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This is an essay.
It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Don't go overboard in adding (video game) quote citations. |
Quotes are one of the most widely used citation types in articles related to video games and video game characters, and for good reason: they reference specific points in the game that readers may remember from playing the games and, if not, can look up to confirm with relative ease. It's still possible that a quote is being used out of context—which is one reason why secondary sources, where available, are preferred—but citing a quote is still more objective than citing the full game alone, though this is also an accepted format. Quotes, as probably the most precise primary source possible, are quite useful for subjects on the lower end of the notability scale, since there may not be adequate coverage in secondary sources for all of the information necessary for a reasonably comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.
Don't overdo it, though.
Named for the alien race that debuted in the game Sonic Colors for the Wii and Nintendo DS (ever played it? Tezero recommends it), Wisps' Law, as this guideline is called, states that individual game quotes should generally only be included in articles for game characters (including species, groups, organizations, and lists) insofar as they corroborate information that is likely to be seen as controversial, spurious, or especially specific. Wisps' Law is an extension of an often-overlooked tenet of WP:V: that Wikipedia does not need citations for everything (see "the sky is blue"), despite the general atmosphere's frequent implications otherwise.
By 2014, over-referencing in certain game-related articles had been drawing complaints for years. It was making another such appearance at Wisp (Sonic)'s FAC in April 2014 when Tezero, having had enough after an Oppose vote based on excessive primary citations, asked editors at WikiProject Video games to help form a consensus they would be okay with and that could be referenced for future articles. What was most agreed upon was that many citations in that article were indeed superfluous and, more generally, the aforementioned point of WP:V was stressed. Setting his personal reservations aside, Tezero drew up Wisps' Law so that future uncomfortable discussions could be truncated by a handy reference to a decently respected standard.
So before you add a quote citation to a character article, consider the following general points:
While these seven tenets aren't a be-all-and-end-all for adding a citation ("Ignore all rules" exists for a reason), they are general guidelines that help with articles' readability and accessibility and their likelihood of winning credentials you may want for them.
Wisps' Law was originally intended for game character articles due to the unique way they summarize the characters' appearances in various games and other media, but is also applicable to, say, individual games, series, and characters native to other media (insofar as quotes are used there), as well as to excessive citations of a style other than quotes.
