Talk:Soma Games

RE:Peacock, COI, Tone

Hi @Red Phoenix:! I really appreciate you taking the time to read through the Soma Games article and critique it! I tried to make the article as un-biased as I possibly could and I hope that my edit summaries communicated that well :) ), but obviously I'm only human so it's likely some things snuck in there without me being able to catch them because I've read my own article so many times 🤪. I tried to communicate facts unfiltered and events as they happened (i.e. including the good with the bad) especially when discussing topics that could easily be in danger of promotion (such as sentences about game releases. That's why I wrote them in a manner like this: "The app received very positive reviews upon launch, with reviewers praising its visuals, storyline, art, and voice-acting but also criticizing some technical bugs present in the initial build and the game's tendency to become boring quickly.")

I noticed you were able to identify some points of peacock words and informal tone. That's great, I'm very glad you were here to catch those! I was hoping you could point me to specific sentences/locations in the article where you noticed those so that I can fix them?

Thanks for helping out with this! It's great to have a community where we can collaborate on improving this encyclopedia together! --Emitewiki2 (talk) 06:36, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@Emitewiki2: I can appreciate the effort here, but I need to make sure, first and foremost, that you are complying with WP:PAID. I appreciate that you did the right thing, and you disclosed your relationship with Soma Games. That being said, we missed two big steps here. First, we did not go through the articles for creation process. It's a little too late for that now, but it's in better shape than most paid-created material, so I wouldn't call that a big deal.

The second, though, is that as an editor with a conflict of interest, and especially even more so as a paid editor, you should not be editing the article outright. Even if you're working as neutrally as you can, and I can see you are making a real effort at that, it still creates the impression that you're not. Paid editing has been a sticking point on Wikipedia for quite some time. That being said, if it's anything other than typos or minor formatting, what you can do (and the way by policy to do this best) is make suggestions on this talk page for additional content or changes to content, and an experienced editor such as myself can look at it and implement appropriately. You can also always ask at the Video games WikiProject for additional feedback or if you need someone to review and implement your content.

Now, specifically on the content, here's a few examples of tone and peacock words:

• The game received generally positive from all sources. How could anyone say that's "all sources"? Even if it's all sources that could be found, that's not really "all sources" as there could be reviews elsewhere. You can also better support "generally positive" by pulling up the game on Metacritic and using what they call it.
• Christopher Skaggs was living in Newberg, Oregon in 2005 working in the web development industry. At some point during this work, he read an article informing him about the Christian Game Developers Conference, and decided on a whim to attend because it was close to where he lived. This reads like an anecdote, not an encyclopedia article. An encyclopedic tone doesn't really use storytelling - just describe what happened. Starting an article with "was living" is almost like trying to set up a setting in storytelling. "Decided on a whim" is also an unencyclopedic phrase - it's anecdotal, not factual. WP:EPSTYLE might help you with this.
  • It's worth noting as well that a warning sign for this tends to be where you use first-party sources such as Soma Games' website and Facebook posts. Facebook posts are extremely bad sources, and WP:PRIMARY means that no first party sources can be used as interpretation. Lean more on third-party sources; as it stands, there are far too many primary sources to build a proper article. We establish notability through third-party coverage.
• this was a milestone, as Jacques had been notoriously guarded about sharing the license with anyone reads like absolute puffery. "Milestone" is a peacock term in this case, and that statement would have to be well-sourced to a third-party reference to be allowed to stand.
• Through a series of chance conversations with a great number of speakers at the conference What is a "great number"? That's a peacock term, and really so is "chance conversations" - it's the sort of statement that implies something is greater than it is. Maybe it's great for Soma Games, but it's not that sort of significant in the context of a whole encyclopedia.

I will stress that these are just a few examples and don't represent the entirety of the article, which I won't go through sentence by sentence at this time due to time constraints. I actually think you have something good and workable going here, and I applaud you for that. Let's just proceed in the right way going forward, and I would recommend reaching out to the Video games WikiProject for further support if needed. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Red Phoenix: Gotcha, thank you for your response, I really appreciate it. So going forward, should I not touch the article at all? (Except for, like you said, in cases of small grammar fixes and whatnot.) If so, does this include not going back on my own and fixing instances of peacock words and sentences with informal tone? Should I just wait until someone else (from Wikiproject Video games or otherwise) makes those fixes?

Even though I am not being paid by the company anymore to edit this article (I was only paid to initally create it; subsquent edits have just been because I like editing), I will still make sure any future changes go through the proper channels and have my content reviewed before posting anything. Thank you for pointing that out to me.

On an unrelated, personal, note I have a question to ask you as a video game editor with lots of experience. I enjoy writing articles such as this, and would love to do more in the future for other game developers (not for pay, just for fun and to chronicle the information somewhere). However, for many small indie companies like this, they have not been around long enough or have not become big enough for people to write books about them or for many people to publish online articles talking about their history. This can make it difficult to sometimes source certain bits of information. I recognized the issue with using primary sources and tried to lean as heavily as possible on external sources, only using primary sources (like a dev update video or Facebook post) as an absolute last resort (41/63 of the unique references on the page are from non-primary sources). But what should be done when writing about basic facts we are sure happened but are hard to source independently (like for example when a dev update, written or recorded, announces that a game is being put on hold)? How do we write a good article with a complete history while still sticking to our commitment of using verifiable, independent sources? It seems tricky.

Thanks for the help and the understanding! I really appreciate you not lashing out or being a condescending jerk about any of this. It can sometimes be difficult to get help and get into editing here when you're anything less than a decades-long expert in the Wikipedia ecosystem. --Emitewiki2 (talk) 20:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi Emitewiki2; if I were you, I wouldn't touch it at all except for minor typos and things of that nature, because even if they are no longer paying you, you have still disclosed a paid relationship and a conflict of interest in that they have paid you. And even if that relationship no longer exists, it's not really possible for anyone else to know that for sure. You seem to have the right idea, though, that you most certainly can continue work on the subject; you only need to use the talk page and follow the protocols at WP:COI and WP:PAID. On the note of the peacock terms, I wouldn't mind letting you go and fix those I pointed out; I'll keep this page watchlisted at least as long as to review those edits since we already discussed that issue, and I can just check those if you fix them and OK them if they're good, and revert if they're not.

For other indie studios, WP:PRIMARY allows some level of what you can do with a primary source. There is a certain amount of rope you can get with them, and even I have used them in the past for basic facts or things companies "claim". Make sure you read the policy on using primary sources carefully and ensure your editing is in compliance with that, and that you have plenty of non-primary, notability-conferring reliable sources to go along with that. A great list that can help you find reliable sources is at WP:VG/S; it is a page of references that WikiProject Video games has already vetted and determined what is reliable, what could be reliable in some circumstances, and what isn't reliable at all. Bear in mind that "dev update videos" or Facebook posts are usually poor sources no matter what; articles or blog posts to a company blog are usually a little better, and can also avoid link rot because they can be archived (see H:AAS; it will help to ensure your sources stay good longer).

Lastly, because you are new and you're considering writing about indie studios, which are sometimes of questionable notability, I would consider using the Draft namespace and submit your new articles through the articles for creation process. Helpful and experienced editors will then have a look when you're ready to submit your draft and determine if it's appropriate to publish in the main namespace. Ideally this is how this article should have been submitted, but even if you're not being paid, it's a great way to make sure your articles are up to some basic standards before they are published. Usually if an article is rejected, they'll give you a reason why and the chance to go back and fix what's wrong and try again. Red Phoenix ^talk 21:18, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the help Red Phoenix! I read WP:PRIMARY before creating this article, but I may have allowed myself a little too much leeway when using some of the later primary sources. All of my sources on the page should have already been archived (I archived each of them myself before adding them) so hopefully that is not an issue except for in the case of the two videos. I suppose I should clarify that I'm not super "new" to editing in general on Wikipedia, I just don't have thousands and thousands of edits like some more veteran users do (I spend the bulk of my time editing on other Mediawiki-based sites). I'll keep all these things in mind when making future edits! Thanks for the assistance! --Emitewiki2 (talk) 19:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi Red Phoenix. The one thing that I realized that this article could use most while waiting for anyone else to look at it is a picture of the logo. So I uploaded a logo for the company if you would be able to add it to the article. I'd really appreciate it! I made the small grammatical corrections that you suggested to give the article a more neutral & encyclopedic tone, but I haven't touched anything else on the article or suggested any edits to it until someone else comes in and looks it over at least once.

Let me know if there is anything else I need to do! Thanks! --Emitewiki2 (talk) 00:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Picture looked fine, tagged correctly, so I have put it up. Red Phoenix ^talk 00:59, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing

@Emitewiki2: Have you had a chance to look through sites listed at WP:VG/S for reliable, third party sources? So far, the biggest thing I’m seeing is still the heavy lean on primary sources, which although the use of such is acceptable for non-controversial coverage, third party sources that are reliable will help establish notability. (A quick tip: WP:VG/SE is a great tool to help here). Red Phoenix ^talk 15:49, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

Sources, tone, and content update

Hey @Red Phoenix: sorry for accidentally going dark for a number of months. Life got really busy with work, a new marriage and some other things, and I wasn't able to get around to editing this Wikipedia page like I wanted to last year.

Anyway, I have finally spent the time now and added all of the remaining notable content I could find about this company. I also stripped out a bunch of first-party sources (and either replaced them with third-party sources, or just removed the information outright if it wasn't truly worth mentioning in the article for not being covered elsewhere.) and tried to improve a bunch of the language across the entire article to have a more neutral, encyclopedic tone. I've posted all of the changes in an easy-to-view comparison with the current article here. Let me know what you think of it, and I welcome any changes you want to make directly to the sandbox page to improve the edits further or correct any mistakes.

Thanks for working through this and continuing to watch it. Emitewiki2 (talk) 02:21, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Red Phoenix! Just checking in to see if you've had a chance to review the changes on the sandbox page!

Hope things are well! Thanks! Emitewiki2 (talk) 00:41, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been quite busy lately. I will try to get back with you soon. Red Phoenix ^talk 17:00, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I had a few minutes, so let me give you a few key takeaways:

• Be extremely cautious of WP:REFBOMB. An article so dependent on primary sources may be challenged on notability grounds by any editor for deletion. Keep digging for third party sources; you've shown there are some, and those are the kind of sources the article should lean on.
  • That being said, there's not a ton in secondary sources that is more than a passing mention. You should be able to pull at least three good sources that are secondary to establish notability, and I'd like it if you were able to share what those three are.
  • I did do some independent looking of my own tonight and didn't come up with more than passing mentions. It's entirely possible, and I want to prepare you for the possibility, that a merge to The Lost Legends of Redwall may be suggested or even recommended. (I actually am a believer in this philosophy personally, and suggest this is a good method to evaluate the question.)
• In general, this article could use a good copyedit. WP:GOCE could help you connect with one. It's the reputation of the guild that they're not the best for something FA-quality, but at this point if someone can give it a start to focus on encyclopedic tone and prose neatening, that would be helpful. Especially since you have a close connection with the subject, I would have someone filter through the prose to really clean it up and put it in WP:WIKIVOICE.
  • As an aside, you may want to look at WP:ELEVAR.
• Still a number of uncited statements; those at the end of paragraphs stand out big time.
• In a few places you have 5 or more cites for a statement. That's actually too much if it can adequately be stated in one, but usually two is okay and 3 or 4 only if that many are needed to cover all points of a statement or it's a contentious statement. When you go to reduce these, target removal of primary sources and try to rely on a secondary source if you have one in there.
• What happened in the gap between 2013 and 2018? No releases is unusual but it's not explained.
• This comes from a press release, so it's a primary source, but it raises a question: is Soma Games a division of Code-Monkeys? Because the article reads it the other way around.

Emitewiki2, notability is my primary concern, that although you have done your best I'm still concerned we haven't established notability based on the high amount of primary sources and lack of ability to find more than a passing mention in reliable sources. Everything else follows from there. Can you link your three best sources for a better idea to properly answer this question? Red Phoenix ^talk 02:20, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Hey, @Red Phoenix. That's a great question, and those are all good points. Thanks for raising them.

I have thoughts I'd love to share on most items you listed here, but I think it is best if we take things one at a time, so I will simply cover the "main" concern in this message.

As "sad" as it is (purely because I have an emotional investment in the article after putting in the hours to meticuously research and write it), I am fully willing to allow this to become a merge with The Lost Legends of Redwall page if it doesn't hold up to notability scrutiny, as that game series would be "the closest-related larger subject article ".

I went through each source one-by-one and I was disappointed to find that your concern seems well-founded. I somehow had not realized that the majority of sources used as references for the article, while from third-parties, are not from particularly reliable or well-known news sources. Most references came from smaller review sites and more niche interest publications or podcasts.

Nonetheless, I will do my best to present the "three best sources" that I can find which satisfy WP:RS and WP:SIGCOV and are dealing directly with the subject of Soma Games:

1. The Newberg Graphic seems to be a local newspaper for the area that the studio is based in, and as far as I can find it meets all qualifications for a reliable source.

• • ✔ It is a published source "made available to the public in some form". (It is a newspaper.)
  • ✔ The article does not seem to have been requested at the behest of the game company as a PR piece.
  • ✔ The article does not seem to contain any inaccuracies, nor does The Newberg Graphic seem to have failed any fact checks to date.
  • ~ The only thing I question here is the reach of the article. Its scope seems more focused on the surrounding Portland, Oregon area rather than national recognition.

2. I suppose the Christian News Northwest article is the next best thing in this references section. They have an article titled "Newberg game-makers get positive reviews", but it appears based on crawls of their website that they did not include full articles online from their earlier editions of the print publications. These days they seem to publish digital versions of their publication online. The version I found of the article was a repost from Soma's website, though I guess it was my assumption that it was not modified.

• • The news publication seems to be based out of Newberg, in the same city as the Soma Games studio. It looks like its publication range is mainly Oregon and Washington.
  • The publication obviously appears to be overtly religious. I don't know if this affects its status of being reliable, I wasn't able to find anything written about that in Wikipedia's policies.
  • The publication seems to be small (or perhaps niche) enough that I couldn't find any external source fact-checking it or questioning its reliability.

3. The Humans of Gaming podcast seems to be a legitimate gaming interview podcast with 192 episodes. It looks like they get developers of board games and video games to talk about their process of making games and how they started. The podcast itself is independent of the subject, but obviously as an interview most of the content within is coming from the Soma Games company. I list this source more for the purposes of notability, demonstrating that some outlets are deeming the the topic of this article significant enough to cover.

That's the best shot I've got at providing the best sources for the article. Like I said, after reviewing them I see now where your concerns were coming from. As is evident based on the amount of content I was able to write using smaller, less reliable resources, there is content out there to be written about this subject, but it appears that perhaps the studio hasn't "hit it big" enough yet that they merit an article in the encyclopedia at this point in time.

One last note as I end this, however, is that I did notice there were a number of fully reliable sources covering the games released by Soma, rather than the studio itself. Examples of such were this article from Kotaku on Soma's Wind-Up Robots game, this NewsReports.com article discussing the Santa's Giftship game, and a few others covering the G: Into the Rain game. This leads me to wonder if this Soma Games article might not be better suited to a format similar to the Chucklefish Games page, in which little is told about the studio itself but a list of games with reliable references to their releases are present. It was just a thought.

Again, thanks for bringing all of this up and being so patient in this conversation. I really appreciate your help in working to make the content of the encyclopedia the best it can be in quality!

Emitewiki2 (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

P.S. I am getting married this weekend and will be leaving the country for a while directly after, so it may be some time before I get back around to responding to your reply for this. Just wanted to give you a heads up in case :) Emitewiki2 (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Let me start by saying congratulations on getting married. That’s awesome to hear. Now, on the matter of the article, I totally get where you’re coming from. Long story short, the article that brought me to Wikipedia in 2007/2008 was merged away after I put a lot of effort into saving it, and it wasn’t until 12 years into my time here that reliable sources started appearing and I was able to write a proper article. But that brings me to my first point; you mentioned maybe Soma Games hasn’t “hit it big”. Merging it doesn’t mean it can’t be rebuilt if/when reliable sources are written about the subject; in fact, the page history and past edits are saved in a merge and can be used in the future for such a write. Wink wink, if you can’t tell I did this myself once.

I haven’t yet had the time to sit and review the three sources yet so I’ll take a look when I can. That being said, you may want to have a look at Wikipedia:Interviews and understand that not in every case is an interview a secondary source. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but it may not cover the bases we really need to establish notability as a result. If I haven’t suggested it yet, a good place to look for sources are the sites listed at WP:VG/S, and you might try the custom search engine of WP:VG/SE.

I’ll return when I get an opportunity to review the three. Red Phoenix ^talk 17:25, 29 July 2022 (UTC)