Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20130403/Interview

Featured editor: Teancum

Interviewed by (GamerPro64)

For this quarters interviewee, we talk to User:Teancum, who has as of now over 18,000 edits on the site and has been known to improve on games from the Xbox Live Arcade. Such include Castle Crashers, Trials HD and Super Meat Boy. Today we're going to ask him on his appeal for the format and more.

1. Now at this time you are semi-retired. Why is that?

   I've been married for seven years now and used to always have free time, but with two kids under the age of four I find that my time gets sucked into a vortex. I still love editing, but so many other things keep me from putting in as much time as I used to.

2. What drew you to Wikipedia, and what prompted you to begin editing?

   Early on I was sucked in working on articles for Star Wars Battlefront and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Looking back on those edits is kinda funny. I didn't know a thing about the standards and had poor grammar.

3. How did you become involved with the VG project?

   Video games are one of my passions. I've been a modder for 15+ years, and have released content for several Star Wars and Marvel Comics games.

4. A handful of articles you brought to GA status, among others, were released onto XBLA. Why did you choose to improve them?

   XBLA is a really great niche market that gives players bang-for-your-buck gameplay that you can pick up and drop at any time. Retail games are great, but they often require a longer time investment each play. I also love giving 'underdog articles' attention. A game like, say Mass Effect 3 is always going to get traffic and edits, but something like The Adventures of Shuggy will largely go overlooked.

5. How did you pick your username?

   Teancum is an individual from The Book of Mormon. I myself am a Mormon, and I've always thought the name sounded cool.

6. What is considered your best work on Wikipedia?

   On the retail side of things I'm proud of my work on Transformers: War for Cybertron‎, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and X-Men Legends. Bionic Commando Rearmed is probably my best XBLA article. I really like how Hydro Thunder Hurricane turned out, but it has a few dubiously reliable sources that I can't find replacements for, so I can't nominate it for GAN.

7. What is the most difficult part of editing Wikipedia?

   Nothing, really. At times I get irritated with policy and want to ignore all rules, but those instances are pretty rare. I'm generally really satisfied with how things roll here.

8. What advice would you give a new editor interested in working on video game articles?

   Build a toolset on your user page. My page has several handy tools and templates I use repeatedly. It makes editing much easier and good sources can be found much faster.

9. Anything else you want to say?

   Everyone should pick a "pet article" to improve: one that doesn't get a lot of hits, but represents a quality game. It's fun to blow the dust off some lesser known games by improving their articles.