Forum:Videogame manuals

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I've noticed there doesn't seem to be a consensus with this. Really, I find it's a little mess: We have the info of some manuals in single articles, and we have the info of others separated in different articles. Sometimes, we even have the info in the complete manual page and in a separate article.

I don't know if I should create a project page for this or something, but I believe we should have all the manuals at the wiki, for everyone's use and easy sourcing. Of course, we don't need to include the technical sections of the game, just the lore.

I've already managed to get scans of most of the original manuals in english. I don't think there should be too much differences between UK and US. I could start working on this properly soon.

Opinions?--Lon-ami (talk) 18:31, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Can you give examples? There is some aspect of copyright laws with posting the entire contents of the manuals that might need checked. --Pcj (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 18:48, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

I suspect it deals with Talk:Warcraft_II_manual#Beyond_the_Dark_Portal. The Warcraft: Orcs & Humans manual is split up into things like Azeroth Army of the First War, Creatures of the Land, and Orcish Horde of the First War. I feel this external link may be all that is needed in some cases.--SWM2448 18:57, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it started with that, but then I started to check all the other manuals and they all are a complete mess.

About the copyright issues, we would be acting under Fair use, nope?

Some examples for them being a mess:

• W1 manual lore is separated into some different articles: Chronicles of the War in Azeroth, The Destiny of the Orcish Hordes, Azeroth Army of the First War, Orcish Horde of the First War and Neutral Forces of The First War.
• Warcraft II manual includes the entire lore of the ToD manual. Some pieces of it can be found around, too. No need to say it, but having the same info at 2 different places is pretty useless and redundant.
• The lore of BtDP manual is separaed into 3 different articles: Aftermath of the Second War (manual text), Clans of Draenor and Legends of the Land.

And still haven't checked completely W3, but I can say the story of the 4 playable races is separated into 4 different articles.--Lon-ami (talk) 19:03, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

There's an index of sorts here: Manual.

Also, something like this could be the answer, too: User_talk:Sandwichman2448/RTS_units_project#Pages_for_each_of_the_races.--Lon-ami (talk) 19:07, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Fair use implies a legitimate reason to need to have the entire pages of the manual copied onto the wiki instead of quoted or referenced as part of a larger original work. I don't see much point in copying the manuals wholesale. --Pcj (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:10, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

I also do not see why we need the entire source material transcribed verbatim.--SWM2448 19:14, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

I think they can be useful for sourcing purposes, so they are accessible to anyone without having to leave for other pages or having to download the manuals from the net when they don't have them.

Also, most of that info can be already found around. For example, each orc clan already has his lore piece from the W2 manuals completely copied in his article. The purpose of this would be to have it all in a single page.

The info is already at the wiki; it's just separated into many pieces. What I mean is if we should gather it all or leave it separated. Just to leave all the info from the manuals with the same pattern.--Lon-ami (talk) 19:18, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Fair use can be justified as smaller portions of a larger article, broke into pieces of quotes throughout many articles, it cannot be justified as all the text in one article. --Pcj (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:25, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Why not? everything belongs to the same source, why have it separated into many different articles instead of having all the content from the same source in the same article?--Lon-ami (talk) 19:36, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Because it violates copyright law. Fair use is a cop-out which lets us have an excuse to use it in some cases. --Pcj (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:43, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

Then it should remain separated or what? W2 manual is the only one having everything in the same article, and it wouldn't be hard to separate it.--Lon-ami (talk) 20:06, January 30, 2010 (UTC)