Talk:Project Darkstar

Wikipedia is not a collection of external links

As per Wikipedia is not a collection of external links, it is important that any relevant external links be kept down to a small size in proportion to the rest of the article. In this case, the links help to establish that Project DarkStar meets the notability requirements of Wikipedia, and is not some random piece of software.

I've re-organized and re-instated the links. I've also reduced the promotional tone of the article to what is (hopefully) an acceptable level. If someone wants to undo this, I'd suggest talking about this on the discussion page before we get an edit war on our hands. - JustinWick (talk) 21:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The links are not relevant for the understanding of the topic. They provide no addiitonal information and are really just a linkfarm. They should be removed. -- Whpq (talk) 23:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd hardly call a few links a "link farm" - indeed I've seen much longer lists of "projects that use X software" here on Wikipedia. But, perhaps a good compromise would be like that found on Dagor Engine 3, where there is a single external link to a "list of projects that use X". - JustinWick (talk) 06:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

An external link to a list wold be okay. That other articles have a link farm is not an excuse to perpetuate it. -- Whpq (talk) 14:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll see if I can get an appropriate one. I should, however, point out that a great deal of Wikipedia policy is based on "de facto" rules, rather than "de jure". Indeed, I am not aware that of any official Wikipedia policy that would unambiguously mark this list of projects as a "link farm". However, I do believe that the entire anti-link-farm policy is a very good one, and there may be room somewhere for a more unambiguous definition. What do you think? - JustinWick (talk) 00:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I would say that in this case, it is quite clear. See point 14 of WP:ELNO. Those links were to customers which is explicitly called out as something to not add. -- Whpq (talk) 01:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

An excellent reference point - and I do agree that customers should be avoided in linkage. One problem is, however, that with an open source project like this, some customers are often heavy (and perhaps even primary) contributors/developers as well. For instance, CampFu (run by Rebel Monkey Software) uses Project Darkstar heavily (over 100000 people on the site, that's pretty good for an open source gaming product), but is also an important contributor by virtue of its CTO being the aforementioned Jeffrey Kesselman. In any case, I've added the link, and hopefully it will not be considered contraversial. Thanks for helping clean this up! - JustinWick (talk) 22:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Quality issues?

If this article is to be improved, I think we need to agree on what it is, exactly, that needs the improvement.

Obviously there could be more references, but what else? Do we really need more wikification? Also, what style problems currently exist?

I'd say if we don't hear solid arguments on this within 30 days, we should get rid of the notice - it makes the article uglier than necessary without being specific enough to be useful. Of course, that's just my opinion. - JustinWick (talk) 22:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes it does need to be wikified. It could be combed over for more appropriate wikilinks and changes for adherece to the manual of style. And it's quite clear that the article sorely lacks references. Furthermore, the article is written like product documentation. -- Whpq (talk) 14:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Attempts to Wikify

While wikifying this article I have made the following changes

• Removed HTML references and added regular references

• Added some content
• Infobox is already present so nothing done here

I do note the earlier argument but this is a technical description of a gaming platform and I don't know the language and presentation can be improved. One way is to remove some content and simplify the core technical details but that would make the article incomplete. Even if I were to convert the whole article to layman's language (which it almost is) the topic would still be incomprehensible outside the community of Software Developers and Server Administrators. Shrug! --Wikishagnik (talk) 22:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)