Talk:42 Entertainment

Interview with 42 Entertainment execs Susan Bonds and Alex Lieu

http://www.straight.com/article-145642/digital-stars-converge-city-vidfest - some discussion regarding year zero arg and upcoming projects. AtaruMoroboshi (talk) 13:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Corporate Shill Regularly Editing This Article

It seems fairly clear to me that Judefrancis is determined to harmonize this article with 42 Entertainment's current website. Unfortunately, this is an encyclopedia that collects verifiable facts (some of which are historical), and its goals are not the same as a corporate website designed for (current) marketing purposes. I suggest that Judefrancis is anything but impartial here, and should recuse his or her self from editing this article in the future, avoiding any further revisions to verifiable facts just because they don't help sell product today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Br0930 (talk • contribs) 13:12, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• I agree. The changes made by Judefrancis (most specifically today) are more in tune with what a press agent or publicist would publish. In fact, I consider those kinds of changes to be vandalism. Argguy (talk) 20:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Judefrancis

After a lengthy conversation I had with the folks in the #wikipedia-en-help IRC chat room, I have been encouraged to attempt to engage Judefrancis in a dialogue regarding the information contained within this article. It's apparent that Judefrancis does not want certain historical information to be published on this page, and I am curious as to why that might be. In an attempt to compile the most complete and unbiased article for this company, I spent a good deal of time this week gathering facts and references, most of which Judefrancis feels should be left out of the article. I believe that Judefrancis continues to have a conflict of interest (WP:COI) in regards to this company's Wikipedia article, and I urge him/her to comment on why they have made the edits to this page that they have. Argguy (talk) 14:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• As there has been no contact from Judefrancis for three days to discuss thir reasons regarding their edits, I feel it's acceptable to roll back their changes to include the pertinent historical information from previous edits. Argguy (talk) 14:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion of names of former employees

Pursuant to the previous section on Judefrancis, I would like to open discussion on the inclusion of the names of former employees of this company. Those names are part of the public record and I can cite numerous references which support their historical relevance to this cpompany. Because this is an encyclopedic article and not a profile of the current state of affairs at the company, I believe that the historical content (including the names of former employees) is more than relevant to this article. I cite the Wikipedia entry for Bungie as an example of how historical information has been used in an article about a particular company. I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this. Argguy (talk) 14:20, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest Notice

Please note that due to recent edits by a person at IP 71.249.244.191, the basis of which removed verifiable historical content, I have sent a notice about a possible Conflict of Interest (COI) to the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard Argguy (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Unilaterally removing relevant well-verified information from an article is considered vandalism and someone doing it should be warned and reported. See:WP:VANDAL. Drawn Some (talk) 03:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest by Former Employees

It appears that several employees who have left 42 Entertainment have attempted to hi-jack this page for personal gain. Referencing recent articles and talks researched in the past 12 months, such as Maxim, Wired, MIT Sloan appearance, Lynx Dubai, GameBeat, LA Times, NIN.com and USA Today, it is clear that 42 Entertainment is an established company with many employees who pull off amazing things. Reference Maxim's article, which has an interview with Jordan Weisman himself about the current leadership of 42. Having the article focus on old founding history (since when has that been relevant 6 years later?) and employees who have left to do other things seems self serving and promotional for ones who have left. ARGguy specifically seems to have an agenda that is very selective of information that is included on 42's page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ARGgirl (talk • contribs) 14:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No, it appears as though a PR company is trying to change the page to make it seem as though the company is older than it sources suggest. I've therefore reverted your changes. You are welcome to contribute to the discussion with regards to the COI here: Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Whitewashing_on_42_Entertainment. Smartse (talk) 15:28, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

There are a few things that are a bit askew with ARGgirl's logic in the preceding comment: 1) The notion that the only people who have an interest in maintaining an article such that it continues to contain verified encyclopedic content are former employees is fallacious. 2) History is in fact relevant in an encyclopedia. This is Wikipedia, not a company-controlled marketing asset, and removing the history of 42e from the article because it doesn't help to highlight the company's current capabilities is entirely inappropriate. 3) The idea that including the aforementioned verified encyclopedic represents a focus on that content is pretty subjective, whereas removing from the article entirely is objectively against the goals of Wikipedia, and arguably vandalism as mentioned above. 4) I have not seen any evidence of ARGguy removing content from the article. The suggestion that by restoring verified encyclopedic content, ARGguy is limiting what is included in the article is just plain wrong (i.e. there is a big difference between including and excluding material). Finally, here is a partial response to the (misplaced) accusation, since I am one of those editors who finds the removal of the history of this company to be inappropriate: I have never been employed by 42 Entertainment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Br0930 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not, not have I ever been, an employee of 42 Entertainment. I do have a vested interest in alternate reality gaming and find it inappropriate that this article has been vandalized so often by editors (for whatever purpose) who think it unnecessary to include the names of those that started the company, for one. I did an extensive rewrite of the article last month in an attempt to bring it up to date, and those edits were summarily discounted and re-edited by Judefrancis. The only information I have removed from the article were PR-speak, clearly a COI concern. The article is not of encyclopedic value unless it contains all relevant facts, and there's no cause for removal of this content as I have done my best to find references for all facts contained within. Argguy (talk) 04:19, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the comments above - as ARGgirl has so far not produced any evidence to suggest COI on Argguy's part I've reverted the removal of history from the article again. Please discuss these changes if you wish to make them instead of removing referenced material. The fact that the information is from an old web page is not a reason to remove it - as Br0930 has pointed out this is an encyclopedia and history is an important part of this. If sources are required please add by using the template {{fact}} at the end of a claim. Thanks Smartse (talk) 12:18, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It would be nice to have some better sources than just archived web sites. A quick search turned up some possibles, including [1] and [2]. As secondary sources these would be preferable to corporate web sites. Someone who cares could go through and re-write the history from this. Until that is done I don't think it would be appropriate to remove any part of the history section that is there now. Rees11 (talk) 16:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It appears that people are focusing on early history of a private company without any direct knowledge. Only someone with access to legal documents can know who was an original founder or in management at 42. Unless this is presented, this history section should focus on work and published, verifiable facts. ARGgirl (talk) 14:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

It also appears that you're deleting massive amounts of verifiable sourced information, and your basc argument boils down to "I don't like it" - sorry, that's not good enough - your deletions have been reverted. TheRealFennShysa (talk) 14:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Awards

I think that this section should be simplified, for example, by stating how many awards each game has won rather than the exact award recieved. Any objections? Smartse (talk) 11:12, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Not from me, Smartse, I trust your judgement. An IP removed the COI tag from the article last night saying the sockpuppet investigation was finished, I put it back on and said to let regular editors of the article remove it when appropriate, I leave it in the hands of the editors. Drawn Some (talk) 11:16, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I was the one who removed the COI tag, and simply forgot to log in. I assumed that since the sockpuppet investigation had resulted in the ban of the offending editors, that the COI concern was over, but I'm still new at this Wikipedia editing thing. I'd be interested in seeing that Smartse means by a simplified awards section, for sure. Argguy (talk) 04:55, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well I apologize then, it looked like another sock, certainly if I had known it was you I wouldn't have put it back. Just keeping an eye on things. Drawn Some (talk) 05:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries. So, would it be alright if I remove the COI tag now? Argguy (talk) 02:40, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of simplifying or removing "Award" sections. I find them annoying. With a few exceptions (Academy Awards, for example) they are uninteresting. Rees11 (talk) 10:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well after you guys streamline them here maybe you could take a look here: Steve Peters (game designer). I had already retitled the section--look at the history and you see it had a tiny footnote saying he didn't actually win the awards listed, the company did. Drawn Some (talk)

Thanks. I removed the Awards section from Steve Peters (game designer). Removing corporate fluff and self promotion from Wikipedia is a bigger job than I can handle by myself but I do try to cut it back when I can. Rees11 (talk) 13:58, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Well that didn't work. I removed the Awards section with "see discussion" in the commit log, and added a section to the talk page saying why I did that. But within a minute someone reverted my edit with no message in either the commit log or on the talk page. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong but how do you enter into a discussion with someone who refuses to talk? Rees11 (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I reverted that edit back to remove the awards etc. - looks like someone mistook it for vandalism. Smartse (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I've simplified the awards as we've discussed I should. I've found more problems though in that quite a few links don't lead to pages listing the awards. More significantly than that the awards really don't seem notable - there are literally hundreds of other companies awarded the same awards as them. I think it is still too much like WP:DIRECTORY and it may be best to remove them all except perhaps for the Game Developers Choice Innovation Award which at least doesn't seem to have been awarded to just about every company in the world! What do you think? Smartse (talk) 19:45, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I don't have the patience to track every reference but if you did that's good enough for me. I would also support just removing the whole section. My own standard for Awards is that there should be a reference from some publication other than the organization that bestowed the award. If there isn't, it's not notable. Rees11 (talk) 22:10, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I think it's best to get rid of them all then considering this. I'll remove the COI tag too as I think this is the only thing that may be slightly COI. Smartse (talk) 19:48, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

COI tag removed Argguy (talk) 15:34, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigation

Please note the following investigation that involved editing of this article: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Judefrancis/Archive Smartse (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Latest Edit

I'm a new user with an interest in and an extensive knowledge of marketing, entertainment, and media in general, including but by no means limited to ARGs. I've just made a relatively small edit—my first on Wikipedia—expanding the Year Zero portion of this article. I'm aware that this article has a contentious history, and I'd like to state straight away that I am neither an employee nor an owner of 42 Entertainment nor of any company affiliated with it. I was disturbed to find this article listed in the Talk section as a stub, and with the community's support I would like to continue to expand it in ways that hopefully will not run afoul of any of the issues addressed below. (In particular, I will not be deleting any names.) As an outside observer, I consider 42 Entertainment an innovative company whose impact on entertainment and marketing far exceeds its size, and I would like to see this article reflect that. I also plan to make contributions to several other, non-ARG-related topics. Stuyvesant Street (talk) 22:25, 27 December 2010 (UTC)