Wikipedia:WikiProject Animation/Machinima work group/Guidelines

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Having spent a good portion of my content contributions writing about machinima, this essay currently reflects my personal experiences with that subject area and in helping to promote Red vs Blue to featured article status. The guidelines here are in no way official, although they might be a precursor to a WikiProject Machinima. If you are so inclined, feel free to update this page with your own reflections and thoughts, or to suggest changes on the talk page.

Verifiability and notability

First and foremost is whether a series deserves a Wikipedia article. While in some cases machinima can be considered an extension of WP:WEB, strictly speaking, nothing mandates that machinima must be distributed over the Internet. Indeed, it is most common for it to be trafficked over that medium, but it is not a phenomenon strictly limited to the Internet. At Talk:List of machinima series, Drat has drafted what I feel is a reasonable set of guidelines for machinima notability.

Precedent has also been set by previous articles for deletion discussions, the majority of which have resulted in deletion. Keep in mind that writing vanity articles is strongly discouraged, and many of the articles referenced in the list of deletion discussions were, in fact, created by the machinima authors or people closely associated with the production. A reasonable article about any fiction, machinima or nor, needs to have more than just the fiction as a source. Otherwise, it can do little more than rehash what people can already ascertain by watching the videos.

Common arguments

Several common arguments arise during deletion dscussions:

But it's funny!
- That may be so, but Wikipedia has a strict policy of adhering to a neutral point of view. If a reliable third-party source says that the machinima is funny, then we can include that perspective. Keep in mind that web forums are not reliable sources of third-party information. As such, people can be raving about it on a particular forum, but we'd much prefer to see it reviewed by a reputable gaming magazine, film site, machinima organization, etc. Having won an award or selection from the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences or "Rockets on Prisoner" helps.
It's on machinima.com.
- A lot of productions are on machinima.com. An analogous situation might be the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). It has been judged that IMDB is a better indicator non-notability than of notability. That is to say, if a production is missing from IMDB, it is a strong argument against notability; but the inverse does not necessarily hold: Presence in IMDB is no guarantee of notability. The machinima production in question needs to be distinguished from the others.
Machinima production X is also on Wikipedia.
- If you feel that Xis non-notable, you're welcome to nominate it for deletion. But every article stands or fails on its own merits. That another possibly non-notable series exists on Wikipedia is an invalid reason to keep a different series.
The guidelines mention Red vs Blue. No other series is that notable!
- Again, every article is judged on its own merits. Articles on several other series do exist on Wikipedia.
Give it a chance; it's a new series.
- Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. If your production has only one or two episodes, and is your first series, then it can't possibly have established notability. Wikipedia is not for establishing notability; it is for gathering encyclopedic knowledge about what is already reported in reliable sources. See also the section below.

New and future series by notable groups

While precedent has been clearly set in the case of new and unreleased series by relatively unknown production groups, there has yet to be an deletion test case for series that have been released by established machinima authors, such as Rooster Teeth Productions or Edgeworks Entertainment. Therefore, the following guidelines are possibly reasonable starting points:

Prequels and sequels. If a new series is an extension of an existing storyline — that is, a prequel or sequel — then it may deserve its own article, depending on the size and scope of the article on the existing storyline and on how much information is available on the new series. If it makes sense, then the first choice should be to incorporate into the existing article. Otherwise, a new article is reasonable. In any event, the section or article on an unreleased machinima series should be tagged with {{future film}}. The only machinima production currently in this class is The Heretic.
New storyline. If the series is based on a completely new storyline, then the first choice should be to incorporate it into an article on the production group, until enough verifiable information is available to warrant a separate article.

Article structure

TODO

Other style guidelines