Prima eguides, etc.

Walkazo

Walkazo

Thou liest!
Wiki Bureaucrat
Since Prima eguides, as well as their older paper guides and similar material from other publishers is a major source of the wiki, I decided to ask Porplemontage about exactly how much content we should be taking from them, in light of the fact that Prima has asked at least one site to remove their content, and the recent influx of level maps and artwork over the past few months (and days). After some discussion and looking through all our Prima-sourced images, this is the guideline that Porple suggested, and which Glowsquid and I agree with (and which I expanded with examples and such).



Note that this applies to all guides, not just Prima eguides.

  • Covers are okay (example (File:Prima_Guide-Mario_Kart_8.jpg), example (File:Prima_Guide-LM.jpg)) There's no reason publishers would complain about covers and they're essential for us to have.
  • Full pages are not okay. Right now, we only have three or four being used as name references (example image (File:DK64_Prima_16.jpg) and an example page (Mechanical Zinger) it's being used for), but these will be deleted. The references will stay, of course, but will no longer link to images hosted here: while it's nice to see the primary source, it's not worth the risk, and it's not absolutely necessary either, as the majority of references to manuals and guides already don't link to anything.
  • Level and racecourse maps are not okay (example (File:Stone-Eye Zone Map NSMBU.png), example (File:W1-1-map.jpg), example (File:Thwomp Ruins Prima Guide Map.jpg)) Having the full layouts is a major selling point of guides like Prima, so us taking them and showing them to everyone for free would be the most likely thing to draw their ire - and rightly so. To be fair to them and to avoid possible issues, we will stop uploading maps and delete everything that's already up. We already describe everything through text and screenshots anyway, so like the scan references, we don't need the maps: unlike guide books and eguides, we're not actually trying to be a walkthrough.
  • World maps are not okay (example (File:Meringue Clouds.png)) Like the level and racecourse maps, we shouldn't be taking Prima's labeled maps. However, it is good to have world maps for our articles, so for now, rather than deleting the images outright, if possible they will be reverted to the earlier, partial, non-Prima screenshots (with only the Prima revision deleted to be safe) and left on the pages, with the hope being that full world maps can be generated someday.
  • Artwork is okay (example (File:Zelda SSB4 Artwork - Green.jpg), example (File:StampMetalMarioSmoothMK8.jpg)) Artwork's not the bread and butter of guides, but it is essential for our purposes, so we will keep uploading it.
  • Screenshots are okay (example (File:Ball Hop.jpg)) Same deal as the artwork, although getting our own nice PNG screencaps is generally better than jpgs from guides, but something is better than nothing.



So yeah, the main issue are the maps and the mass deletions and removals that will have to be done. It's a bummer to lose all that work and content, but it has to be done.

If users can help out by removing the MK8, NSMBU, NSMB2, etc. level/course maps and marking them for deletion, that'd be really appreciated. Using the wiki's search function in the "file" namespace is a quick way to get at the Prima images.

Don't worry about the world maps: since specific revisions have to be deleted while the images themselves will remain on the articles, I'll just deal with those myself as soon as I have some free time (although I have a mountain of RL work to deal with over the next few days, so that might not happen until the weekend).
 
I'd say I agree with deleting the Prima guide maps for Mario Kart 8, we already have the gamerip of the map layout so it's pretty redundant anyway.
 
Lumastar said:
I agree with all of this, even if it's sad that we can't use this good stuff.
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Technically you can if you buy the guide for the aforementioned games...
 
Phew, I'm relieved that all those Smush artworks I uploaded won't end up being deleted.
 
Time Turner said:
Well, there goes a few days of importing...
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Honestly, Glowsquid said not to do it: you should have listened. Hell, I thought my post following his made it clear I had changed my opinion to that of wariness about Prima's stance on its copyrighted material too, but really, if either 'Crat says something's a bad idea, don't do it, and don't complain when ignoring us backfires on you.

Like, I get it, it's not fun to see work flushed down the toilet, but that's part of editing a wiki, especially one based on other people's intellectual property. Sorry.
 
I'm hardly complaining. I don't want to start some petty spat over this (like you said, it just sucks to have a few days go to waste) , but you gave me the A-ok to go ahead with it and your reply to Glowsquid (imo) didn't make it clear to me that I should have stopped.
 
The images we have now are fine (from what I've seen): they're better quality than scans of hard copies would be, and like I said in the OP, there shouldn't be any risk of copyright grumblings.

Time Turner said:
I'm hardly complaining. I don't want to start some petty spat over this (like you said, it just sucks to have a few days go to waste) , but you gave me the A-ok to go ahead with it and your reply to Glowsquid (imo) didn't make it clear to me that I should have stopped.
Click to expand...
That was before Glowsquid's much more well-informed post about Prima's history with sites posting their content, and your post after his made it sound like you got the message (and I didn't know you were already uploading), so I didn't think I also had to explicitly say "oh yeah, that is bad" (I'd already agreed with him behind the scenes when he told me). And I did say "If we uploaded all the images, they'd probably be unhappy" - if artwork is iffy, of course maps would be worse.
 
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