Let’s make Shenmue III a featured article on Wikipedia!

[BalHan]

With the release of Shenmue III drawing ever so near(9 months!?), it’s important we try our level best to promote the game as well as we can, and with many of you doing a great job on Twitter, YouTube and other platforms, I thought I’d make a proposal that isn’t so obvious but I feel would be effective.

A number of video game articles have been featured articles on Wikipedia but none of them have been Shenmue articles(you can check).

Requests can be made to the Wikipedia team to have an article featured but I believe they would be more inclined to accept requests if the topic is getting a lot of media attention as Wikipedia themselves allude to this(you can check the criteria on Wikipedia).

Working together, we could make requests in large numbers which might just persuade them to have the Shenmue III article featured. But, timing is everything. Which is why I feel we ought to gamble, so to speak, and wait until Shenmue III is released with the expectation that the game will garner a great deal of media coverage considering the context, and hopefully, much fanfare should the game be well received by critics.

The featured article on wikipedia, I’m sure, is viewed by millions of people every day so think of this as free publicity! Making requests doesn’t cost a thing!

So why create a thread on this now? So we can get a consensus on how we feel about this, perhaps nominate someone to preside over this(I nominate Peter), ensure the article is great, agree on when we make our requests, etc.

So what do you think?

 

[Let's Get Sweaty]

I like the idea of it happening, but as I'm not too familiar with the feature, I'm wondering how resistant they are to people "gaming the system," especially in terms of promoting the release of a commercial product. Wikipedia strikes me, through its own created image at least, as the kind of site that wouldn't want to appear swayed by corporate influence, and that would be the suspicion of many visitors if a new video game happened to be the featured article just as it was hitting the shops.

But maybe there's a track record to prove that this is of no concern? I don't know, so just consider this a query rather than a criticism.

 

[BalHan]

I like the idea of it happening, but as I'm not too familiar with the feature, I'm wondering how resistant they are to people "gaming the system," especially in terms of promoting the release of a commercial product. Wikipedia strikes me, through its own created image at least, as the kind of site that wouldn't want to appear swayed by corporate influence, and that would be the suspicion of many visitors if a new video game happened to be the featured article just as it was hitting the shops.

But maybe there's a track record to prove that this is of no concern? I don't know, so just consider this a query rather than a criticism.

I’ve done a bit more research and it’s seems you may be right.
I thought I’d have a look at when a major game was released and when it featured as a featured article on Wikipedia.

Grand Theft Auto V was released on 17 September 2013 and was a featured article on 17 September 2015; exactly two years later.

So the question is do we want Shenmue III as a featured article two years after its release or now before its release. I alluded in my opening post that the topic receiving media coverage is pretty much a prerequisite for it to be a featured article and as Wikipedia themselves have stated this in their criteria.

I think the time is now and not two years later when a potential Shenmue IV will be released.

Or we could make a request for the article Shenmue(video game) to be featured. A caveat for making this particular request is that as soon as people see the word Dreamcast, they’ll stop reading and won’t come to know about Shenmue III.

I personally feel the time is now to request Shenmue III to feature on Wikipedia’s home page, as Shenmue III is currently receiving some media attention for its final crowdfunding total.

So I decided to go ahead and make a request for Shenmue III and that’s just what I’ve done. It’s ridiculously easy. If anyone would like to do the same, then here’s the link:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests

Just scroll down to where it says, ‘How to post a new nomination’, type Shenmue III and click ‘create nomination’.
It’s important that the exact article heading is used (Shenmue III).

Incidentally, I’m gonna do this daily, until it’s release.

 

[Rakim]

This could be a good idea, but I think the article needs a bit of an overhaul before it would even be worth featuring.

 

[BalHan]

This could be a good idea, but I think the article needs a bit of an overhaul before it would even be worth featuring.

Thanks. Maybe I’ll lay off making daily requests for the time being before the article is overhauled then.

I’d like to do a bit more research on the release dates of games that have been featured and the dates of when they were featured on Wikipedia. The only one I looked at was GTA V.

Perhaps, mid-2019 would best time to start making requests in high volume.

 

[Let's Get Sweaty]

There might be a rise in media coverage in March, depending on what happens at MAGIC Monaco.