Will there be an option to block inclusion in credits?

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Branthog

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#1  Edited By Branthog

Is there or will there be an option to prevent your name from being added to credits or having a page created for you that is tied to credits in games? Like, a list you can validate and have your name in that acts as a sort of black list when people try to add them to the wiki?

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Bocam

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What? Why would you need that?

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DeF

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That sounds incredibly useless to me?!

Can you explain why you'd need such a thing?

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Subjugation

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#4  Edited By Subjugation

No offense, but this sounds like an attention grab. I'm assuming you're talking about a Kickstarter and them offering your name in the credits as a pledge reward. I don't think anyone really cares. If it really is an issue, I'm sure it could be addressed by talking to a mod via PM.

Edit: But I am curious, why is it a problem?

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No offense, but this sounds like an attention grab. I'm assuming you're talking about a Kickstarter and them offering your name in the credits as a pledge reward. I don't think anyone really cares. If it really is an issue, I'm sure it could be addressed by talking to a mod via PM.

Edit: But I am curious, why is it a problem?

Doesn't want anyone to find out he made Secret of the Magic Crystals

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AssInAss

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@branthog said:

Is there or will there be an option to prevent your name from being added to credits or having a page created for you that is tied to credits in games? Like, a list you can validate and have your name in that acts as a sort of black list when people try to add them to the wiki?

I'm sorry, what?

No offense, but this sounds like an attention grab. I'm assuming you're talking about a Kickstarter and them offering your name in the credits as a pledge reward. I don't think anyone really cares. If it really is an issue, I'm sure it could be addressed by talking to a mod via PM.

Edit: But I am curious, why is it a problem?

See, this wouldn't make sense because you gotta pay top dollar to be credited. Usually the $100 tiers. And it's only for "Special Thanks", I doubt anyone would wiki that since those go into loads of people who didn't add anything to development.

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Branthog

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#7  Edited By Branthog

@bocam said:

What? Why would you need that?

@subjugation said:

No offense, but this sounds like an attention grab. I'm assuming you're talking about a Kickstarter and them offering your name in the credits as a pledge reward. I don't think anyone really cares. If it really is an issue, I'm sure it could be addressed by talking to a mod via PM.

Edit: But I am curious, why is it a problem?

@def said:

That sounds incredibly useless to me?!

Can you explain why you'd need such a thing?

My name is in a handful of games (not Kickstarter, though I guess those will be an issue, too), which I don't mind, but it has started appearing on sites indexing credits of games (and on an industry site, I'm somehow listed as a dev). I'm not a huge fan of an employer searching my name (the combination of my first and last is unique) and finding all sorts of video game crap. I'm hoping that should wiki-point-whoring ever devolve into dumping full credits for games (and as I read it, all credits but pets and babies are accepted), there would be some sort of a "black list" you can ask to be on or something.

If you helped develop a game, the credit would benefit you. If not, the gesture is nice, but not something you'd necessarily want showing up somewhere outside of the game, itself. At the very least, it's just more stuff that I have to compete with on google searches so that the right stuff (my real work) pops up and not links to a bunch of random games or something.

I agree, I don't think anyone cares about adding in non-employee credits to games. But people like wiki points -- and clearly someone does data dumps of credits online, or else I wouldn't be appearing in some of these places. I just figured it'd be nice to have some way that people could prevent this ahead of time, instead of finding out long after it happens. And since it's not worthwhile information, it's not like blacklisting it in the database would cause any issues with the integrity of the wiki and gathering all game-related information, yadda yadda yadda.

It's certainly not the end of the world. Would just be nice, is all.

As to the "attention grab" comment -- I can see where you feel that way, but if I was trying to "humble-brag" (that's what the young folk are calling it these days, right? :P), then I wouldn't be doing it in the wiki/edits section of the forums where like two dozen of us will ever see it. :P

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@branthog: Why would you be concerned about people finding your name in video game credits listed on a wiki? I'm credited in a couple of games and have my own Giant Bomb page, but you don't see me scrambling to cut it off.

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Subjugation

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@branthog: Alright, that makes more sense. I was wondering if it had something to do with employers. Do you think they would actively malign you for showing up in game credits? I would think something like that would be petty and silly.

Yeah, I didn't mean to come off as hostile with the attention grab thing. I just couldn't understand why you would want to bring it to everyone's attention.

Anyway, this seems like such a niche situation that I honestly doubt there is something in place to accomplish what you want. I suppose you could PM Dave or Alexis about it.

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Branthog

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@hailinel said:

@branthog: Why would you be concerned about people finding your name in video game credits listed on a wiki? I'm credited in a couple of games and have my own Giant Bomb page, but you don't see me scrambling to cut it off.

There are two aspects to it. One is that being listed in some trivial index of credits for games on highly ranked sites means you're suddenly competing with references to yourself in google searches (which is increasingly important, as you can expect any tech company's recruiter to be searching you and more during hiring process, these days). Ideally, you want things that represent you to appear in searches - not a bunch of 'thanks' in games (and as I mentioned, I've somehow since wound up listed as a game dev on one site, which is the furthers from my corporate dev-monkey work as you can get).

The other aspect is that as much as we'd like to think that everyone plays video games these days and there isn't a stigma to it -- there is. Especially in big corporations where people tend to be mostly in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. It's the same reason I disliked the idea Blizzard initially had of forcing you to use your real full name in their forums. All we need to do is look at current headlines and opinion pieces and proposed legislation to see the absurd perception people have about playing video games. It's one thing to contend with that in the face of friends, family, and dates -- but it's another to deal with it professionally, where it may have negative connotations and a direct impact on your life.

@branthog: Alright, that makes more sense. I was wondering if it had something to do with employers. Do you think they would actively malign you for showing up in game credits? I would think something like that would be petty and silly.

Yeah, I didn't mean to come off as hostile with the attention grab thing. I just couldn't understand why you would want to bring it to everyone's attention.

Anyway, this seems like such a niche situation that I honestly doubt there is something in place to accomplish what you want. I suppose you could PM Dave or Alexis about it.

Don't worry about that -- it's completely understandable. I didn't really know how to ask the question without it seeming like I was saying "gosh, my name is in some games at the end of the credits that nobody is ever going to bother reading. I'm so awesome guys!".

I kind of assumed there would be no specific function or process to facilitate a blacklisting of an individual for my requested purpose, but thought maybe there was a more generic blacklisting function to the wiki that could be applied, just the same. On Wikipedia, you can blacklist certain page names, so they can never be recreated after deletion. There must be something similar, here, so that people trying to screw with the wiki can't just keep creating the same dumb page or other content repeatedly -- and if so, then it should be possible to add a name to it.

All in all, it's not like being on some sites that list you as being in credits of a game is the end of the world. It's better than being featured on one of those mugshot sites. But if it'd be simple enough to avoid, I thought it was worth asking. I mean, I actually get a kick out of finding out I'm in the credits of one thing or another (these are mostly just because of people I know who have worked on the game, is all, though I've offered a little help in one aspect or another a few times, too). I only became concerned after my friend googled my name (a thing I loathe doing) and showed me that the credits were showing up online and then the dev thing. Then again . . . internet -- right? :P

Anyway, if there's no such function that can work for this purpose, your suggestion is probably best. I'll just setup a google alert that does a search of my full name on GB and if it starts popping up, I'll just politely ask a mod or staff to ignore all the horrible things I always say on here and consider helping me out. :)

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gamer_152

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#11 gamer_152  Moderator

I seriously doubt the staff are working on such a thing. If they are, I don't think they've mentioned it. I can see why it may be necessary though. As for people trying to "Whore points" by entering credits into the wiki, I don't think the system was allocating people that many points for credits before, but when approving submissions we do have much more control over point allocation than before, so if we think people are getting an excessive amount of points for adding credits for games, we can bump that number down in a lot of cases. I definitely don't think we'll be allowing for new pages for every person who's contributed to a Kickstarter either.

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@gamer_152 said:

I definitely don't think we'll be allowing for new pages for every person who's contributed to a Kickstarter either.

Aw, you're mean :(

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Maybe you should have a less searchable name, Seumas.

Change your name to Steve.