Talk:Diary of a Camper

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Featured articleDiary of a Camper is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 25, 2008.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
August 29, 2006Featured article candidatePromoted
June 11, 2022Featured article reviewKept
Current status: Featured article


Resources[edit]

Resolved

I searched google for "Diary of a Camper" and turned up some potentially useful links. I picked out the ones that were from more professional sources (IE, not forums, etc.). I haven't really read through them yet (I'll probably do that later), but here they are for anyone else who wants to contribute. Some of them, like the first one, only really make passing mention of the film.

--Drat (Talk) 08:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just noting for posterity: Most of these don't mention Diary of a Camper in any more detail than do the sources that I ended up using in the article (Kelland, Lowood). Lowood is an excellent source for the origins of machinima. — TKD::Talk 14:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

URF or the Rangers?[edit]

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[1] seems to imply that United Ranger Films wasn't yet a separate entity when Diary was released. — TKD::Talk 04:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Although URF OFFICIALLY broke away from the Rangers clan a good while after their early movies, the people involved were part of the Rangers, and were the same as those who would later form URF. In the .zip for the Ranger Gone Bad 3 preview, the main man behind the Ranger films explains the whole story, which is a vital reference. I think I'll host it on my site and link to it, but machinima.com has the .zip here: http://www.machinima.com/films.php?id=102 It's tricky to decide what to do in this situation though, as I believe most of the early films were released under the banner of United Ranger Films, even if they were not separate. I suggest labelling them all as URF movies, but explaining on the URF page - as I've tried to - that URF was part of the Rangers clan when they were made. Sound good? --Psyklax 08:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's reasonable, and, given the sequence of events as stated in the docs accompanying RGB3, URF would be unambiguous and complete. Thanks. — TKD::Talk 09:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This film, Diary, also begins with 'United Ranger Films presents...', as I watched it yesterday, so that clears up the idea that URF always existed in some form or another, whether as part of the Rangers clan or not. --Psyklax 18:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request for help[edit]

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I am currently translating this excellent article to Spanish. I am not able to figure out what Real name established in Salen (note 15) means. ¿What is Salen? Thanks (and congratulations, this is good stuff). Chabacano 05:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that means that the real name (as opposed to the online pseudonym, which is more common) of the person mentioned in the text is established in the reference material by Salen (Katie Salen, that is), listed in the full "References" section below. It's footnoting shorthand; sorry for the confusion. Thanks for the translation work and the compliments. — TKD::Talk 10:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I just took a look at the article in Spanish. Not sure what the conventions are there, but don't forget to translate the full "References" section over; that's what all of the notes refer to for full citation info. — TKD::Talk 10:45, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks :) I was thinking that maybe he was established in Salen (a city) o something alike. And yes, I have to translate the References section, the traslation is not finished yet. --Chabacano 13:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Release descrepancy[edit]

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This article states that DoaC was released on Oct 26, 1996, approximately 1 month after the "full commercial release of Quake". However, Quake's article states that the game was released on June 22, 1996, over 4 months before the release of DoaC... I don't know what's right, but it sure doesn't look like that is.Hezekiah957 05:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Hezekiah957[reply]

Thanks for bringing up the discrepancy. I double-checked my sources; Lowood did indeed say both "barely a month after the commercial release of the game" and "October 1996". Given that the October 26, 1996 date has been corroborated by other soutrces, and that I can't determine which release Lowood was in fact referring to, I've decided to remove that clause forom the article ;it wasn't that important of a matter to begin with. Quake was indeed released in stages — the shareware release preceded the first full version — but, unless Lowood is referring to something even later, I, upon review, don't see the dates matching up either. Thanks again for pointing this out. — TKD::Talk 06:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Too short?[edit]

Resolved
 – Length isn't a criterion for FAs. If you have specific concerns about comprehensiveness, I'll be happy to try to address them. — TKD::Talk 14:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I kinda feel this article's too short for a Featured Article. Cuyaya (talk) 07:40, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have to agree -- I started reading it, then all of a sudden the article stopped! User A1 (talk) 07:50, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See the promotion date. There has been a trend for featured articles (and to an extent articles in general) to get longer and longer.Geni 09:24, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Featured articles are decided based on quality, not quantity. The reason this is such a short article is that there isn't enough information from reliable sources to justify a longer article. Una LagunaTalk 09:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And besides, it's still longer than Hurricane Irene (2005). GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 11:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies if I am being curt or rude, I read as many FAs as I can -- they are by and large excellent. However is not the articles date irrelevant? Do we not judge FAs by today's FA critiera? I am not suggesting the article should take this road by any means, but isn't this partly shown by the existence of a FA review process? In terms of quality I have reservations with regards to the referencing and the establishment of notability (I think it *is* notable, just that the article could drive it home some.) Of course it's easy to comment, rather than work -- Don't take me to seriously here. User A1 (talk) 12:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Length has never been an actual criteria per se it's just with articles in general getting longer people new expect FAs to get longer.Geni 13:10, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not only this article is too short, but it also lacks something really important. Non gamers might read this article and get 0 idea out of it. This article appeals to gamers and people that are fond with the terms of video gaming. HaGamal 18:54, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was quite good in this regard. There weren't any moments where I felt like the article was relying on a bluelink because the editors couldn't be bothered explaining the term. Length doesn't bother me a great deal. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article topic is simply too narrow to appeal to any wider audience. No amount of added information will change that.
Peter Isotalo 08:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article meets the FPC requirements and therefore qualifies. I was suprised to see it on the main page too. --Uncle Bungle (talk) 02:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Retrofit topic year headers[edit]

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14-Oct-2008: I have added subheaders above as "Topics from 2006" (etc.) to emphasize the dates of topics in the talk-page. Older topics might still apply, but using the year headers helps to focus on more current issues as well. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I removed them. Most talk pages don't have them, and people can read timestamps, usually. :) — TKD::Talk 08:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Since the turnover of discussion here is so low, I've marked non-current items {{resolved}} so that it's easier to tell whether anything is outstanding. — TKD::Talk 14:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Revised references[edit]

Resolved

14-Oct-2008: The article is a featured article, so I figured I should discuss having changed the references (which is not a simple text change). I corrected the URL for source "Playing the movies" (which had pointed to the same URL as "Machinima jukebox" also at ACMI). I then added the date to source "Machinima jukebox" as "2006-04-28" as stated within the webpage's HTML ("View Source" in MSIE) from the meta-tag named "DC.Date.modified" (near line 22) in the HTML:

Note that many webpages have internal modification dates (in meta-tags), even though those webpages might not display a date, in a manner similar to photo meta-data which records the date/time stamp "behind" the photographic images. Inside the webpages, a meta-tag date is typically auto-generated by some webpage editor-tool, although I have hand-edited webpage dates when developing my own websites. In general, the webpage meta-tags are a good source of such information. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A belated thank-you. — TKD::Talk 14:12, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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WP:URFA/2020 notes[edit]

Hey, as part of the Unreviewed featured article sweeps, I've taken another look at this article in checking it meets modern FA criteria. Notes as follows:

  • The lead outright states DOAC is the first machinima film, while the actual prose a) doesn't cite all the same sources as the lead, and b) couches that claim in much less bold terms. This should be harmonized.
  • Likewise the lead contextualizes that the "plot" all happens within a multiplayer match, but that's not mentioned in the plot section below. (Also, the lead says the film "centers" on the camper, but the plot section gives the impression he's the antagonist and the focus is on the Rangers.
  • The point of recording gameplay and playing it back natively is the small file size, which was crucial in the dial-up era. It's an odd omission this explanation for the game-recording features is not included.
  • There's also more information about the actual nuts-and-bolts of creating the video in the third paragraph should be earlier. The German dissertation exploring the possibilities of the Quake demo format, for instance, feels like it should be included as an introduction for readers to the context, and then the bits about creating the video should come before the quotes that feel more like reception.
  • I've [ mades some tweaks] to the prose to make what I thought were improvements.
  • Additional prose thoughts:
    • After they teleport into the room, a camper waiting there kills them both, as confirmed by in-game text messages that appear on the screen—is there a reason the "confirmation" line is here? Can't we just be punchier and say "kills them both." and be done?
      • Silly since the deaths are shown on-screen, I agree. Removed MSG17 (talk) 18:13, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the book Machinima, Kelland, Morris, and Lloy—who are these people?
      • Reworded, but will investigate more. MSG17 (talk) 19:40, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well known for their playing skill and their ability to program game modifications,[9] the Rangers —should reintroduce the Rangers here as well.
    • The group's new demo surprised the Quake community by exploiting the game differently—no context is given for how they exploited the game at all, let alone "differently".
    • The players were choreographed like actors, ... delivering their lines as plain text....—there's some funky punctuation and possible unclear condensing of the quote going on here and without the source I can't fix it.
    • In general, I think there's a bit too much reliance on using quotes versus summarizing opinions, especially once we hit the reception.
  • At a broad level, I think the sourcing needs an update. It's been 15 years since it was promoted, and there's been continuing coverage of it and more context in its role, from minor coverage that can bolster citations, to more useful content that can flesh this out. A quick search turned up:
    • News articles coverage: Den of Geek, 2017, Wired, 2017, etc.
    • Books: Pioneers in Machinima, 2021, The Machinima Reader, 2011 (that one's by Lowood so it might be redundant with the other essays, but worth checking out), Intermedia Games—Games Inter Media, 2019, etc.
    • I didn't do any deep searches on MUSE and academic databases, but turned up some quick hits that might be worth investigating: Krapp, Peter. Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 2011. Accessed July 12, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttsn17, CHICO C. Machinima Unplugged. Computer Graphics World. 2014;37(4):24-28, etc. Main thrust being that more work needs to be done to make sure the article is thoroughly representative of modern research.
      • Not useful, unfortunately - it's only mentioned once as an example of "the lurking style of early machinima". (pg. 98) Will look at academic DBs later and also see what you find over at the FA review page.

Pinging User:JudgeDeadd as the only major contributor who appears to still be active. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:20, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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