalism/spam since unprotection). Actually, a lot of the pages listed in the top 25 are either un-editable (watchlist, contributions, search etc) or protected. It's a good thing Halo 3 is a quality article, it improves the public image of Wikipedia by having a good article among the most viewed. James086Talk | Email 06:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. By the way, an editor dropped some considerations for WP:VG A-Class assessment at Talk:Halo 3. I say we source those statements, run a copy check, and resubmit it for FAC. David Fuchs (talk) 17:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Images

I searched the archives of this talk page and didn't find anything so... Has anyone asked Bungie for free images? I know it seems farfetched that a video game publisher would freely license images of their games, but Ubisoft has. See Image:TCR6Vegas1.jpg and commons:User:Avatar/Ubisoft. In that case Ubisoft allows any user-created screenshots to be used if they are credited (very similar to CC-BY). I was thinking of asking Bungie for something similar. It is unlikely that it will be successful, but there's no harm in trying. The reason I'm asking here is that if Bungie has turned down requests in the past, they probably won't take kindly to more. So have there been any approaches to Bungie? James086Talk | Email 14:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting question. Now that Bungie is its own company again, I'm sure they'd be more amicable to such, but I don't think it would apply retroactively... as far as I know, no one has, so I don't think we lose by asking... David Fuchs (talk) 22:01, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking of sending something like Wikipedia:ERP#Formal request for high-quality publicity image, but modifying to ask for permission for all screenshots. Also we know (see above) that the Halo articles are amoung the most viewed. Ideas sugggestions? James086Talk | Email 09:45, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. If you can handle it, be my guest; the whole OTRS thing kinda' boggles my small mind :) David Fuchs (talk) 22:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I've got permission for single images before but never something as large scale as a category of images, but at least I know the process now. This is the draft of the email I'll send. Are there any omissions or errors? Note that I said I'm an admin so it sounds more official even though anyone is entitled to ask. James086Talk | Email 08:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Bungie,

I am one of the administrators of the English Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org), the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is among the most visited sites on the Internet, consistently ranking in the top ten according to the estimates of Alexa Internet (alexa.com), and our articles related to Halo, receive thousands of hits per day. The Halo 3 article alone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3) receives approximately half a million hits per day. Unfortunately, our articles currently make use of images that might be considered unflattering due to their comparatively low quality.

I am aware that there are many publicity screenshots and fileshare uploads of the Halo games available, but since Wikipedia aims to be reproduceable even for profit and even in nations where generous United States "fair use" provisions in copyright law are inapplicable, we try not to use images that are not released under a so-called "free license". Essentially, the copyright holder of any image that we use must irrevocably permit anyone else to use it, modify it, or sell it, with the only permissible requirements being that the author be named and that any modifications be released under an identical license. As video games are copyrighted materials, the copyright of all screenshots (even user created) is held by Bungie.

Currently the Halo articles use screenshots under fair use which is better than nothing, but when Wikipedia is released on disc or if someone wishes to re-use the content of the articles those images can't be reproduced. Also fair use images must be of low resolution and limited quantity, which also means that the image's use for providing critical commentary is reduced as well.

Example licenses that would permit us to use a better-quality image would be: the GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/legalcode), or a simple "no rights reserved". You may of course specify the type of image that you release under the license of your choice. For example you might choose to release only screenshots created by users in the theatre then uploaded to file share.

You are under no obligation to release any material under such licenses, but I thought that for public-relations purposes, you might want to consider it given Wikipedia's great popularity. Please reply even if the answer is no, so that we know that the message was received and not overlooked in your inbox or spam filter.

Very nice. I made some minor changes, but the core is very good. And I agree, invoking one's admin status has gotten me places before ;) David Fuchs (talk) 12:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok I sent the email. Hopefully I'll hear back. James086Talk | Email 13:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Hopefully. What email did you send it to? David Fuchs (talk) 21:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I sent it to webmaster<at>bungie<dot>com per [3] because the only other email offered was to report bugs with the site. Is there one which is more likely to be successful? James086Talk | Email 23:26, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
That's the only one I've seen, so I don't think we can do any better. Here's to waiting... David Fuchs (talk) 01:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Just to put in my two cents, I've PMed some people (Frankie, Shiska) on Bungie's official forums before, and usually got a reply. If the Webmaster doesn't respond to your query, or refers you to somebody else, I'd say Frankie would be the way to go (he is Bungie's community manager). His profile can be found here:
http://www.bungie.net/Account/Profile.aspx?uid=6662 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bronzie (talk • contribs) 10:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll give it a week from when I sent it (sent 15th so 22nd), then I'll try Frankie if I've received no reply. James086Talk | Email 12:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm assuming no reply? David Fuchs (talk) 03:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Yep; no reply :( I'll send it to Frankie instead. James086Talk | Email 07:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Sent it. James086Talk | Email 10:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm assuming no reply? David Fuchs (talk) 22:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Is it a spider?

First off, Halo (series) is finally a GA, good job. And since I was itchin' to get something else done, I nominated a featured topic here: the series article, Halo, Halo 2, and Halo 3 as the 'Halo trilogy'. And now I'm going to bed, but I do want to figure out the OTRS thing so we can see if Bungie will let us use their images (see above topic). 'night, David Fuchs (talk) 03:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

More pages! Sigh!

I've been on another Halo article hunting spree, and found Mister Chief. I'd probably say PROD it, but then it could be merged into Bungie Studios or Master Chief (Halo). Thoughts? Still searching. Bronzey (talk) 10:19, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I just deleted it. Not really any salvageable material in it. David Fuchs (talk) 12:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm redirecting it to Master Chief as a possible search term. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 22:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Have you considered looking through the "what links here" lists from Halo 3, Halo 2, etc? That will most likely find a lot of Halo-related articles you never knew about. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 22:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Ooh, look, another: Halo's design. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 17:48, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Deleted as well (any info should go in Halo (megastructure) David Fuchs (talk) 19:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Superjump

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Superjump, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of Superjump. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 22:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hurray for the featured topic!

Now, all we need to get a character one is this:

  • 1) Get the main character list to Featured List status
  • 2) Get Gravemind to GA status
  • 3) Get Forerunner to GA status

Then we'll have a Halo characters Featured Topic! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't really think that the factions (Covenant, Forerunner) should go in a character topic... but yes, we do need gravemind and halo characters to be promoted. (List of Halo characters - Master Chief (Halo) - Cortana - Arbiter (Halo) and Gravemind) David Fuchs (talk) 23:24, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed; the factions aren't really characters, also if we were to include Forerunner then UNSC would need work (and lots of it). However I do think a character FT would be a good idea. I have been pressed for time recently but will help out on out-of-universe info when I can. James086Talk | Email 00:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Gravemind needs reception and development (does the Bestarum have more on the floody guy) but all List of Halo characters needs is a passthrough to see if any of the less notable characters (Half-Jaw, methinks) can have some out of universe info. David Fuchs (talk) 02:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
By the by, I also nominated Halo Graphic Novel for WP:FA. David Fuchs (talk) 23:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll have another look in the Bestiarum but it's all in-universe info so theres not much there that isn't already in the article. I'll also take a look at HGN when I get time. James086Talk | Email 02:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Task

I know they're a new project, but would you consider becoming a task force of the Xbox Project? Similar to the WP:TPSP's Insomniac Project.--Playstationdude (talk) 00:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Why? we have worked very well as a separate entity and our scope is covering more than the video games. - Caribbean~H.Q. 21:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. If anything, we'd fall under the jurisdiction of WP:VG sooner than only Xbox. David Fuchs (talk) 22:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed also, our projects are completly different. Playstationdude, I appreicate the help, but if anyone is going to set up a task force for the xbox project, it will be me. Thanks DJS--DJS24 (talk) 22:28, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Non-free content

Firstly congratulations on getting Halo Graphic Novel to featured, now 12.5% of Halo articles are featured something that few, if any, other Wikiprojects can boast. But the topic for discussion. At the moment there's a big kerfuffel over fair-use which reminded me of Marketing for Halo 3. It has 14 fair-use images which is hardly compliant with WP:NFCC. Also we have this category Category:Halo screenshots. I think it should be renamed to Category:Non-free Halo images or similar so that box art and other images that aren't screenshots can be included. I'll start work on Marketing for Halo 3 when I get some time over the next few days. Does anyone agree/disagree with the proposed change of category? James086Talk | Email 13:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I guess go for the category change, doesn't ruffle me feathers. Yikes, I hadn't looked at Marketing for Halo 3 in a while.... I guess we can condense all the one-sentence paragraphs. As for the images, maybe keep one per trailer, but we should probably just pick those which are most interesting to the text, i.e. the diorama and the live action. The multiple images for each trailer should go, at least, and those sections need to be pared down anyhow. I guess we should try and get that cleaned up, eh? David Fuchs (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I've pared down the nonfree images to five- perhaps still excessive, but right now I'm trying to reorganize everything. The content is a mess, and gives weight to insignificant details and predictions which turned out wrong. Plus, launch parties should be dropped to the bottom. Perhaps Halo ActionClix should be merged into this article, as its unlikely to be anything more than a stub? David Fuchs (talk) 22:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I suggested merging the ActionClix into H3's marketing some time ago, but arguments that the collectibles featured more than Halo 3 characters appeared, anyways we all agree that it needs to be merged somewhere right? - Caribbean~H.Q. 07:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Judgesurreal777 suggested merging it into Halo (series) above. I think that would be a pretty good place for it to go. I doubt that it can get much larger than it already is except for an expanded reception section (there seem to be a fair number of reviews). James086Talk | Email 09:45, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
If we were to add reception, however, I think it would fit better in the Marketing, seeing as it was specifically made for Halo 3- also the reception would mesh better with the planned section for the article. David Fuchs (talk) 01:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
There is already a section covering toys and games on the series article and we should try to conserve some space for future entries and products based on the series, the release of these figures is tied to H3's release so I still think that the marketing page is a better location. - Caribbean~H.Q. 01:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
That's a good point, I say go for it, we've talked many times before about merging this article, so do it! :) Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind, I just merged it, it's right here Marketing_for_Halo_3#Halo_ActionClix, fits perfectly well. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

←Ok, I got rid of all the double-redirects and redirected the talk page of Halo ActionClix to that of Marketing for Halo 3. There wasn't any content worth keeping on the old talk page anyway. A funny trend we have is that as time progresses, the number of articles within our scope decreases. James086Talk | Email 03:09, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that... but hey, I'm all for clearing out stubs, that's the major reason for much of the decrease. David Fuchs (talk) 12:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Interesting footnotes, approximately one year ago we had only 44 articles branded. By Nov 07 we had 69, and since then we've been drifting downwards. David Fuchs (talk) 22:48, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I have a proposal about two of them; Energy shield and Slipstream (science fiction). They are not strictly Halo topics, in fact very little of the article is about Halo. They would definitely be covered by a Science Fiction wikiproject as it is about very general science fiction concepts, but I was thinking we may not need to cover them in our scope. Thoughts? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I had removed voice actors which didn't really fall under our scope either, so those make sense. David Fuchs (talk) 22:36, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, they have been removed from the project, I just hadn't updated the article list. Fixed now! *facepalm* David Fuchs (talk) 22:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Renaming the characters list... again

As per these comments, I say rename List of Halo characters to Characters of Halo and put it up for FAC. David Fuchs (talk) 02:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Considering the discussion there I agree. However, I suggest we go for GA status before a FAC as it may provide some feedback on areas to improve before the FAC and would prevent people saying "Oppose - try getting it to GA first". I'm not going to oppose skipping straight to FAC though. James086Talk | Email 03:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, move it. Hopefully this will help clarify things in the future so these moves don't happen often. And then either launch FA or GA.Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
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