
:''This article is about the computer game '''''America's Army'''''. For the actual U.S. Army article, see United States Army.'' '''''America's Army'' (AA''') is a Tactical shooter multiplayer first-person shooter owned by the U.S. government, financed through U.S. tax dollars and distributed free by the United States Army as a global public relations initiative to present a positive image of the current U.S. Army and help with U.S. Army recruitment. Released on July 4, 2002, ''America's Army'' was developed by the MOVES Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, and is based on the ''Unreal engine''. ==Overview== ''America's Army'''s developers call the game a playable recruiting tool whose success led to further versions of the game and other games of the same genre being developed, such as ''Under Ash'' (Palestinians), ''Full Spectrum Warrior'' (U.S. Army), ''Kuma:War'' (Department of Defense), ''Special Force'' (Hizbullah), ''Close Combat (game)'' (U.S. Marines), ''SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs'' (United States Navy) and ''USAF: Air Dominance'' (United States Air Force). Unlike ''America's Army'', which is freely downloadable, the other examples of similar games are sold. Critics have charged the game serves as a propaganda device. ''America's Army'' falls into the subgenres of Advergaming and serious game. It is relatively authentic in terms of visual and acoustical representation—especially pertaining to weaponry—but not modern war. Unlike ''Special Force'' and ''Under Ash'', the game does not feature realism.[http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/galloway] The gameplay is similar to that of ''Counter-Strike'', a ''Half-Life'' mod (computer gaming) and the most widely played online first-person shooter at the time and for the past few years. ''Counter-Strike'' had been taken as the model for ''America's Army'', according to Professor Michael Zyda, the director and founder of the MOVES Institute. Whereas its developers claim ''America's Army'' is played by several million players, statistics show that the game has had an average of roughly 3 000 to 6 000 players playing online at any one time between 2002 and 2005. By contrast, between 70 000 and 100 000 players play ''Counter-Strike'' under the same counting conditions.[http://www.video-games-survey.com/online_gamers.htm] ''America's Army'' can mainly be found as a free download on the Internet or on a CD-ROM at United States government recruiting centers. It continues to receive regular add-ons and Patch (computing) to sustain and increase player interest. ==History== Shortly after computer-based wargames were permitted on government computers for U.S. Marines in 1996, U.S. Marine simulation experts created ''Marine Doom'', a modification based on the commercial game ''Doom II'' to be used as a tactical training tool. On account of ''Marine Doom'' 's success the U.S. Marine Corps signed a contract with MÄK Technologies in the following year, which led to the development of ''Marine Expeditionary Unit 2000'' being the first game funded and developed by both the Department of Defense and the commercial game industry. The game was released as a training game for U.S. Marines and as a commercial computer game to the public. A report in 1997 by the National Research Council, whose member Professor Michael Zyda is, called attention that Department of Defense's simulations were lagging behind commercial games and advised joint research with the entertainment industry. In 1999, when the U.S. Army recruiting numbers hit their lowest point in thirty years[http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/30/army.recruitment/#1] after two straight years of missed recruiting targets, the Congress of the United States decided to carry out "aggressive, innovative experiments" with regard to the number of recruitments, and the Department of Defense raised its spending for recruitment to more than US Dollars2.2Bn, which not only paid for the ''Army Game Project'', but for an entire promotional campaign to polish up the U.S. Army's image. For instance they had a new slogan being invented and made a title sponsorship of a team taking part in NASCAR races, where ''America's Army'' was later allotted as well. A report by Michael Zyda induced the U.S. Army to spend US$45 million to the U.S. Navy's Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to create a research centre to develop advanced military simulations. Lieutenant Colonel E. Casey Wardynski, an economics professor at the United States Military Academy, West Point, who later became director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA) at this academy and the head of the ''Army Game Project'', exhibited to the Deputy Chief of Staff of the United States Army for Personnel as well as the Deputy Assistant United States Secretary of the Army for Military Manpower the idea of an online computer game designed and distributed by the United States Army. He managed to convince them of the cost-effectiveness the project would have, and from then on he has collaborated with Professor Zyda. In 2001 the French software company Ubisoft granted the Department of Defense to use ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear'' for training military personnel. On July 4, 2002, the Independence Day (United States), the first version of ''America's Army'', named ''Recon'', was released after three years of development and it was made available for free as either a download or on CD. Its production cost US$7.5 million and it quickly became one of the ten most often played online first-person shooters, mainly due to the gameplay similar to ''Counter-Strike'', the game's easy availability, the new ''Unreal Engine'' and the large number of free servers sponsored by the U.S. Army. The Army is spending US$3 million a year to develop future versions of the game and US$1.5 million annually to support them (e.g. through servers). ''America's Army: Soldiers'', a Role Playing Game in development stage that was to elucidate career paths in the U.S. Army, failed and was brushed under the carpet. In 2003, Ubisoft 's commercial ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield'' was licensed to be adopted by the U.S. Army for testing soldiers' skills.
On November 6, 2003, version 2.0 of ''America's Army'' was published, with the full title of ''America's Army: Special Forces''. The developers gave no reasons why the game foregrounded the U.S. Special forces in this and the following versions, and only a Navy-produced booklet found by the investigative journalist Gary Webb explained this shift. It stated that "the Department of Defense want[ed] to double the number of Special Forces soldiers, so essential [had they proven] in Afghanistan and northern Iraq; consequently, orders [had] trickled down the chain of command and found application in the release of [this version of ''America's Army'']." [http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-10-14/cover.asp]
Being developed by Ubisoft in collaboration with the U.S. Army, ''America's Army'' is planned for release on Xbox and Playstation 2 by summer 2005 under the name ''America's Army: Rise of a Soldier''.
According to Wardynski, after other government agencies, such as the Secret Service, had shown interest in the game, a governmental version similar to the public version of the game has been developed to be used for training.
==Gameplay==
''America's Army'' is a round- and team-based tactical shooter with a gameplay similar to ''Counter-Strike'' in which the player controls a soldier of the ''U.S. Army'' from the first person perspective instead of ''Counter-Terrorists'' or ''Terrorists''.
Before a player is allowed to play online, he has to go through four of fourteen training Level (computer and video games) first and have his progress saved online in a player account. Accomplishing the other training levels enables the player to virtually become medic, special forces unit and sniper.
In the multiplayer part, the main section of the game, players fight as either the "U.S. Army" or, on "Special Forces" maps, ''Indigenous forces'' against an opposing team called "OpFor" (Army lingo for "Opposing Forces") and that is specifically referred to as ''insurgents'', ''enemy forces'' or ''terrorists''.
One of ''America's Army'''s unusual features is the design of the player's opponents.
The players characters' are divided into two teams, usually into an ''Assault'' group and a ''Defense'' one, with the ''Assault'' losing the round if the time limit runs out, which is usually set to ten minutes. No matter whether ''Assault'' or ''Defence''—the side the player joins is always depicted as of the ''U.S. Army'' whereas the other side is portrayed as the ''OpFor'' on all occasions.
The players on each team see themselves as American soldiers carrying American weaponry, such as the ''M16A2''. They see their opponents as non-uniformed foreigners carrying Eastern bloc weapons, such as ''AK-47''s (the counterpart of the ''M16A2'' in the game), except for in training maps, in which the only distinguishing features are the players' characters' uniforms.
Each round starts with the two teams Spawning (computer gaming) simultaneously. Unlike in ''Counter-Strike'', players can never see themselves or other team-members as the ''OpFor'' and do not buy their equipment but always start with the equipment of the soldier class chosen.
The round ends with only one team winning, which can only be done by either completing the objectives, or killing all members of the ''OpFor'', or when the round's time limit is reached. For example, the objective on the most often played map is to kill the ''rebels''' ''VIP'', who is trying to survive and escape, or, if you join the other team, you must escort him to the ''escape zone''.
Every death your main character suffers by another player, every destruction or killing by him of an objective which he is assigned to protect and especially every killing of teammates caused by his friendly fire will be saved permanently and has an extremely negative effect on your player's score and "HONOR", a number next to the player name, the game consequently calling the actions ''dishonorable''.
Every healing of injured teammates as well as every killing of opponents' figures, by contrast, increase your score and "HONOR", the Army game consequently calling the actions ''honorable'' in general. The accomplishment of the "U.S. Army"'s aims, instead of their opponents aims, affects your score favorably and therefore your "HONOR" as well, indirectly calling the objectives of the ''U.S. Army'' ''honorable'' and the objectives of its opponents ''dishonorable'' at the same time. The score and, as a result, "HONOR" are saved in the players' accounts. The developers claim this reward system (HONOR) is "modeled after" the values "Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless-Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage" but since it is an indicator of the time a player has played the game rather than the skills he has, players with a high "HONOR" level are often looked down on as addicts.[http://www.gamasutra.com/education/theses/20040725/ZLITHESIS.pdf]
Any player character killed before the round is over become "''spectators''"; their Online chat/voice messages cannot be seen/heard by the players still alive, but they can watch the rest of the round. In contrast to ''Counter-Strike'', the developers of ''America's Army'' have done little so far to prevent ''spying spectators'' from communicating with those still playing, which has become the most popular type of ''cheating'', widely called ''ghosting''. Players whose protagonist is dead receive information through the chat and the view as ''spectator'' and are capable of using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) communication programs such as ''Teamspeak'' or ''Ventrilo'' to let certain living players take advantage of that information, especially information on players' positions, health conditions and weapons.
Depending on server configuration, ''spectators'' will have the possibility of watching the rest of the round in one to three ways. The first, which is always available, provides a view from the eyes of a specific player of his team, chosen by the dead player; the second allows the ''ghost'' to rotate his view around the chosen player; the third is from certain fixed viewpoints that allow the dead player to observe the entire map.
The game is a medium-paced tactical shooter, in a similar vein to the "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Pacing is fast in the sense that players can be killed in one (or few) hit(s), but the players' movements are a lot slower and the gameplay contains fewer firefights than ''Unreal Tournament'' and ''Counter-Strike''.
==Controversy==
[[Image:AA_InterviewE3.jpg|275px|left|thumb|E³-interview about ''America's Army'' on ''ARD (TV)'']]
Apart from the common controversy that surrounds games rewarding the virtual killing of other human beings, ''America's Army'' caused additional debate and disagreement that helped it become the subject of Journalism and academic research.
''America's Army'' is a figurative and written type of message presentation intended to globally give an approving impression of the present U.S. Army. In the official Frequently Asked Questions page of ''America's Army'', the developers, too, confirm this in a statement giving the reason why people outside the United States can play the game: "We want the whole world to know how great the U.S. Army is."
Although ''America's Army'' claims to represent the real Army and gives largely true information, it contains Partisan and fails to paint a complete and balanced picture of the U.S. Army along with its conflicts, mainly playing down or excluding negative facets of the Army. For example, the game leaves out aspects of collateral damage and harassment in the U.S. Army. For these reasons, the game—if considered to accurately portray reality—misleads and creates a false impression of reality.
With the real U.S. Army and its interventions being representatives of Politics of the United States, the game ''America's Army'', which has a governmental background, globally promotes a one-sided and self-glorifying message about this army with its interventions. Since the game is directly as well as indirectly asserted by the developers to represent reality, the truth, instead of fantasy, the word 'propaganda' is justified for the message presentation ''America's Army'' even in the narrower, politically-defined, interpretation of 'propaganda'.[http://www.minitrue.nl/essays/nmnc-aa/justin.html] While officially the Army neither admits it is a recruitment tool nor propaganda, inofficially Chris Chambers, the deputy director of development for ''America's Army'', admits it is a recruitment tool,[http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1012] and "the Army readily admits [''America's Army'' is] a propaganda device," wrote Chris Morris, a ''CNN/Money'' columnist and director of content development.[http://money.cnn.com/2002/05/31/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/]
"What is interesting about ''America's Army''," a professor at the New York University noted, "is not the debate over whether it is thinly-veiled propaganda or a legitimate recruitment tool, for it is unabashedly and decisively both, but rather that the central conceit of the game is one of mimetic realism." In this analyse the professor concluded that ''America's Army'' is relatively realistic if realism was a "naïve and unmediated or reflective conception of aesthetic construction," similarly as how games with the same game engine would be, such as ''Unreal Tournament 2003'' or ''Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell'', but, he wrote, this interpretation of 'realism' would belittle a "larger understanding of realism."
He explained the three possible definitions for 'realism' in video games—as opposed to 'realistic-ness'—and deduced that ''America's Army'', despite having had the chance to, does neither achieve nor try to approach realism in any way, except for expressing a Nationalism perspective.[http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/galloway]
The Army game and its official webpage, which needs to be visited to be able to play the game, contain links to the governmental website ''goarmy.com'', another recruiting tool that, according to the ''Army Subcommittee Testimony'' from February 2000, has the highest chance of recruiting than "any other method of contact."[http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=hodes20020823] Leading American players to it is a major goal of the game and it was confirmed that twenty-eight percent of all visitors of ''America's Army'' 's webpage click through to this recruitment site.[http://www.gamasutra.com/education/theses/20030721/Kleeberger_thesis.pdf]
In the Frequently Asked Questions section of the game's official website, its developers argue its suitability to teenagers. "In elementary school kids learn about the actions of the Continental Army that won our freedoms under George Washington and the Army's role in ending Hitler's oppression. Today they need to know that the Army is engaged around the world to defeat terrorist forces bent on the destruction of America and our freedoms," it reads.
''America's Army'', considered by the U.S. Army to be a "cost-effective recruitment tool," aims to become part of youth culture's "consideration set," as ''Army deputy chief of personnel'', Timothy Maude, testified before the ''Senate Armed Services Committee''.[http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=hodes20020823]
''America's Army'' is the first game to make recruitment an explicit goal and the first well-known overt use of computer gaming for political aims.
The game also extends the military entertainment complex, as so-called "militainment" further blurring the line between entertainment and war,[http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=1012] with one side stating it will help close the cleft between military and civil life and the other argueing it contributes to a militarization of society.[http://www.gamasutra.com/education/theses/20040725/ZLITHESIS.pdf]
Research papers of four different universities that have analysed ''America's Army'' all confirm that the game is propaganda and one also says that "video game propaganda, whether morally right or wrong, is here to stay. It is not a passing phase, but an effective way that the Federal government of the United States has discovered to recruit soldiers and something other nations are now beginning to experiment with as well." The paper predicts that "video game propaganda will prove to be most effective" as well.[http://www-ugs.csusb.edu/honors/02/ResTravis.htm]
After the paper had been released, a poll by ''I for I Research'' said that 30 percent of young people who had a positive view of the military said that they had developed that view by playing the game. At the United States Military Academy 19 percent of 2003's freshman class stated they had played the game. Enlistment quotas were met in the two years directly following the game's release.[http://www.notinourname.net/resources_links/video-game-7nov03.htm]
[[Image:AA_Zyda.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Director of the ''MOVES Institute'', Professor M. Zyda, presenting ''AA:Special Forces'']]
M. Paul Boyce, an Army public affairs officer at the Pentagon, was quoted as saying it would never be possible to find out what difference the game has made to recruitment numbers, but that he hoped no one has been recruited because of the game on the grounds that ''America's Army'' makes no attempt to help answer "hard questions" about the Army, such as "Is it right for me, is it right for my family, and is it right for my country?".[http://www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0412/01/A01-20800.htm]
In fact ''America's Army'' focuses on the technological aspect of war rather than the Morality one and has also therefore been referred to as ''How We Fight'', alluding to the U.S. government's series of films named ''Why We Fight'', which supported the war effort for World War II.[http://www.mediaed.org/news/articles/militarism]
In an interview with the American journalist Gary Webb, Professor Zyda said: "We thought we'd have a lot more problems. But the country is in this mood where anything the military does is great. ... 9/11 sort of assured the success of this game. I'm not sure what kind of reception it would have received otherwise."[http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-10-14/cover.asp]
==External links==
*[http://www.americasarmy.com/ ''America's Army'' website (PC)] | [http://www.riseofasoldier.com ''America's Army'' website (consoles)] | [http://www.movesinstitute.org ''The MOVES Institute'' website (developers)]
===Journalistic articles===
*[http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/780344/posts "Simulated Sniping - U.S. Army Recruits Teens With Internet Game"] by ''ABC News'' (on January 11, 2002)
*[http://businessweek.com/technology/content/may2002/tc20020523_2266.htm "The Army's New Killer App"] by a journalist for the U.S. business magazine ''BusinessWeek'' (May 22, 2002)
*[http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/employment/0%2C39020648%2C2110781%2C00.htm "U.S. Army using games to recruit soldiers"] by a journalist from ''ZDNet'' for ''CNET Networks'' (May 23, 2002)
*[http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/db/archivedarticles.asp?ID=20025&date=5/28/2002 "Army targets, misleads U.S. youth"] by a student for the University of California, Los Angeles's ''ASUCLA Student Media'' (May 28, 2002)
*[http://money.cnn.com/2002/05/31/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/ "Your tax dollars at play"] by one of the leading global news networks: ''Cable News Network'' (June 3, 2002)
*[http://cbsnews.cbs.com/stories/2002/07/02/tech/main514088.shtml "Join The Interactive Army"] by one of the largest U.S. news agencies: The ''Associated Press'' (July 2, 2002)
*[http://www.sptimes.com/2002/08/19/Technology/Uncle_Sam_wants_you_t.shtml "Uncle Sam wants you (to play)"] by the largest paper in Florida: ''St. Petersburg Times'' (August 19, 2002)
*[http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=hodes20020823 "'America's Army' Targets Youth"] by the oldest weekly newpaper in the U.S.: ''The Nation'' (August 23, 2002)
*[http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A43712-2003Apr6 "In Wartime, Teens Go Back to Their Quarters"] by a journalist of the paper ''Washington Post'' (April 7, 2003)
*[http://www.notinourname.net/resources_links/video-game-7nov03.htm "Army targets youth with video game"] by the national U.S. organization ''Not in our name'' (November 7, 2003)
*[http://www.sun-sentinel.com/technology/reviews/chi-0311070217nov07%2C0%2C2769799.story "Army targets recruits with new game"] by a large Florida daily newspaper ''Sun-Sentinel'' (November 7, 2003)
*[http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=4688%20 "The Pentagon Invades Your Xbox"] by a doctoral student for ''The Los Angeles Times'' (December 16, 2003)
*[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/30/eveningnews/main609489.shtml "Army Recruits Video Gamers"] by a United States major radio and television network, ''CBS'' (April 1, 2004)
*[http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/features/story/0,,1242262,00.html "Recruitment hard drive"] by a popular British serious broadsheet newspaper: ''The Guardian'' (June 19, 2004)
*[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5318462/ "War games in a time of war"] by one of the leading cable news channel in the U.S., ''MSNBC'' (July 18, 2004)
*[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/23/BAGLG8T3MR1.DTL "Army's war game recruits kids"] by a large U.S. newspaper: ''San Francisco Chronicle'' (September 23, 2004)
*[http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-10-14/cover.asp "The killing game"] by the notable U.S. journalist who died in December 2004: Gary Webb (October 14, 2004)
*[http://www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0412/01/A01-20800.htm "4 million decide to be all they can be -- online"] by the U.S. newspaper ''The Detroit News'' (December 1, 2004)
*[http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/05/19/news_6124594.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6124594 "E3 Update: America's Army polishes up its act"] interview with Wardynski by ''GameSpot'' (May 20, 2005)
===Academic articles===
*[http://www.mediaed.org/news/articles/militarism "Militarism and video games"] interview with doctoral candidate in Communication at the University of Massachusetts
*[http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2004-05-03/777.asp "Cyber Sam wants you!"] short report by a student of and for the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
*[http://www.gamespace.nl/content/NieborgVanderGraaf_TogetherWeBrand_2003.pdf "Together We Brand: ''America's Army''] analysis (13 page) by Shenja van der Graaf and David B. Nieborg in the name of the Utrecht University
*[http://www.gamespace.nl/content/ISAGA_Nieborg.PDF "America's Army: more than a game?"] article on ''America's Army'' by David B. Nieborg in the name of the Utrecht University
*[http://www.minitrue.nl/essays/nmnc-aa/sean.html "America's Exclusion: Operation"] about the practise of inclusion and exclusion inside ''AA'' by Sean Storey for the Utrecht University
*[http://www.minitrue.nl/essays/nmnc-aa/justin.html "The message is the game, or is it?"] about the practise of inclusion and exclusion outside ''AA'' by Justin Beck for the Utrecht University
*[http://www.minitrue.nl/essays/nmnc-aa/ruud.html "Virtual Dictators, Real Exclusion"] about the practise of community forming in ''AA'' clans by Ruud Oud for the Utrecht University
*[http://www.minitrue.nl/essays/nmnc-aa/jeroen.html "Empower yourself, defend freedom"] comparison between ''AA'' and ''Counter-Strike'' by Jeroen Steeman for the Utrecht University
*[http://www-ugs.csusb.edu/honors/02/ResTravis.htm "Video game propaganda"] University research paper focusing on ''America's Army'' in the name of the California State University
*[http://www.stanford.edu/class/sts145/Library/Lenoir-Lowood_TheatersOfWar.pdf "Theatre of war: The military entertainment complex"] analysis (42 pages) by two students in the name of the Stanford University
*[http://www.gamasutra.com/education/theses/20030721/Kleeberger_thesis.pdf "Online-Gaming as Marketing and Sales Catalyst"] analysis (with pages 50-51 for ''America's Army'') for the University of St. Gallen
*[http://www.gamasutra.com/education/theses/20040725/ZLITHESIS.pdf "The Potential of ''America's Army ''as Civilian-Military Public Sphere"] extensive academic analysis (149 pages) for the MIT
*[http://www.yorku.ca/yciss/publications/documents/WP27-Kumar.pdf "''America's Army'' Game and the Production of War"] analysis (20 pages) by a Master's degree candidate in the name of the York University
*[http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=simile/issue16/leonardfulltext.html "Unsettling the military entertainment complex: Video games and a pedagogy of peace"] by a Washington State University professor
*[http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/galloway/ "Social Realism in Gaming"] analysis of how ''America's Army'' is not a realist game by A. Galloway, a New York University professor
Linux games
Windows games
Mac OS games
Xbox games
PlayStation 2 games
First-person shooters
2002 computer and video games
Propaganda examples
Multiplayer online games
Ubisoft Entertainment games
''Talk:America's Army/archive1 - Propaganda'' ''Talk:America's Army/archive2 - Various discussions'' ==More Debate== Unmistakably, this article's history page has become a single sided enumeration of changes by the user User:Ele9699. In less than one hour this user made already ten major changes to the article and in the last two days there were 64 edits by User:Ele9699. Most of his changes are, in my opinion, not acceptable at all and need to be reverted at any rate. I think the most fitting sentence added by the aforementioned user to elucidate my criticism is the following: ''"For example, if a soldier drops his weapon when a OPFOR soldier see's it, it picks it up it will funcion as a OPFOR weapon rather then how it appeared to the person who dropped it."'' Indisputably, this sentence demonstrates definite mistakes in grammar and spelling. Also, the sentence's relevance is unrecognizably and in my view completely pointless. Moreover, the statement is false, since a "soldier" in the game does not necessarily pick up every weapon of "a OPFOR" when he sees it dropping. Most sentences the user User:Ele9699 thought up are on a similar quality level which is, in my view, inadequate for this article and wikipedia in general.User:RememberMe :Feel fee to improve my edits and fix grammar, however, not all those edits are mine, and many are from previous people edits I re-incororated into the article. User:Ele9699 17:41, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::It doesn't matter from whom your edits are, you take the responsibilty for them if you apply them. Your edits can only be improved by being removed.User:RememberMe :Ok User:RememberMe / User:Nightbeast / User:BeOnGuard / 62.134.105.101 / 212.144.105.156 / 149.225.40.78 etc. etc. its just restoring the page, the information was submitted by those people to wikipedia. If you want to argue over other people's edits, you need to take it up with them. And you violated 3R again btw, it hasn't been 24hrs yet since your the first of your last reverts. User:Ele9699 18:53, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) Actually I'm only the IPs and Nightbeast. RememberMe is a friend of mine, but I don't even know Beanguard. Smells like you're projecting your image on other people considering your many dishonest users, Ele. As far as your contributions are concerned: if you really want your material saved, don't edit for the sake of changing something; edit for the sake of improving. Well, just keep in mind that this is not a forum but something that should be of quality like a history book. Could you imagine your edits in such a book??User:62.134.105.101 22:36, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) :I think your a lieing IMO, then again I can't really know can I, since you refuse to identify yourself consistently. I am i talking to "you" now? Or your freind? Or your freinds freind? Or perhaps another unkown ip and you are somedy new. Its not possible to have a disscussion when the identy is never known, you do not abide by and cannot be identified by your dynamic IP, and despite all your claims of page quality and my willingness to see your your points included, the majority of "your" edits are simple reverts to old versions that take little or no account of basic page improvemnts including spelling, basic game information, and other edits. User:Ele9699 23:48, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) Oh, stop that idiotic hypocrisy! It's like Bond said on the talk page: an IP address is in no way as anonymous as an account, so talking about identification, I cannot know a thing about you while you could have known a lot more about me. All I know is you're hiding behind three names and all you can do is try to accuse of being similar to you. You do that to distract from you. And that's why you're trying to complain about identification: you want to distract. Attack is the best of defences, huh? Your edits are all similar and I know you've been on this page before, because I remember there once was someone who wanted to (wrongly) point out that the game is a series. (Just because the game has updates, doesn't mean it's a series.) For you an improvement is what you do - for me an improvement is an edit that is relevant, correct, NPOV, not misleading and unbiased. If you have a problem with reverting your irrelevant, misleading, spamming and incorrect imPOVments, let's call for IMpartial third party help, shall we?User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==some edits by kukuman== OK, I went through the article and made some changes. Mostly copyediting but I removed/changed parts that were blatant POV problems, things that didn't belong in the article, redundant parts, and things which made no sense. I reverted the Controversy and part of the Realism sections back to the old ones because they were too poorly written and I didn't want to bother deciphering them. If you want to readd them go ahead but please rewrite them and take your time when you do. I left the link to America's Army Controversy in, even though it is poorly written at best and blatanly biased at worst. I also removed the Accounts and Third Party Utilities sections because they were wastes of space. Please comment on my edits and try not to just revert them. --User:Kukuman 09:14, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) I've had a look at the edits and made an edit. 1)You made the date more exact (not only 2002). I agree.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 2)You corrected a spelling mistake. I disagree because there's no need to mention the second "main release" at all. It's just a name that changed.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 3)You corrected another spelling mistake. But again: the sentence doesn't fit at all. I've tried to explained it to Ele.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 4)You changed "pertaining to" to "in"... I agree if it's grammatically correct, which I assume.User:Nightbeast 5)You added "attempts to avoid an unrealistic style of play." I disagree. If it attempted to do so, it would have more civilians for example.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 6)You fixed a spelling mistake. I disagree on it because I disagree on the sentence. The game is NOT designed for that. Mentioning this redundant advertisement lie and so much of it in the "overview", reflects total bias. Also, the link to the page is not allowed.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 7)You added "The gameplay is similar to that of ''Counter-Strike'', a ''Half-Life'' mod (computer gaming) and the most widely played online first-person shooter in the early 2000s.". I couldn't agree more.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 8)You've fixed spelling mistakes in Ele's false, misleading and irrelevant sentence about the number of accounts. I've told him.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 9)You changed the order of "CD-Rom"... sounds better, I agree.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 10)You fixed spelling mistakes in Ele's irrelevant, false and misleading other sentence.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 11)You replaced "costed 7.5 million Dollars " with "cost US$7.5 million". I just fixed the tense and added the link. It's now "costed US Dollars7.5 million". Hope you don't mind.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 12)You replaced "often played" with "popular". Often played is a fact, popular also means "well-liked" or "admired". That's not the same.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 13)You deleted "(where the game is alloted as well)". I don't think it should be deleted. It's interesting where the game is spread... somehow... and although it's a bit irrelevant, it only takes 6 words.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 14)You deleted "Target groups for recruitment are between 17 and 24-year-old males." I think that's an important piece of information because it shows that gamers are in the target group to a high percentage. It's therefore relevant to understand why the FPS-world was chosen and not lego or something like that. It's not so obvious.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 15)You deleted ", so essential did they prove in Afghanistan and northern Iraq; ". I don't think it should. That's the reason why SF is supposed to be doubled, the reason why SF was chosen.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 16)You deleted "On November 6, 2003, version 2.0.0. ''America's Army: Special Forces'' was published. This version, more progressive in comparision to the first one, also shows how much personnel and money the US Army invests in the game. The permanent financial support of servers underscores that.". I added "(e.g. through servers)" so the information that the army supports it with servers isn't completely lost.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 17)You fixed "release on".User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 18)You reconstructed "Controversy". Thanks. 19)Gameplay: you replaced a brackets with a comma. I replaced the other.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 20)"Assault and Defence" and "assault and defence" existed. You wrote them both with small letters. I wrote them both with capital letters because they're always written like that. I hope you don't mind.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 21)You wrote "OPFOR", but they're mostly writte "OpFor", so I've changed that.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 22)You deleted a paragraph about the transformation. I restored the sentence " Not only the opposing US soldiers are depicted differently, but also their weapons, objectives, voices and vehicles." because that's a good summary in my opinion. If you like, you can delete it again, but then other parts of less relevance should be deleted before. It's not the most irrelevant sentence of "transformation" paragraph.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 23)I changed the three sentences about the objectives. You should check them. I'm not sure if they're fitting.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 24)I removed the stuff about the weapons that you later fixed. It's got no relevance.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 25)I wrote "HONOR" in capitals. It's written like this everywhere on the official site. Also, it distinguishes the word from the real word Honor/Honour.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 26)I agree on the following two little changes ("kills", " and how") 27)I disagree on "every time you fail to protect an objective which you are assigned to defend,". That's not true. Besides I've already discussed the sentence before... somewhere on the talk book.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 28)I agree on your "teammates". The other description was already used.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 29)You changed "but also" to "and every". I changed it to "as well as every"... sounds better.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ... and so on. In general I agreed on much of what you have changed. But before "Accounts" gets excluded, I think "weapons" and "versions" should come first, maybe even "cheating". Please list wherever you disagree with my edits. Just place a comment beneath the respective point. If you agree with a point, delete the point. The page is long enough. I hope someone archieves sections on the discussion page that are not being discussed anymore. Ele, I don't agree with your new categories. The relevance of them is next to nothing and they waste as much space as more relevant sections. Relevance may partly be in the eye of the observer but your contributions are not informative at all. Not even players would care at all. But I like the contribution to version if you can prove it is true (mac, linux, windows). Please make sure you can justify your edits and prove a helping attitute on the talk page. I'm really sick of getting my work ignored by you. §Do to others as you would have them do to you.§ or something like that.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) Ele, I do not want an edit war, but I do not want your changes either, so I'll try the first step of dispute resulution and try to talk. Your edits are horrible and I can give you an explanation for them all. For example: "Single player(training missions only), multiplayer (combat and training missions)". It makes no sense to write "(combat and training missions)" unless you want to mislead. It would claim the game had trainings missions for the multiplayer mode, but it does not in reality. That's sneaky vandalism. The next edit was "(not all versions)" concerning mac versions. But that's misleading again: mac players cannot play the game - there are no servers anymore. What's the point of distorting the truth? Any third party reading this will immediately recognize the kind of your edits. Can you at least justify ANY edit?? Please be more constructive and decide for the way of discussing with an open mind. Your most extreme case is probably that you're even breaking the copyright laws by having the link to www.americasarmy.com/... . Only the link to www.americasarmy.com is allowed. These are all small issues, but you've made over 100 edits of those issues.User:Nightbeast 20:48, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :"It would claim the game had trainings missions for the multiplayer mode, but it does not in reality." Have you even played the game? There is entire mulitplayer level that is a training map that require MILES (laser tag only) in a fake urban environment. User:Ele9699 21:11, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) Then everything is training! Meant by training is where players get to know movements, controls, etc. What you're talking of is multiplayer combat against other player that uses other weapon effects and models. That's not what is training in video games! It has score, Honor, ROE, etc. only the effects are different. In real life it would be training, but training in video games is different. Are we talking about the game or the army? You said what the article is about. The map is a mission, an operation. Otherwise it would be misleading.User:Nightbeast 21:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Look you are wrong, the level is not a combat mission like the others. Its only laser tag, and the players sit down when they "die". This is not like other missions which are meant as hypothetical, but "real" combat. User:Ele9699 21:59, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Should AA:SF be split off== :Should AA:SF split off from the AA page? The intial AA:o versions have a number of differences over SF, and a lot of reviews handle them seperately. As changes accumulate with SF additions (new weapons etc) the page is going to be quite large, and for example a article doesn't need to talk about future developments really since its not updated anymore. User:Ele9699 18:46, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Of course NOT! How many articles would wikipedia comprise if you created a new article for every version of software???? A question like this is just ridiculous. User:RememberMe 19:00, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Umm it wouldn't be for "every version", one for the intial versions up to V1.9, and the other for the second big release SF. SF changed a LOT of things and it doesn't make sense to combine them some things are true for one but not the other. User:Ele9699 19:29, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) If you pay for the site, Ele, why not? Look. It's not reasonable to create more pages because one update has the name AA:SF instead of name AA:O. The update didn't change more of the game than any other, but, you're right... if you don't play the game, but play the name. You said it's an article about the game, Ele. Suddenly it's an article about the name? So 4.5 million people registered for AA:O? Or for AA:SF? Or maybe for AA??? You see, even if you accept the lie that there were 4.5 million people registered, you must admit not even the developers differentiate between there "different games". Don't spam with edits and sites. Please consider the logical borders between relevance and irrelevance.User:Nightbeast 19:27, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) No, all the AA versions should be covered in this article. The differences between versions are not big enough to warrant their own articles. User:Kukuman 19:37, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Perhaps... neverthless the differences are growing with each new release so it some point it will make more sense to have two smaller articles then one large one. Here is the boxart for sf when that time comes. User:Ele9699 02:44, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Ok, they've a new cover for the hand-out version (it is extremely rare that this cover is seen because the game is downloaded by an overwhelming majority) and they have partly changed the name to make the game appear to be new. However, it is merely an update and doesn't end or begin America's Army at all. The name changes all the time, and new version of the game come and go. There was also America's Army: Recruit or something, the first version. Another name, another version, nothing worth considering. You cannot call America's Army a series because it is ONE developing game. An update is NOT a new game. An optical apportionment makes no sense, an apportionment relating to contents is needed, an apportionment in non-fiction and fiction. I've explained why already, in the section below this.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well it depends on the situation, somtimes having two smaller articles can work better then a single larger one. As for the names for the intial versions 1- 1.9, they were mainly patches to the intail version under the name 'operations', and are good to be combined in as single entity. With 2.0 the main name was now Special Forces, and was a bigger change then the previous patches and changed many features in addition to just game content- changes that grow more significant with each new patch to SF. For example, SF was reviewed independly of the first versions by news sites. The other names your talking about, are the names of patches (i.e 'firefight' etc.)which add content under the banner of a release name. These patches are comparable to a expansion pack that are commonly released for other games. User:Ele9699 18:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::When I tried to establish an article for something called Habbo Hotel for the German version of Wikipedia, it nearly got deleted on grounds of irrelevance. In fact, the irony is that this pointless game has more players than America's Army does. Video games are part of culture, but they come and go and are extremely numerous and certainly many doubt articles about video games are educating at all. Certainly America's Army is especially interesting concerning its background and therefore needs to be included if other famous games are included too, but would that justify a new article? Because the background remains the same? Because there are several versions that slightly changed the gameplay and made it up to date so America's Army can survive? Because a new article of America's Army would contain almost the same as any other version's article would? Would THAT really make the article smaller and spare room, or would that just create two similar articles of (almost) the same space? I even doubt it would shorten ANY article, not to mention that it would just multiply primarily. Above all, while you insist on calling the game a series of games because it has updates (Warcraft is a series of games - there is Warcraf 1-3, but is Warcraft 3 a series?? It has updates too. Is an update a new game or an update of a game??). Now, you can say America's Army is a modification of Unreal Tournament, just like you can say Counter-Strike is a modification of Half-Life: both are mods but some versions don't depend on the mother game. A modification is a modification if the version is modificated from the mother game, and this both fits for America's Army and Counter-Strike. Sure, you'd now like to point out that UT and AA are very different, but then you would introduce a border between modification and game capriciously, say depending on your matter of opinion. So you see: calling America's Army a game instead of a simple modification even plays down the truth. But suddenly it's even a series of games that needs a new article for some irrelevant updates that changed next to nothing???? If you really want two articles, you can create one for reality of America's Army and America's Army make-believe part. Just because a part of the name after America's Army has changed to appear new doesn't justify a new article. If you like you can create new articles on Albert Einstein for updates / every new year of his life. But I guess America's Army, a computer modification, is far more relevant and needs more articles than a simple man.User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::Many gaming sites have reviewed them as seperate games. Intersting points, but there may come a point when its better to have 2 smaller articles then one larger one. User:Ele9699 22:01, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Minor mac Changes== I don't know what all of this arguing is about. I'm new so if someone will fill me in, I'll try my best to help. -Anyway, I went ahead and put in some version/mac development notes regarding the mac/gamespy situation.User:Mediaright Now, there are two different versions of the article. The "out-dated" but discussed and accepted version and a "new" version by user:Ele9699 and his other nicknames. Ele edited ''a bit'', that is, over hundred versions. I find his changes irrelevant, POV, poorly written, misleading and false. He finds the original version "out-dated" (but hasn't said why and in what way) and accused me of having additional users hiding behind (I'll come back to this). I've tried to discuss his first 50% or so changes and tried to explain why they don't fit Wikipedia and he's replied once then stopped, ignoring most points. As discussing obviously doesn't help, I'll try to contact a mediator, which another user adviced me to do. I'll try to explain to the mediator my point of view and will tell Ele to do the same. As far as his accusations are concerned, I want a meeting in ICQ or IRC or anywhere else where you can see that there are two persons and not one to prove me and user:RememberMe are not the same. At the same time I accuse him of being user:GACSean and would like a similar test for him. The tests would not only show how many reverts and opinions the user represents, but also it would check honesty and reliability. Speaking of which, I would like Ele to give prove of a lot of claims, e.g. where he found the additional information to the >>version<< section in the article. That shouldn't be too hard. So please find reliable sources, Ele. You haven't really proven your reliability so far. Also, I'd like to request separation of the article, in ''reality'' and ''virtuality''. If I'm right in guessing, having two little articles is better for the database than one of the same size. Furthermore it would allow him to include more of his rather irrelevant information (e.g. about maps). Of course the primary part of the article would be about ''reality'', that is "overview", "history", "controversy" and "realism". There is a difference between "kill a player" in reality and "kill a player" in virtuality, don't you think so? That would avoid ambiguousness. Ambiguousness, for example, I realized in our latest little dispute about "training". I thought about "training" concerning video games, while he thought about "training" in real life (army training). Another good reason to put the focus on reality is certainly that we live in REALITY instead of virtuality and thet section about reality would not only be informative for gamers, but for almost everyone. I'm not even sure if the rest, the virtuality part, is even informative for gamers: why would anyone read through the names of the maps? Or the guns? Or gameplay? (I would be interested in gameplay if I hadn't played the game though). The big picture of America's Army is certainly the ''reality'' part. I do not think that any university would care about the extremely specific parts of gameplay. For me ''virtuality'' would be like describing the colors of a national flag instead of what the flag stands for, when it was founded, what was the cause and effect and so on. Almost all w-questions would it describe. And that's just what the ''reality'' part of the article represents. The virtuality part should have some links, and could include the parts I find irrelevant. I felt he was trying to play down the important and informative parts of the article by spamming it with trash and thereby creating an unfair proportion of information (a university article is certainly more relevant than some german clan site). Agreeing on putting it elsewhere would kill that impression and would justify his sections in my opinion. If he was trying to manipulate by creating an unfair proportion, it would be no good anymore, then he could only spam the irrelevant part.User:Nightbeast 19:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Hmm interesting points, I agree on something disagree on others. For example, that german fansite probably needs to go. Once again, feel free to edit things like that. However, stop reverting the page to the out of date one. User:Ele9699 20:49, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::OK. Thanks for all of the info. Here's a bit of fresh info. The goal of the internet and Wikipedia is to provide a collective database of reliable knowledge that could be used in anything from a discovery to even a research paper if need be. Our job is to make this info reliable, and as easy to use and find as possible. We shouldn't concern ourselves with server and other technical issues. Wiki is in talks with Google for server hosting and is holding a fund drive right now. They can spare the space. I think that we should keep this all one article because it is easier to use for someone who has no idea what we are talking about to use 1 vs. 2. Just use a table of contents. On general info versus technical, it is the place of Wikipedia to provide as much info as possible. It doesn't matter what WE think people will be interested in as long as all the info a person COULD want is there and we organize the info in a way that anyone from beginners to advanced players can navigate easily. On reality vs. virtual, we should just use 2 clear sections, one on history and origan, and one on gameplay. We should also use more specific words in the gameplay section like killing the PLAYER'S CHARACTER, rather than the player. Once again, we should look at this all from a users standpoint. It should all be easy for all users to find anything they could possibly want in addition to basic easy info for new users. Anything else? ::History, Message and Gameplay should be enough? That would also be JUST what the german version of America's Army's article includes. But what about the rest of the materical? Move to a sub-article or remove?User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::I think the information about the mac's was fine, as for the other stuff its ground we'v already covered. User:Ele9699 22:03, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Page Changes== User:Rememberme, if you want to add your idea's in you need to edit them and not revert to a outdated and highly pov version. It disregards dozens of spelling fixes, links, info, and corrections. User:Ele9699 18:53, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :1)I'm not reverting your reverts in order to include ideas. I'm reverting to prevent your vandalism :2)"outdated"?? Just because you're editing like a beserk does not mean other edits are outdated! :3)"highly pov version"??? I'm not the one who moves "controvery" somewhere else but let superfluous information about weapons, realism and maps remain. :4)spelling fixes??? links? I think this article can do without links to forums. There have been enough links to articles about the game written by reliable information sources. :5)"info?" This article can do without a list of maps that are present in the different versions. That's just superfluous. If you want to write a book, that might be worth including. :6)"disregarding"? That's what you're doing all the time. :7)Your edits are not justified. Statements like "The game, while mostly well received by the gaming community.." is just not bearable without prove. That's only your speculation. :8)You violate the law: The disclaimer of americasarmy.com prohibits linking resources. They mean Direct Linking of content (i.e. linking to pictures), not linking to pages. Get your facts stright man. User:Ele9699 22:38, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :9)The pictures you add are not connected to the game. If you think every weapon the game imitates needs a picture of the real weapon, create a gallery for it.User:RememberMe 19:13, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) Feel free to edit your idea's in, just not by reverting the entire page to old version. Also, that sentence has been modified by other users, feel free to edit that one too (or even remove it). User:Ele9699 20:35, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :What's the point of adding ideas? These small, immature details one might brainstorm are usually not what should be in an encyclopedia. Above all, you're always talking about "old" or "out-dated". Why don't you explain WHY it is too old? WHY would something good that is old worse than something bad but new? With bad I mean inconsiderableness, bias, possible copyright infrigements, opinions, misleading statements and falsehood? Please be reasonable.User:Nightbeast 20:49, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) "What's the point of adding ideas?" Well thats what wikipedia is about. The version that you revert to lacks changes ranging from remove POV, incorrect information about the game, to spelling changes, in addition other material by me and other users. User:Ele9699 21:11, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Could you please be more exact? Where are things based on opinion in the original version? Where is incorrect information? Where are spelling mistakes? There is certainly not everything from other people included, yes, just like not everything is correct, npov, pertinent, accurate ... fitting Wikipedia. I'll verify my claims tomorrow. As I see, the page is protected anyway, which allows us to focus more on debating than on editing. I've got to do something today. Cu tomorrow.User:Nightbeast 21:58, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) Well depending on whether your talking about edits by you, your 'friend' Rememberme, or any number the IPs that 'you' have edited from there are a wide range changes that across the board, and a lot of these we have already gone over actually. Also, its not just about what is there, its about whats not there and whats missing. User:Ele9699 22:17, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) * You have both broken the 3 revert rule already. Cool down or the page will be protected from editing. User:Kukuman 19:47, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Suggested changes== Here are my suggested changes. First, probably the most obvious, is get rid of traces of bias and POV. The "Realism" section needs to be done away with. Realism in games, especially "violent" games, is a point of contention. The Cheating section should be removed too, as it isn't really noteworthy and not unique (almost every online game has identical cheating problems). Also, remove pictures that aren't directly related to the game (eg the pictures of real-life weapons). This has the side effect of making the article smaller, which is needed, since last time I edited it it was over 32 KB. Anyway, I would appreciate it if everyone else would chip in with their suggestions without resorting to attacks on other editors. I think it is possible to incorporate ideas from each editor in one article; almost all of the reverts made so far have been very hasty in my opinion. User:Kukuman 01:46, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Sure great I would be fine with those changes. Note that I have no problem with User:RememberMe / User:Nightbeast / User:BeOnGuard / 62.134.105.101 / 212.144.105.156 / 149.225.40.78 / etc. adding content about it being for army recruitment (even "propoganda"), etc. and associated links, but he ("they") have never taken me up on the offer, prefering large reverts. I do however think that there should not be a large section on the controversy, because the focus should be on the game. I also refuse to let the page be reverted to that old version, first done by a anonmyous dymaic ip, though now mainly done by nightbeast and rememberme after I refused to interact with the "ip". User:Ele9699 02:17, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::"Ele", "you" seem If the focus is on the game, the game as a whole, and not somewhere on in the gameplay, which is only a means to an end, "Controversy" remains one of the most important sections because it explains WHAT the game is about and the EFFECT/result_of_the_experiment (the cause is explained in "History"). This fills the viewer in on WHY the game was made. This is completely about the game, even about the game's situation as a whole, while the virtuality part is out of the picture and in its irrelevance focusing on many and very small details. I've given the main reasons in "Minor mac changes", above.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Realism ::I agree partly. First off, realism has relevance not only to the non-fictional part, but also to the fictional. The non-fictional part is informative to both gamers and non-gamers, while the fictional is informative to gamers. The developers claim it is realistic. Realistic, that means, showing reality instead of escaping reality, which games usually stand for. Why play a game for reality when you face an accurate 100% reality in the free of charge game called the real world? Anyway. A claim that something is realistic is equivalent to a claim that something is the truth. What is real, is true. In reality = in truth. So if someone claims the game is 'ultra-realistic' like a newspaper did, or the game 'represents the real army' (instead of 'misrepresents') like the developers said in a statement, it is like making the ''message'' called America's Army a ''statement'', a ''claim''. The fact they they claim it is close to reality makes the game similar to an allegation about reality. Of course it needs to be analysed to what extent the claim is true, whether the game is for teaching about reality or for distorting the truth. The realism must of course be differentiated: doom3, for example (ele said this game turned out to be unrealistic) is much more realistic concerning physics, the graphics and sounds. For instance if a zombie in the game happens to touch a ton, it shakes and might fall if it was hard enough. This example also shows where the game is unrealistic: it is science-fiction, the protagonist is supposed to fight monsters in a made-up future. America's Army chose to depict a non-fictional world, which doesn't necessarily make the game realistic. Graphics and sounds, the physics, are only a small part of what the word "realism" all includes. Of course Doom 3 is considered unrealistic immediately, by latest when you see some flying and burning skull want to fly into your face. ::Realism has always been one of the most popular arguments players presented for the game. "I like it because it is the most realistic action game out there" blah blah blah. This needs to be analysed. Realism is probably the most important focus that the game has (or not). First question from FAQ: Q: What is the America's Army game? ::A: …an accurate portrayal of Soldier experiences … ... Read through all the questions on the FAQ on americasarmy.com and you'll get to know how teaching the developers claim the game to be. If the game's alleged purpose is to teach, it is necessary to check to what extent truth and the game's fiction differ.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Cheating ::Certainly most first-person-shooters have problems with cheating, but in other games there are also weapons, and maps, and versions, and communities, and other things pertaining to their virtuality. Also, unlike all these other points, cheating is what the players care about, it is one of the most popular discussion topics in the game, and despite of its age, it hasn't lost topicality. Cheating-section can certainly be put on the same level like the other virtuality-concerning topics, which are: "Weaponry", "Classes and their specific equipment", "Weapons planned for future versions", "Accounts", "Training", "Maps", "Clans" (will later be reintroduced after the article's split, just like more details about "OPFOR Transformation") and "Versions". Also, note that these names that I just wrote are objective while "Training Missions, Medical First Aid" is not for example. "Medical training" is only part of the training and it would be biased if it has such a big proportion of training.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Pictures ::Pictures make alive articles so it can only be in the interest of the article to have pictures in general. However, these pictures must fit and be in a fair proportion. Pictures about weapons from reality that are depicted in the game are redundant: that's not the game. Do you think a corpse from reality would fit the article for Doom 3? (I like that example for some reason.) Reality and virtuality doesn't match. I have a picture of Zyda standing in front of a screen with AA (he delivered a speech about the MOVES Institute) and a happy Wardynski also standing in front of an AA screen. I've also shots from the E3 2004 with soldiers advertising for America's Army. Concerning virtuality, I have screenshots about the game, which are fair! This means, they've standard settings of graphics and were taken on the most often played maps. One is the player spawn on hospital (the most often played map) escort team, one depicts a teammate on pipeline (the second most often played map) and one the same guy from the enemy's point of view. As I see you, Ele, have reintroduced the advertising picture from americasarmy.com and labeled it "screenshot". The map it depicts is unpopular, the graphical settings certainly as high as possible, and the situation is rather unusual. I've explained why this picture should not be included to another person already and I don't know why you did it. Advertisement shots by the developers should not be included. I don't support your MILES-shots either. MILES is nothing in the game. Say, are there still servers for it at all? You're overemphasizing this totally.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well lot idea's I would agree, though lot of incorrect things/don't make sense/ things I would disagree. Overall I think I will still go kuks suggestions. I think that will help trim things down. ALso, your shots of e3 could be good too. User:Ele9699 22:49, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Don't say "I would agree" or disagree. Add further reasons for agreement/disagreement. Or it provokes the idea that you don't have any reasons at all. If you're opposing my view without reasons, my view must be correct - you don't know anything against it, it is reasonable and makes sense. Opposition without reason(s) is opposition without sense. It proves you're opposing for reasons you don't want to express because they're unlogical, unreasonable, self-centered or anything other unacceptable to be tolerated in wikipedia.User:Nightbeast 08:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well I already issued my earlier response to kukoman suggested changes, and you had yours. The important things is that regardless of the details I didn't change my mind from my earlier position. The reasons details etc. for the most part had already been gone over both in yours and earlier posts. User:Ele9699 18:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) Ok, ok, I get it. As Kukuman states cheating and realism ought to be removed with you agreeing on that, I conclude that you are in favor of "remove" rather than "move" irrelevant stuff and I hope you're talking of ''in general'' instead of thinking "cheating and realism was written by ''others''.". Am I right in guessing or not?User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Im not entirely sure what your saying here, but certainly those sections need to be at least overhauled, or maybe just trimmed down. For example, maybe just include the aspects of realism that are uniuque to AA. User:Ele9699 22:06, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Propaganda?== As i see it, America's Army is propaganda software, with the purpose of recruit young americans. It is the largest and most ambitious investment in propaganda software in the world. This is what is most interesting about this game, seen from a larger, NPOV view, and I belive it should have have main part in the article. But should we talk about propaganda, or commercials? * The word commercial is when a firm tries to give the public a posetive view of a comercial product. * The word propaganda is when a government tries to give the public a certain believe or ethic. America's Army is produced by the government. It's purpose is not to sell any comercial product, but to give the belief that the US army is "good". It fits best with the word propaganda. There is probably a lot of people who don't belive it is propaganda. It would be great to hear their views. I would especially like to hear what they believe the purpose of the game is, if not that of propaganda. I will do my best to stay on topic, and keep to clear, logical argumentation. I hope others will do the same. --User:Kasper Hviid 16:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Wow dude you off topic- There is little or no debate over it being a massive advertisement for the us military, at least not from me. 1) The problem is that the focus needs to be on the game, not on papers written about it. 2) you welcome to add these idea's to the article, just not by reverting the entire page to a old version. User:Ele9699 16:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Kasper, most of the discussion page is about Propaganda (mainly in archieve 1, but also in archieve 2). The result is this discussed but not current version [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=America%27s_Army&oldid=10521986] if you're interested in the topic. At the moment there's a dispute so the site got frozen.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Yes I was obviously talking about the ''current'' discussion. Furthermore its very misleading to say that page is the 'result' of discussion. Not only were many things added that were not discussed, but the majority of changes were left not because you reached a compromise, but because they got tired of arguing and undoing your reversions. For example, take your "discussions" with a user andre, it ended with ''I quit, people. I can't deal with this page anymore and Nightbeast/anonymous editor's nonsensical arguments. Sorry. Andre (talk) 20:21, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)''. User:Ele9699 00:56, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::That's YOUR opinion. As I see you're helplessly trying to gain support by the old opposition, so far unsuccessfully. What do you expect? Do you actually think just by being against me and pretending to be in the support of the "out-dated" (<- in your words, wouldn't it be?) opposition would give you any support? Be right, and you'll have support - be wrong, and you won't. Get used to it.User:Nightbeast 08:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well the current discussion is the current discussion, thats not really my opinion. Im not neccisarly looking for support, just involvement and in that case neither, I was citing it as example of somoen response to your behavior. Also, im not 'against' you either really, as we agree on a lot basics things. Such as the need to mention how it was for army recruitment, about the moves inst. etc, really. Not that we don't have differences, but at least on some 'core' issues. User:Ele9699 18:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) No, what I was talking about was why Andre left. He said it was because of a lack of time or something and I said it was because of the fact his version was protected and because he couldn't give ANY reason - however irrelevant - why my last edit should have been "vandalism" or anything else besides a reasonable change. But that's history and redundant anyway. Sure, you were looking for support, but not for impartial support. Back to topic: our versions' differences conflict with each other. And there can only be ONE article.User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) Ele9699>> I agree that the article should be about the game. But "about the game" is NOT just about the game from the players point of view, where we look at the gameplay, weapons, classes, cheating etc. It should also address what the reason is for the US army to produce the game. 99 % of all games are produced to be sold, where America's Army to 7.5 million Dollars are given away for free. From any other angle than that of the players, this is what make America's Army interesting. --User:Kasper Hviid 22:05, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Ok once again, AA is not a commercial product, its a goverment product. Saying that its ''not'' a commercial product is meaningless. That is also a very narrow defintition of propoganda, as it can came from other organizations besides a goverment. Neverthless, the game has the purpose of aiding recruitment among its goals. Its the official game of the us army afterall, and it should be mentioned, but it should not dominate the articles content which is already overloaded as it is. In depth analysis of papers written about the game and other aspects need there own space, like how is done elsewhere in the wikipedia. User:Ele9699 22:42, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::No, actually in depth analyses of small, virtual issues should have its own, small place while a summary of university material, including an explanation what America's Army is exactly and what was its reception/effect is adding a crucial contribution to the big picture. Getting stuck on small gaming details without context is everything but what an article needs. It's like an interpretation of a poem describing the first letter of every first line although this has doesn't contribute to the big picture at all - it is beside the picture, it is correct, yes, maybe, but it's got no relevance. Controversy states what THE GAME is, the virtual part states what is IN the game. If the article should describe THE GAME, and not somewhere lost in the game, you know what has more relevance very well. ::I will not comment on propaganda any longer. The discussion with two users created over hundred kByte of text and if you think this discussion is incomplete to any extent, you can discuss it with your history teacher if you like. I will not comment on propaganda as it seems to me to be a distraction, making an attempt to avoid commenting on the current dispute because you seem to know you're wrong. It is obvious that you only commented little on what I wrote, helplessly trying to take advantage of another oppurtunity to distract. Since the original version was discussed THROUGH, it has grounds. What was not discussed in it, was not ignored but agreed on. Your version ignored what was discussed and needs to be discussed at the same time. You cannot raise objection because you cannot give reasons other than 'I oppose because it's mine'. That's why you only discuss a bit, saying "We agree on some, disagree on others" as if you could only say that you disagree.User:Nightbeast 08:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) :::What is important for me, is that a the reader who read the article will be informed about the purpose of the game, and about the gameplay. The first should not dominate the article, as Ele9699 states, but it still requires a certain percentage of the article to be explained. If the article is too overloaded for that, we will have to remove something. :::Ele9699, if you feel that the propaganda issue is not discussed throughfully, it will of course needs to be continued. However, I hope that you just wanted to point out weaknesses in argumentation. Anyway, NightBeAsT said youre were runing another disbute, so let's put the potential propaganda discution way for now. --User:Kasper Hviid 10:52, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Terrible== I just stumbled over this looking for info on the game and this has got to be one of the worst articles on the Wikipedia. I read about 20 lines down and had to give up... The total lack of grammar is making it unreadable. Why is it protected in such a terrible state? Please fix :) User:Preisler 01:29, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) :It was protected because of an edit war. I made copyedits in the past but the article was protected before I could make a copyedit on the latest revisions. User:Kukuman 01:41, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Unprotected== The article has been unprotected and I have made some changes to the article, mostly what we discussed here. User:Kukuman 23:01, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC) Fine. Then we can update to the current discussed, agreed on and basic version again. This here is my last week in which I've almost no time but the good news is that after this I'll have several months free for this article. :) Ele, if you think I'd give up the article to pointlessness and anarchy, you're miscalculating the situation. I've spent almost half a year on this very article already and - maybe you won't understand this - I'll protect its progress and quality for the years to come. You might have had more time than me while I only was right and had reason, but I'll soon have time again so look forward to it :D. Kukuman, as you've deleted sections for irrelecance not according to the relevance-ladder (what is LEAST relevant should be excluded FIRST), I've now done so myself up to Gameplay like a user proposed on the talk page without facing any objection. As you all seem to agree on the small-article attempt excluding irrelevant parts instead of the long-article attempt moving irrelevant parts, I've fully realized the change and will now call the version the "current version" which should be our basis. This must be like this because the version should proceed, not restart. We cannot leave behind progress once achieved just because one user thinks the article should glorify the game instead of the standards of Wikipedia. By latest next week I'll have a look at ANY edit made in the article to see if I haven't forgotten any parts that were reasonable to change, so your constructive contribution will not get lost under any circumstances.User:Nightbeast 16:11, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) Bond, I know you can't stand me but that's all but a reason to start lying. There are TWO possibilities to handle the article: ONE delete irrelevant information, TWO move irrelevant information to neglect them. OTHERWISE the article would be BIASED because the proportion of relevant information would be neglected in favour of a spamming uniformative insider information overkill whose importance is next to nothing. There is no other way than these two ones to keep the article UNBIASED. So you're claiming the status quo is BIASED? Proof?! Your allegations are as weak as your lies, lies such as: "no one agreed to that". Look at what Mediaright wrote! I agreed to that, RememberMe agreed to it and NO ONE disagreed = 100 % agreement = unanimous agreement. If you're in favour of the big-article solution, do it yourself. You're still disagreeing only because you won't agree with ME as a person. LolUser:Nightbeast 18:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) Oh,I see why you're participating again: the other version included "serious game" and the advertisement picture. A screenshot is not an advertisement picture, and they all rejected "serious game", especially the neutral observers, who even doubted the existence of that at all. But I guess it is easier to some to click on "edit" than to accept the truth and bow to reason.User:Nightbeast 19:06, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) :WTF are you talking about. No where in this discussion page was it ever decided to delete half the page of RELEVANT information about the game. Sorry. This page is about the game. I guess you don't get that. User:K1Bond007 19:42, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC) I wonder if you could read as well as you can curse ("WTF". Hope you're not getting into personal attacks again). Read through what Mediaright wrote and its replies. There are two ways, like I said. If you want the big-solution, do it. Until then the small version remains. There's no other way in this except for BIAS and I think that JUST what you want. Remember: the page is about the P-R stunt America's Army. The developers didn't spent any money for a computer game. The actual game is just a means to an end and 1/3 is rather too much than too little. You still couldn't point out BIAS in the basis version. What's your idea? Just express an allegation at the top of the page to make the article look biased? No, forget it. Prove or yield.User:Nightbeast 20:00, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Because I want the page to have information on the game instead of what you call a "P-R stunt America's Army" that it's bias? This article is about the -game- plain and simple. Theres another article devoted specifically to the controversy of it. What was your reasoning for removing the versions section? No one agreed to that. What was your motive for replacing the history of the game with incorrect information... such as 2.3 being Q-Course. 2.3 is out and is called Firefight and has nothing to do with the planned Q-Course addition. You respond saying look at what Mediaright wrote and it's replies, but there is no real discussion there. It's just you and your opinion of the article. No discussion, no consensus. This page needs a complete rewrite and an overhaul and the changes you made were not for the better. User:K1Bond007 20:45, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC) I've said two or three times already why the other parts are less relevant so please find the line and comment on that instead of beginning once again. This beginning reminds of the "new" versions of the article as well: always restarting. This is not progress, this is just inefficient, this is a progress to a move backward. Can it be called "new"?? Anyhow. You said "no one agreed to that". Mediaright proposed it, I agreed, RememberMe agreed, and no one disagreed meaning they didn't mind-> they agreed. Of course they read it. To me, too, this step is a double-edged sword, because as you can see "Realism" and "Cheating" and also a bit of "accounts", "Versions" and "weapons" were written by me to a great extent. I do not mind if it is deleted because doesn't fit the article. I do not really mind if it is moved and thereby neglected because then the information isn't lost but fairly neglected. In fact I do not care whether possibility you all agree on, but the biased way is no way at all. It is biased, not because of the information, but because of the proportion of information. Since I don't think ONE computer game needs TWO articles and since it would take more work for all of us, I'm in favour of the shortcut-solution, and won't establish the long-solution. Anyone else would have to do that but then I'd have an eye on the other version too. Since I'm short of time this weak, I've established the shortcut-version already, so this is at least an unbiased solution. If you want to keep "Bias"sign or not, does not matter but after two weeks or so and no proven allegation I'll delete it so it can no longer mislead. I'm sorry Qcourse 2.3 Dogfight 2.3 ..whatever.. mistake. Such a little incorrect line can be fixed within seconds. But I won't have time to check all the edits till next week.User:Nightbeast 21:35, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==leaving== I give up on this article. I thought it was going the right direction with the removal of useless cruft but now the cruft has reappeared worse than ever. I'm giving up on video game/computer game articles completely since this happens over and over again with these. You guys have your fun. --User:Kukuman 01:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) No, if you leave, Ele has achieved JUST what he wants: successful aggravation of the article in the form of a spam-edit-wave as means of punishment, punishment that he wants to make use of any time he is unhappy about something and unhappy means that his edits are not accepted. If such stubborness and dogmatism against all reason and purpose of wikipedia is tolerated, wikipedia CANNOT work. I thought discussion could work but for discussion not only a reply is required but an open mind on both sides. Just to reply on the talk page to pretend to care about other opinion but ignoring them is not what I consider a discussion to be. Statements and arguments are enough here already but Ele seems to come to a different conclusion than me for some reason and since his edit-rampages continue even worse than before, we need some kind of neutral RULING referee here. Ele has already had his version, the "worst" version of the article according to User:Preisler, frozen for two weeks by now, two weeks too many. I consider it even a destructive fact that a spammer gets his version frozen only because he's increased the chance of his version being frozen through the dominating number of edits and because his number of edits were the reason for the page protection, but now such a lot of time has passed and still his version is there, because the discussion isn't over, because he doesn't want it to be over, because he knows he can only delay the reconstruction, because no neutral observer has had the power to make a decision here. My consequence: next step of dispute resolution: survey on the question whether the article should be 1) the short-cut version of the basis version but focusing only on what really matters (history, controversy, gameplay) 2)Two articles: Short-cut version + referral to a collection of irrelevant sections so they're fairly neglected. 3) a modernization of the basis version with its less relevant sections (like accounts and cheating and weapons etc.) 4) Ele's version with its emphasis on irrelevant sections (eg map and class descriptions) and irrelevant details to draw attention from the relevant ones + wilful neglection of the intention, message, controversy and reception of the game (Controversy) --> bias I'll have the survey conducted tomorrow and will set the deadline on next monday. After that I'll surely start with the next steps of conflict resolution, up to arbitration committee. I'll revive the article again, no matter how many years your edit outbursts will be sustained, Ele. You can convince me with reasoning, Ele, not with overflow of energy wasted on destroying the article.User:Nightbeast 17:06, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Actually the sections that Kuko wanted removed (cheating, etc) were ''already'' left out and remained so. Also, the extra info was added, but also condensed down- and another section trimmed out as well. The large sections on the controversy are not deleted, they have there entire page! Finally, your welcome to edit in your idea's to the page- something you have ''never'' done. If you think things are missing from the page just add them! We'v already discussed the major issue's but I don't even now where you stand in terms of what you want added, becuase you'v only done large reverts. 18:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) Meant by 'useless cruft' is completely irrelevant information IN GENERAL, not specifically irrelevant information also revealing the negative side of the game or written by someone else. If you delete due to irrelevance, you don't only delete parts somewhere in the middle of list of relevance, but also what is below, what is even less relevant. Before you delete "peter has once seen the president", you delete "peter has eaten breakfast 234 days ago". I explained why the other sections were less irrelevant than "cheating" already. Just because YOU wrote mainly about less relevant issues is no excuse at all to keep them in. And don't you tell me speculations about weapons that might be included in following versions of the game are more relevant than all about player accounts. The "honour" and all that is one reason why so many still play the game, therefore it contributes A BIT to the ''big picture'' of the game. OH, but I see it wasn't written by YOU! That's why you deleted it with a smile on your face for irrelevance but kept alive such idiotic nonsense as map descriptions or weapons names because they were written by you. In what way do they contribute to the big picture??! "Oh, there are weapons in the game!! Never knew that!! That's surprisingly for a first-person-SHOOTER!! Now I understand the recruitment experiment America's Army!!! That's why they spent millions of dollars!!". So controversy was not played down?! I think differently and so do you. Or don't you?? Fine I will accept that you are serious and that's why you won't have problems with the irrevance sections being moved to another article and linked to by "''America's Army (small issues)''". Or like I said, remove these other issues. That's the only two unbiased choices. If you keept "your" version, you'd only apply the rule of irrelevance to topics you don't like personally. I'm welcome to edit my ideas back in?? I've an idea! Let's just make the article conform to the standards of wikipedia! My ideas are: either the redundant crap is removed or played down by moving, you know, so it gets "an entiiiiiiiire paaage" for itself. THAT'S THE MAJOR ISSUE. With your redundant information you're not only playing down the more relevant ones, you're also achieving an information overkill. I cannot realistically depict anyone caring about such crap as map names or fireleader if the user has already played the game. If he hasn't, he couldn't care less either. So since you're not a hypocrite but you really think "Controversy" is happy about having an eeeeenttiiiire site for itself in a peaceful environment, you can just as well move the irrelevant portion onto this site instead. (sorry for sarcasm) User:Nightbeast 19:48, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) No, I've changed my mind now. I don't think a survey would make much sense because I don't think you - Ele - would agree on 1) or 3) anyway, so to achieve a compromise, I'd also agree on 2) [4) is of course out of question] and I'd create the version myself. I will have finished it by wednesday week and I will include all the reasonable edits that I'd ignored so far and put all sections that are out of the picture to another page. I'd best do it myself because I can no longer see such POV redundant anti-wikipedia crap like "A large part of its success can not only be atributed to it being a US_Army game, but by simply being a free first person shooter. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is another free FPS has done even better during the same time period, much better then its nearly identical predeccesor Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game which must be purchased." (source: link to "his" controversy) one recent edit by you, Ele. What possesses you??? Now, do you think you could do whatever you want to here??? Do you look down on the concept of wikipedia that much?!? At the moment you still have energy, the power to edit and time. I'll soon have both energy and time and if that article vandalism continues, it will soon reach the arbitrary committee, where neutral observers do have influence. How are you going to justify your edits?? Delusion of grandeur is no excuse at all. You're NOT the centre of the universe. Also, stop believing it's YOURS. I think you believe so because of several clues, for example on your talk page: "Users with dynamic IPs are not allowed to post on my talk page". Now, to come back to the version, I will also add a few lines to the three main paragraphs. For example the army's past with video games before their breakthrough with AA, why the game can be considered a statement and I'll add some new lines for "gameplay" as well. I'll also include pictures like I once announced, I mean pictures in connection with the game (project), not pictures of the real army's weapons or so. When writing an article about Platon, you just don't add a picture depicting a TV with the headline "This man existed at a time when you couldn't watch TV" (or something incoherent like that) either. Where you don't agree, Ele, don't revert it back or don't you want to apply on your own rule of not reverting anything? If any edit of you will not be included, I won't have ignored it, but disagreed with it and will be able to justify my rejection as well. Just ask. I do that although you've ignored other edits (even widely agreed on edits) and outcomes of discussions (e.g. serious game, advertisement shot and game popularity <- I'll come back to that) yourself, but I like the moral principle that an unfair action on one side doesn't justify unfair actions on the other. My compromise shouldn't be considered that I give in or that I would think I was wrong, and insisting on your extreme version won't make me approach it more and more. I cannot stand it when I propose a fair solution instead of an unjust request on my side and when a person insists on an opposing unjust request only to demand a solution somewhere between fairness and his request. Bad explanation. Okay. For example when someone has the unjust request of adding "This game is awesome" while the other has the unjust request "This game sucks", then the fair solution would be "The quality of the game is a matter of opinion", but when someone starts with "The quality of the game is a matter of opinion" and another instists on including "The game sucks", should the former give in and write "The game is not so good"?!? If I have a look at your first changes, Ele, I already see where the basic information conflics with yours. Examples. You replaced "US Army (MOVES Institute + students from the Naval Postgraduate School)" with "US Army (MOVES Institute, other army organizations)" WHAT OTHER ARMY ORGANIZATIONS??? You just made that up, eh? You replaced "AA- July 4, 2002" with "AA- July 4, 2002 AA:SF- November 6, 2003". You can include the release of America's Army for game consoles but not the release of a redundant upgrade! Just because no one agreed on splitting the article into "America's Army:Recon" and "America's Army: Special Forces, you just cannot ignore it. An update that changed parts of the name is nothing more than an update that changed parts of the name! How about "America's Army: Organisations". Also another redundant change of the name. America's Army has been released ONCE! When the console version are out, then it will be changed. . . . About the game's popularity. I might not have expressed myself undestandably and you were too lazy or dogmatic to ask me or you misunderstood me. I heard the game's "Number of players" is the number of accounts and it all ties up: 1)How can you count players? Always changing IPs and providers make it impossible. But can you count the number of accounts? Of course you can. 2)why does the number of players increase all the time? People create more accounts than they delete. 3)Why does the number of players NEVER fall? Accounts can NEVER be deleted. 4)Why can accounts not be deleted? Even banned accounts are not deleted. Answer: Why should they let the number of players be allowed to fall. They boast about it like children and make people wrongly believe they had that many players. 5)Why is the number called "REGISTERED players"? What do you do to register? Answer: create an account. 6)How can they keep up the lie? Answer: how can you 100% disprove it?? Does anyone have access to their database??? 7)Does anything conflict with the theory of it being the number of players? I found nothing. Can you find anything?? Also, note that even if it were not like that, which is unrealistic but you cannot disprove there statement without having access to the source, you just cannot accept the statement the game has 12345 players as if they had the infallibility-dogma of the pope in 19th century! The number of players is MISleading and claims that AA is the most popular computer game ever, which is ridiculous. That's why only the number of players playing together at the same time will be included with the number of Counter-Strikes as comparison. Only this way is Npov while keeping your change borders fact-vandalism to distort the truth. But I will not touch your version and change it because then I would not only include the correct change but also confirm other senseless changes by you as if they all had a right to exist in an ENCYCLOPEDIA! My consequence: overhaul of the article.User:Nightbeast 23:29, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Versions== Why was the section versions removed from the page -again-? I'm not going to argue much of the latest revision (I haven't read it, just skimmed), but the versions section was very notable to the page. User:K1Bond007 22:35, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC) Honestly, why should they be included? It is true information, sure, and you don't find that so easily on the net, but c'mon: who could need that?User:Nightbeast 22:52, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) Who knows. You shouldn't pick and choose information to add because you don't feel someone would look for it. Why does Mozilla Firefox have a section on it's release history or any other software product for that matter on Wikipedia. If you don't want to list it, then write a paragraph about the releases or the notable ones. Some add news maps, new weapons, etc some are just security fixes and aren't really notable at all. You may just be able to insert a few sentences here and there in the history section to cover this. Overall, it's notable information that should be added. User:K1Bond007 23:01, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC) In AA there you can only play the most current one because the other don't have any servers. It's not like you could just say "this version is better. Let's play it". I must admit that I found it interesting as a player how many versions were before the first one I've played but there was nothing else interesting about that. The rest of the text is far more interesting for gamers but it is also interesting for those who examine the game while versions could only confuse them. There are far more interesting things than version that even had to be neglected, e.g. America's Army: Soldiers. But then again you could write hundreds of pages about the game if it isn't summarized, which this one research paper demonstrated and what it wrote was even more interesting than "versions". To me version would be an information overkill. Would it be okay for you to put "versions" on another site and link it so it is played down but can be used for those that are interested in it? The AA-site is pretty big anyway.User:Nightbeast 23:15, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Overhaul == So here it is: a mixture of all edits I found reasonable together with a lot more information. It took me several days and I had a look at all the other edits. If there are linguistic mistakes, please fix them. If you have problems with the content, don't revert anything, Ele, as you're always telling me because I've reconsidered ANY edit and will give you reasons for ANY change. Just talk and I will consider any statement with an open mind and reply. I will not include more information because to me, the article is brilliant now, and so I will try to prevent any drop of quality for the article in future. After all I can only say that working on it was worth it but since it completed in my opinion, I will not create a further total overhaul. Before I forget: if you think information about weapons and maps should be included, I can only say "RTFM". Yes, installed with AA is an over 200 pages manual with all the trivialities a player could want to know. Likewise there are explanations for the other edits as well. Just ask me if anything else doesn't appear rational at first glance. My ICQ Number is 201-401-028 in case you want a quick replyUser:Nightbeast 22:49, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Constructive discussion == I see that you've had problems with edit wars and disagreements here. There's plenty of commitment to this article and I'm sure that if all of you could just act a bit more Wikipedia:Civility and refrain from making WP:NPA, you'd probably be better off. Remember: there are no excuses for making personal attacks. Instead of just reverting one another and complaining about things like grammar or poor judgement about including facts, fix the problems yourselves. No one likes to hear complaints about mistakes all the time. Try to be constructive in your criticism and try to reach consensus instead of bickering about who's 100% right. Now don't take this as an excuse to start fighting over who did or said this or that. Start over instead and try to summarize your problems and see what can be done to fix them. If you just stick to the principles of Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:WikiLove, I'm sure you can reach an agreement on how to make this a better article. User:Karmosin 23:51, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC) ==Image copyrights== There are many images on this page which have no source and appear likely to be copyright violations. Please note all sources and justify anything considered Wikipedia:Fair use. Images that cannot be proven to be legal to use on Wikipedia may otherwise listed on Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images for deletion. User:119 06:36, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) Done (except for two or so screenshots of "Gameplay". These are made by me). "Justification" is a good start in general. It is the problem of the article and this discussion page. Let me give a short introduction. I've been involved in this article for roughly 5 months now and it could be stable by now if the way to justify things had been changed. I've played video games for 11 years, America's Army for 15-16 months and had an eye on the game in general for two years so you could say I know a bit about this all. I've been involved on the entire discussion page and know its outcomes of the arguments, and I know the discussion pages vicious circle: it's way too long. That's why new persons just ignore the discussion page, the articles about the game, and start to edit, making the article an unstable moving train of thought. When someone excludes the answer to the Why-question concerning the game from the short summary paragraph (why did they spend millions? why do they keep up the project? why did the game get successors? answer: the game successful propaganda and recruiting tool, which was discussed elaborately in this page here and successfully ignored during the edit), then I disagree and do I need to justify that? I've tried to explain that these "millions" of players the devs proclaim to have, is a serious and successful misinformation (you could say it mirrors the game) and I justified that twice already. Now I probably need to justify it for the third time since no person would care a damn to get informed about the game before starting to edit. I mean, how could I demand that a user shall read through something for e.g. an hour when I needed 10 hours to write that??? The edit the user would do would ignore the discussion, an ignorant edit. And when I edit it back, the user will demand a justification for that ''instead of'' giving a justification for his change. Some user would even find it too unfair to have to justify the edit, and just go on editing (no names) and no matter what you try to explain, you get ignored. The perfect example that anyone without any knowledge of the game can understand would be "series of games". America's Army for PC has, like so many other programs, patches and addons, other versions, the POV-term would be ''updates''. You don't call two versions of the same program "two programs". If the developers release a new version, you can't even say "I keep the old version" because the old one will soon not be playable anymore. So you can say everything but "series" to the game. Since it is merely a mod by developers for UT, it can qualify for "game" at best. So this above is ONE justification against editing "game" to "series of games", an explanation against an unreasonable edit that cost less than 5 seconds. One of hundreds edits. Wikipedia says: "Be Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages" but it also says don't be reckless. If you want any information about the discussion page, the game, the research papers, the entire AA article, please ask me via my talk page, discussion page, email or icq. I'm so sick of the article's unstableness. Get it right, then get it written.User:Nightbeast 17:34, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Reverting 30 March 2005== First off, NightBeAsT please note that no one owns an article, and in my opinion you have no support in saying "I won't justify why I reverted, justify why it should be changed!" Now, reasons why the version you revert to cannot stand: *POV: distributed free by the US Army as a global public relations stunt to present the current US Army in a glorifying way so as in part to help raise the US Army recruitment numbers **No opinion but fact and it answers the WHY question. Not answering the question would be biased. Say: AA has been alleged to be a first-person shooter if you like weasel speech *POV: America's Army is primarily playable and subliminal video game propaganda and a virtual recruiting tool **No opinion but fact and it answers the WHAT and WHY question. Excluding them would be as biased as above. *POV: America's Army falls into the subgenre of an online infantry wargame and serious game. Contrasted to reality, it is relatively authentic in terms of visual and acoustical representation, especially pertaining to weaponry, but not modern war. Unlike Special Force and Under Ash, the game does not belong to the category of realist games. **Please explain in what way and why it is POV. *POV: The game also extends the military entertainment complex **DOES IT NOT??? Read the external links. *POV: globally promotes a one-sided and self-glorifying message about this army with its interventions **The world's premier landforce fighting terrorism and for freedom. Isn't it self-glorifying? Isn't it one-sided? *POV: Although ''America's Army'' claims to represent the real Army and gives largely true information, it contains partisan bias and fails to paint a complete and balanced picture of the US Army along with its conflicts, mainly playing down or excluding negative facets of the Army. **Do you know sf_Abu_Ghraib, the new map? Doesn't exist. Nor do civilians on the maps (with ONE map exception). Nor does the readme's of the game or the game itself include traumas, crippled soldiers, cries of fear, hostages, ambushes, verbal abuses, hysterical soldiers, ugly soldiers etc. Where are such things in that "accurate portrayal of soldiers experiences"? My opinion? *POV: Research papers of four different universities that have analysed ''America's Army'' all confirm that the game is propaganda **You can remove that sentence. Please read Wikipedia:Neutral point of view for information on the "non-negotiable" requirement set down that articles not state opinions as fact. Furthermore, it's just poor writing to define something primarily by comparison to another thing ('AA is similar to Counter-Strike'). That won't explain anything to people unfamiliar to this topic, nor stand up to time. You've also overwritten a lot of formatting and general writing corrections. User:119 18:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) I know very well that I've no right at all for the articles and if I thought so, why would I delete so much of what I contributed, entire sections. Like I said, should I justify why I reverted before you justify why you change? Justifiying why something needs to be changed makes it crucial for the contributor to have GOOD reasons. "Good" in the sense of reasons that you could use as arguments in a debate. Change for the sake of changing certainly isn't a good reason and would be prevented by that rule. I've already read through that Wiki:NPOV twice. Sure, many people don't know CS but then again 15 times or so as many gamers. There's no other game that similar and it tells that it was the model and how the gameplay works at the same time. It's impossible to describe the gameplay in the summary understandably in other ways. Also please justify your claims instead of just saying 'this and that is POV, now disprove it.'User:Nightbeast 19:18, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) Nice references but that doesn't justify the rest. You changed the version, I changed it back, you changed that back.... what's your point?? Edit war??User:Nightbeast 20:24, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==User:Mediaright== A New Beginning Let's begin. Hi. I'm a volunteer. First, I apologize for deleting everything, but it's for the best in the long run. I have played AA for a while now but am a reasonable human being and not a fanatic. This article has had many problems from the start to the present, including this new version. There has to be a new organized dabate about all of this. Ok. One that takes into account everything. Here's how it's going to work. Below there are sections for each issue involved. If a new one comes up, feel free to add it. I'll start by adding my comments. Please add another block for any other non content related issues. Sorry. Thanks. More vs. Less Content -Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of information. Not a database of edited articles. Information is our goal and under no circumstances should information be compromised just because of space or feeling that it isn't useful to anyone. If you write it, they will come. It's a sure thing at one point or another. Article Splitting: Gameplay and Game Development Article Splitting: AA1 vs. AA SP Once again, I'm sorry. This was drastic but needed. == "Justification" == Now here is the list of explanations for w
America's Army
:''This article is about the computer game '''''America's Army'''''. For the actual U.S. Army article, see United States Army.'' '''''America's Army'' (AA''') is a Tactical shooter multiplayer first-person shooter owned by the U.S. government, financed through U.S. tax dollars and distributed free by the United States Army as a global public relations initiative to present a positive image of the current U.S. Army and help with U.S. Army recruitment. Released on July 4, 2002, ''America's Army'' was developed by the MOVES Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, and is based on the ''Unreal engine''. ==Overview== ''America's Army'''s developers call the game a playable recruiting tool whose success led to further versions of the game and other games of the same genre being developed, such as ''Under Ash'' (Palestinians), ''Full Spectrum Warrior'' (U.S. Army), ''Kuma:War'' (Department of Defense), ''Special Force'' (Hizbullah), ''Close Combat (game)'' (U.S. Marines), ''SOCOM II: U.S. Navy SEALs'' (United States Navy) and ''USAF: Air Dominance'' (United States Air Force). Unlike ''America's Army'', which is freely downloadable, the other examples of similar games are sold. Critics have charged the game serves as a propaganda device. ''America's Army'' falls into the subgenres of Advergaming and serious game. It is relatively authentic in terms of visual and acoustical representation—especially pertaining to weaponry—but not modern war. Unlike ''Special Force'' and ''Under Ash'', the game does not feature realism.[http://www.gamestudies.org/0401/galloway] The gameplay is similar to that of ''Counter-Strike'', a ''Half-Life'' mod (computer gaming) and the most widely played online first-person shooter at the time and for the past few years. ''Counter-Strike'' had been taken as the model for ''America's Army'', according to Professor Michael Zyda, the director and founder of the MOVES Institute. Whereas its developers claim ''America's Army'' is played by several million players, statistics show that the game has had an average of roughly 3 000 to 6 000 players playing online at any one time between 2002 and 2005. By contrast, between 70 000 and 100 000 players play ''Counter-Strike'' under the same counting conditions.[http://www.video-games-survey.com/online_gamers.htm] ''America's Army'' can mainly be found as a free download on the Internet or on a CD-ROM at United States government recruiting centers. It continues to receive regular add-ons and Patch (computing) to sustain and increase player interest. ==History== Shortly after computer-based wargames were permitted on government computers for U.S. Marines in 1996, U.S. Marine simulation experts created ''Marine Doom'', a modification based on the commercial game ''Doom II'' to be used as a tactical training tool. On account of ''Marine Doom'' 's success the U.S. Marine Corps signed a contract with MÄK Technologies in the following year, which led to the development of ''Marine Expeditionary Unit 2000'' being the first game funded and developed by both the Department of Defense and the commercial game industry. The game was released as a training game for U.S. Marines and as a commercial computer game to the public. A report in 1997 by the National Research Council, whose member Professor Michael Zyda is, called attention that Department of Defense's simulations were lagging behind commercial games and advised joint research with the entertainment industry. In 1999, when the U.S. Army recruiting numbers hit their lowest point in thirty years[http://www.cnn.com/US/9909/30/army.recruitment/#1] after two straight years of missed recruiting targets, the Congress of the United States decided to carry out "aggressive, innovative experiments" with regard to the number of recruitments, and the Department of Defense raised its spending for recruitment to more than US Dollars2.2Bn, which not only paid for the ''Army Game Project'', but for an entire promotional campaign to polish up the U.S. Army's image. For instance they had a new slogan being invented and made a title sponsorship of a team taking part in NASCAR races, where ''America's Army'' was later allotted as well. A report by Michael Zyda induced the U.S. Army to spend US$45 million to the U.S. Navy's Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to create a research centre to develop advanced military simulations. Lieutenant Colonel E. Casey Wardynski, an economics professor at the United States Military Academy, West Point, who later became director of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA) at this academy and the head of the ''Army Game Project'', exhibited to the Deputy Chief of Staff of the United States Army for Personnel as well as the Deputy Assistant United States Secretary of the Army for Military Manpower the idea of an online computer game designed and distributed by the United States Army. He managed to convince them of the cost-effectiveness the project would have, and from then on he has collaborated with Professor Zyda. In 2001 the French software company Ubisoft granted the Department of Defense to use ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear'' for training military personnel. On July 4, 2002, the Independence Day (United States), the first version of ''America's Army'', named ''Recon'', was released after three years of development and it was made available for free as either a download or on CD. Its production cost US$7.5 million and it quickly became one of the ten most often played online first-person shooters, mainly due to the gameplay similar to ''Counter-Strike'', the game's easy availability, the new ''Unreal Engine'' and the large number of free servers sponsored by the U.S. Army. The Army is spending US$3 million a year to develop future versions of the game and US$1.5 million annually to support them (e.g. through servers). ''America's Army: Soldiers'', a Role Playing Game in development stage that was to elucidate career paths in the U.S. Army, failed and was brushed under the carpet. In 2003, Ubisoft 's commercial ''Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield'' was licensed to be adopted by the U.S. Army for testing soldiers' skills.
Version history
*1.0 (''AA: Recon'') - July 4, 2002 *1.0.1b (''AA: Operations'') - July 25, 2002 *1.1.1 (''AA:O'') - August 2, 2002 *1.2.0 (''AA:O'') - August 23, 2002 *1.2.1 (''AA:O'') - August 27, 2002 *1.4 (''AA:O'') - November 27, 2002 *1.5 (''AA:O'') - December 23, 2002 *1.6 (''AA:O'') - March 17, 2003 *1.7 (''AA:O'') - May 1, 2003 *1.9 (''AA:O'') - August 10, 2003 *2.0 (''AA:Special Forces'') - November 6, 2003 *2.0a (''AA:SF'') - December 23, 2003 *2.1 (''AA:SF Downrage'') - June 1, 2004 *2.2.0 (''AA:SF Vanguard'') - October 19, 2004 *2.2.1 (''AA:SF Vanguard'') - November 18, 2004 *2.3 (''AA:SF Firefight'') - February 18, 2005 *2.4 (''AA:SF Q-Course'') - May 16, 2005America's Army
''Talk:America's Army/archive1 - Propaganda'' ''Talk:America's Army/archive2 - Various discussions'' ==More Debate== Unmistakably, this article's history page has become a single sided enumeration of changes by the user User:Ele9699. In less than one hour this user made already ten major changes to the article and in the last two days there were 64 edits by User:Ele9699. Most of his changes are, in my opinion, not acceptable at all and need to be reverted at any rate. I think the most fitting sentence added by the aforementioned user to elucidate my criticism is the following: ''"For example, if a soldier drops his weapon when a OPFOR soldier see's it, it picks it up it will funcion as a OPFOR weapon rather then how it appeared to the person who dropped it."'' Indisputably, this sentence demonstrates definite mistakes in grammar and spelling. Also, the sentence's relevance is unrecognizably and in my view completely pointless. Moreover, the statement is false, since a "soldier" in the game does not necessarily pick up every weapon of "a OPFOR" when he sees it dropping. Most sentences the user User:Ele9699 thought up are on a similar quality level which is, in my view, inadequate for this article and wikipedia in general.User:RememberMe :Feel fee to improve my edits and fix grammar, however, not all those edits are mine, and many are from previous people edits I re-incororated into the article. User:Ele9699 17:41, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::It doesn't matter from whom your edits are, you take the responsibilty for them if you apply them. Your edits can only be improved by being removed.User:RememberMe :Ok User:RememberMe / User:Nightbeast / User:BeOnGuard / 62.134.105.101 / 212.144.105.156 / 149.225.40.78 etc. etc. its just restoring the page, the information was submitted by those people to wikipedia. If you want to argue over other people's edits, you need to take it up with them. And you violated 3R again btw, it hasn't been 24hrs yet since your the first of your last reverts. User:Ele9699 18:53, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) Actually I'm only the IPs and Nightbeast. RememberMe is a friend of mine, but I don't even know Beanguard. Smells like you're projecting your image on other people considering your many dishonest users, Ele. As far as your contributions are concerned: if you really want your material saved, don't edit for the sake of changing something; edit for the sake of improving. Well, just keep in mind that this is not a forum but something that should be of quality like a history book. Could you imagine your edits in such a book??User:62.134.105.101 22:36, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) :I think your a lieing IMO, then again I can't really know can I, since you refuse to identify yourself consistently. I am i talking to "you" now? Or your freind? Or your freinds freind? Or perhaps another unkown ip and you are somedy new. Its not possible to have a disscussion when the identy is never known, you do not abide by and cannot be identified by your dynamic IP, and despite all your claims of page quality and my willingness to see your your points included, the majority of "your" edits are simple reverts to old versions that take little or no account of basic page improvemnts including spelling, basic game information, and other edits. User:Ele9699 23:48, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC) Oh, stop that idiotic hypocrisy! It's like Bond said on the talk page: an IP address is in no way as anonymous as an account, so talking about identification, I cannot know a thing about you while you could have known a lot more about me. All I know is you're hiding behind three names and all you can do is try to accuse of being similar to you. You do that to distract from you. And that's why you're trying to complain about identification: you want to distract. Attack is the best of defences, huh? Your edits are all similar and I know you've been on this page before, because I remember there once was someone who wanted to (wrongly) point out that the game is a series. (Just because the game has updates, doesn't mean it's a series.) For you an improvement is what you do - for me an improvement is an edit that is relevant, correct, NPOV, not misleading and unbiased. If you have a problem with reverting your irrelevant, misleading, spamming and incorrect imPOVments, let's call for IMpartial third party help, shall we?User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==some edits by kukuman== OK, I went through the article and made some changes. Mostly copyediting but I removed/changed parts that were blatant POV problems, things that didn't belong in the article, redundant parts, and things which made no sense. I reverted the Controversy and part of the Realism sections back to the old ones because they were too poorly written and I didn't want to bother deciphering them. If you want to readd them go ahead but please rewrite them and take your time when you do. I left the link to America's Army Controversy in, even though it is poorly written at best and blatanly biased at worst. I also removed the Accounts and Third Party Utilities sections because they were wastes of space. Please comment on my edits and try not to just revert them. --User:Kukuman 09:14, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) I've had a look at the edits and made an edit. 1)You made the date more exact (not only 2002). I agree.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 2)You corrected a spelling mistake. I disagree because there's no need to mention the second "main release" at all. It's just a name that changed.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 3)You corrected another spelling mistake. But again: the sentence doesn't fit at all. I've tried to explained it to Ele.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 4)You changed "pertaining to" to "in"... I agree if it's grammatically correct, which I assume.User:Nightbeast 5)You added "attempts to avoid an unrealistic style of play." I disagree. If it attempted to do so, it would have more civilians for example.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 6)You fixed a spelling mistake. I disagree on it because I disagree on the sentence. The game is NOT designed for that. Mentioning this redundant advertisement lie and so much of it in the "overview", reflects total bias. Also, the link to the page is not allowed.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 7)You added "The gameplay is similar to that of ''Counter-Strike'', a ''Half-Life'' mod (computer gaming) and the most widely played online first-person shooter in the early 2000s.". I couldn't agree more.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 8)You've fixed spelling mistakes in Ele's false, misleading and irrelevant sentence about the number of accounts. I've told him.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 9)You changed the order of "CD-Rom"... sounds better, I agree.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 10)You fixed spelling mistakes in Ele's irrelevant, false and misleading other sentence.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 11)You replaced "costed 7.5 million Dollars " with "cost US$7.5 million". I just fixed the tense and added the link. It's now "costed US Dollars7.5 million". Hope you don't mind.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 12)You replaced "often played" with "popular". Often played is a fact, popular also means "well-liked" or "admired". That's not the same.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 13)You deleted "(where the game is alloted as well)". I don't think it should be deleted. It's interesting where the game is spread... somehow... and although it's a bit irrelevant, it only takes 6 words.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 14)You deleted "Target groups for recruitment are between 17 and 24-year-old males." I think that's an important piece of information because it shows that gamers are in the target group to a high percentage. It's therefore relevant to understand why the FPS-world was chosen and not lego or something like that. It's not so obvious.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 15)You deleted ", so essential did they prove in Afghanistan and northern Iraq; ". I don't think it should. That's the reason why SF is supposed to be doubled, the reason why SF was chosen.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 16)You deleted "On November 6, 2003, version 2.0.0. ''America's Army: Special Forces'' was published. This version, more progressive in comparision to the first one, also shows how much personnel and money the US Army invests in the game. The permanent financial support of servers underscores that.". I added "(e.g. through servers)" so the information that the army supports it with servers isn't completely lost.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 17)You fixed "release on".User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 18)You reconstructed "Controversy". Thanks. 19)Gameplay: you replaced a brackets with a comma. I replaced the other.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 20)"Assault and Defence" and "assault and defence" existed. You wrote them both with small letters. I wrote them both with capital letters because they're always written like that. I hope you don't mind.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 21)You wrote "OPFOR", but they're mostly writte "OpFor", so I've changed that.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 22)You deleted a paragraph about the transformation. I restored the sentence " Not only the opposing US soldiers are depicted differently, but also their weapons, objectives, voices and vehicles." because that's a good summary in my opinion. If you like, you can delete it again, but then other parts of less relevance should be deleted before. It's not the most irrelevant sentence of "transformation" paragraph.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 23)I changed the three sentences about the objectives. You should check them. I'm not sure if they're fitting.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 24)I removed the stuff about the weapons that you later fixed. It's got no relevance.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 25)I wrote "HONOR" in capitals. It's written like this everywhere on the official site. Also, it distinguishes the word from the real word Honor/Honour.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 26)I agree on the following two little changes ("kills", " and how") 27)I disagree on "every time you fail to protect an objective which you are assigned to defend,". That's not true. Besides I've already discussed the sentence before... somewhere on the talk book.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 28)I agree on your "teammates". The other description was already used.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) 29)You changed "but also" to "and every". I changed it to "as well as every"... sounds better.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ... and so on. In general I agreed on much of what you have changed. But before "Accounts" gets excluded, I think "weapons" and "versions" should come first, maybe even "cheating". Please list wherever you disagree with my edits. Just place a comment beneath the respective point. If you agree with a point, delete the point. The page is long enough. I hope someone archieves sections on the discussion page that are not being discussed anymore. Ele, I don't agree with your new categories. The relevance of them is next to nothing and they waste as much space as more relevant sections. Relevance may partly be in the eye of the observer but your contributions are not informative at all. Not even players would care at all. But I like the contribution to version if you can prove it is true (mac, linux, windows). Please make sure you can justify your edits and prove a helping attitute on the talk page. I'm really sick of getting my work ignored by you. §Do to others as you would have them do to you.§ or something like that.User:Nightbeast 15:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) Ele, I do not want an edit war, but I do not want your changes either, so I'll try the first step of dispute resulution and try to talk. Your edits are horrible and I can give you an explanation for them all. For example: "Single player(training missions only), multiplayer (combat and training missions)". It makes no sense to write "(combat and training missions)" unless you want to mislead. It would claim the game had trainings missions for the multiplayer mode, but it does not in reality. That's sneaky vandalism. The next edit was "(not all versions)" concerning mac versions. But that's misleading again: mac players cannot play the game - there are no servers anymore. What's the point of distorting the truth? Any third party reading this will immediately recognize the kind of your edits. Can you at least justify ANY edit?? Please be more constructive and decide for the way of discussing with an open mind. Your most extreme case is probably that you're even breaking the copyright laws by having the link to www.americasarmy.com/... . Only the link to www.americasarmy.com is allowed. These are all small issues, but you've made over 100 edits of those issues.User:Nightbeast 20:48, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :"It would claim the game had trainings missions for the multiplayer mode, but it does not in reality." Have you even played the game? There is entire mulitplayer level that is a training map that require MILES (laser tag only) in a fake urban environment. User:Ele9699 21:11, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) Then everything is training! Meant by training is where players get to know movements, controls, etc. What you're talking of is multiplayer combat against other player that uses other weapon effects and models. That's not what is training in video games! It has score, Honor, ROE, etc. only the effects are different. In real life it would be training, but training in video games is different. Are we talking about the game or the army? You said what the article is about. The map is a mission, an operation. Otherwise it would be misleading.User:Nightbeast 21:47, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Look you are wrong, the level is not a combat mission like the others. Its only laser tag, and the players sit down when they "die". This is not like other missions which are meant as hypothetical, but "real" combat. User:Ele9699 21:59, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Should AA:SF be split off== :Should AA:SF split off from the AA page? The intial AA:o versions have a number of differences over SF, and a lot of reviews handle them seperately. As changes accumulate with SF additions (new weapons etc) the page is going to be quite large, and for example a article doesn't need to talk about future developments really since its not updated anymore. User:Ele9699 18:46, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Of course NOT! How many articles would wikipedia comprise if you created a new article for every version of software???? A question like this is just ridiculous. User:RememberMe 19:00, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Umm it wouldn't be for "every version", one for the intial versions up to V1.9, and the other for the second big release SF. SF changed a LOT of things and it doesn't make sense to combine them some things are true for one but not the other. User:Ele9699 19:29, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) If you pay for the site, Ele, why not? Look. It's not reasonable to create more pages because one update has the name AA:SF instead of name AA:O. The update didn't change more of the game than any other, but, you're right... if you don't play the game, but play the name. You said it's an article about the game, Ele. Suddenly it's an article about the name? So 4.5 million people registered for AA:O? Or for AA:SF? Or maybe for AA??? You see, even if you accept the lie that there were 4.5 million people registered, you must admit not even the developers differentiate between there "different games". Don't spam with edits and sites. Please consider the logical borders between relevance and irrelevance.User:Nightbeast 19:27, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) No, all the AA versions should be covered in this article. The differences between versions are not big enough to warrant their own articles. User:Kukuman 19:37, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Perhaps... neverthless the differences are growing with each new release so it some point it will make more sense to have two smaller articles then one large one. Here is the boxart for sf when that time comes. User:Ele9699 02:44, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Ok, they've a new cover for the hand-out version (it is extremely rare that this cover is seen because the game is downloaded by an overwhelming majority) and they have partly changed the name to make the game appear to be new. However, it is merely an update and doesn't end or begin America's Army at all. The name changes all the time, and new version of the game come and go. There was also America's Army: Recruit or something, the first version. Another name, another version, nothing worth considering. You cannot call America's Army a series because it is ONE developing game. An update is NOT a new game. An optical apportionment makes no sense, an apportionment relating to contents is needed, an apportionment in non-fiction and fiction. I've explained why already, in the section below this.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well it depends on the situation, somtimes having two smaller articles can work better then a single larger one. As for the names for the intial versions 1- 1.9, they were mainly patches to the intail version under the name 'operations', and are good to be combined in as single entity. With 2.0 the main name was now Special Forces, and was a bigger change then the previous patches and changed many features in addition to just game content- changes that grow more significant with each new patch to SF. For example, SF was reviewed independly of the first versions by news sites. The other names your talking about, are the names of patches (i.e 'firefight' etc.)which add content under the banner of a release name. These patches are comparable to a expansion pack that are commonly released for other games. User:Ele9699 18:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::When I tried to establish an article for something called Habbo Hotel for the German version of Wikipedia, it nearly got deleted on grounds of irrelevance. In fact, the irony is that this pointless game has more players than America's Army does. Video games are part of culture, but they come and go and are extremely numerous and certainly many doubt articles about video games are educating at all. Certainly America's Army is especially interesting concerning its background and therefore needs to be included if other famous games are included too, but would that justify a new article? Because the background remains the same? Because there are several versions that slightly changed the gameplay and made it up to date so America's Army can survive? Because a new article of America's Army would contain almost the same as any other version's article would? Would THAT really make the article smaller and spare room, or would that just create two similar articles of (almost) the same space? I even doubt it would shorten ANY article, not to mention that it would just multiply primarily. Above all, while you insist on calling the game a series of games because it has updates (Warcraft is a series of games - there is Warcraf 1-3, but is Warcraft 3 a series?? It has updates too. Is an update a new game or an update of a game??). Now, you can say America's Army is a modification of Unreal Tournament, just like you can say Counter-Strike is a modification of Half-Life: both are mods but some versions don't depend on the mother game. A modification is a modification if the version is modificated from the mother game, and this both fits for America's Army and Counter-Strike. Sure, you'd now like to point out that UT and AA are very different, but then you would introduce a border between modification and game capriciously, say depending on your matter of opinion. So you see: calling America's Army a game instead of a simple modification even plays down the truth. But suddenly it's even a series of games that needs a new article for some irrelevant updates that changed next to nothing???? If you really want two articles, you can create one for reality of America's Army and America's Army make-believe part. Just because a part of the name after America's Army has changed to appear new doesn't justify a new article. If you like you can create new articles on Albert Einstein for updates / every new year of his life. But I guess America's Army, a computer modification, is far more relevant and needs more articles than a simple man.User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::Many gaming sites have reviewed them as seperate games. Intersting points, but there may come a point when its better to have 2 smaller articles then one larger one. User:Ele9699 22:01, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Minor mac Changes== I don't know what all of this arguing is about. I'm new so if someone will fill me in, I'll try my best to help. -Anyway, I went ahead and put in some version/mac development notes regarding the mac/gamespy situation.User:Mediaright Now, there are two different versions of the article. The "out-dated" but discussed and accepted version and a "new" version by user:Ele9699 and his other nicknames. Ele edited ''a bit'', that is, over hundred versions. I find his changes irrelevant, POV, poorly written, misleading and false. He finds the original version "out-dated" (but hasn't said why and in what way) and accused me of having additional users hiding behind (I'll come back to this). I've tried to discuss his first 50% or so changes and tried to explain why they don't fit Wikipedia and he's replied once then stopped, ignoring most points. As discussing obviously doesn't help, I'll try to contact a mediator, which another user adviced me to do. I'll try to explain to the mediator my point of view and will tell Ele to do the same. As far as his accusations are concerned, I want a meeting in ICQ or IRC or anywhere else where you can see that there are two persons and not one to prove me and user:RememberMe are not the same. At the same time I accuse him of being user:GACSean and would like a similar test for him. The tests would not only show how many reverts and opinions the user represents, but also it would check honesty and reliability. Speaking of which, I would like Ele to give prove of a lot of claims, e.g. where he found the additional information to the >>version<< section in the article. That shouldn't be too hard. So please find reliable sources, Ele. You haven't really proven your reliability so far. Also, I'd like to request separation of the article, in ''reality'' and ''virtuality''. If I'm right in guessing, having two little articles is better for the database than one of the same size. Furthermore it would allow him to include more of his rather irrelevant information (e.g. about maps). Of course the primary part of the article would be about ''reality'', that is "overview", "history", "controversy" and "realism". There is a difference between "kill a player" in reality and "kill a player" in virtuality, don't you think so? That would avoid ambiguousness. Ambiguousness, for example, I realized in our latest little dispute about "training". I thought about "training" concerning video games, while he thought about "training" in real life (army training). Another good reason to put the focus on reality is certainly that we live in REALITY instead of virtuality and thet section about reality would not only be informative for gamers, but for almost everyone. I'm not even sure if the rest, the virtuality part, is even informative for gamers: why would anyone read through the names of the maps? Or the guns? Or gameplay? (I would be interested in gameplay if I hadn't played the game though). The big picture of America's Army is certainly the ''reality'' part. I do not think that any university would care about the extremely specific parts of gameplay. For me ''virtuality'' would be like describing the colors of a national flag instead of what the flag stands for, when it was founded, what was the cause and effect and so on. Almost all w-questions would it describe. And that's just what the ''reality'' part of the article represents. The virtuality part should have some links, and could include the parts I find irrelevant. I felt he was trying to play down the important and informative parts of the article by spamming it with trash and thereby creating an unfair proportion of information (a university article is certainly more relevant than some german clan site). Agreeing on putting it elsewhere would kill that impression and would justify his sections in my opinion. If he was trying to manipulate by creating an unfair proportion, it would be no good anymore, then he could only spam the irrelevant part.User:Nightbeast 19:16, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Hmm interesting points, I agree on something disagree on others. For example, that german fansite probably needs to go. Once again, feel free to edit things like that. However, stop reverting the page to the out of date one. User:Ele9699 20:49, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::OK. Thanks for all of the info. Here's a bit of fresh info. The goal of the internet and Wikipedia is to provide a collective database of reliable knowledge that could be used in anything from a discovery to even a research paper if need be. Our job is to make this info reliable, and as easy to use and find as possible. We shouldn't concern ourselves with server and other technical issues. Wiki is in talks with Google for server hosting and is holding a fund drive right now. They can spare the space. I think that we should keep this all one article because it is easier to use for someone who has no idea what we are talking about to use 1 vs. 2. Just use a table of contents. On general info versus technical, it is the place of Wikipedia to provide as much info as possible. It doesn't matter what WE think people will be interested in as long as all the info a person COULD want is there and we organize the info in a way that anyone from beginners to advanced players can navigate easily. On reality vs. virtual, we should just use 2 clear sections, one on history and origan, and one on gameplay. We should also use more specific words in the gameplay section like killing the PLAYER'S CHARACTER, rather than the player. Once again, we should look at this all from a users standpoint. It should all be easy for all users to find anything they could possibly want in addition to basic easy info for new users. Anything else? ::History, Message and Gameplay should be enough? That would also be JUST what the german version of America's Army's article includes. But what about the rest of the materical? Move to a sub-article or remove?User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) ::I think the information about the mac's was fine, as for the other stuff its ground we'v already covered. User:Ele9699 22:03, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Page Changes== User:Rememberme, if you want to add your idea's in you need to edit them and not revert to a outdated and highly pov version. It disregards dozens of spelling fixes, links, info, and corrections. User:Ele9699 18:53, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :1)I'm not reverting your reverts in order to include ideas. I'm reverting to prevent your vandalism :2)"outdated"?? Just because you're editing like a beserk does not mean other edits are outdated! :3)"highly pov version"??? I'm not the one who moves "controvery" somewhere else but let superfluous information about weapons, realism and maps remain. :4)spelling fixes??? links? I think this article can do without links to forums. There have been enough links to articles about the game written by reliable information sources. :5)"info?" This article can do without a list of maps that are present in the different versions. That's just superfluous. If you want to write a book, that might be worth including. :6)"disregarding"? That's what you're doing all the time. :7)Your edits are not justified. Statements like "The game, while mostly well received by the gaming community.." is just not bearable without prove. That's only your speculation. :8)You violate the law: The disclaimer of americasarmy.com prohibits linking resources. They mean Direct Linking of content (i.e. linking to pictures), not linking to pages. Get your facts stright man. User:Ele9699 22:38, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :9)The pictures you add are not connected to the game. If you think every weapon the game imitates needs a picture of the real weapon, create a gallery for it.User:RememberMe 19:13, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) Feel free to edit your idea's in, just not by reverting the entire page to old version. Also, that sentence has been modified by other users, feel free to edit that one too (or even remove it). User:Ele9699 20:35, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :What's the point of adding ideas? These small, immature details one might brainstorm are usually not what should be in an encyclopedia. Above all, you're always talking about "old" or "out-dated". Why don't you explain WHY it is too old? WHY would something good that is old worse than something bad but new? With bad I mean inconsiderableness, bias, possible copyright infrigements, opinions, misleading statements and falsehood? Please be reasonable.User:Nightbeast 20:49, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) "What's the point of adding ideas?" Well thats what wikipedia is about. The version that you revert to lacks changes ranging from remove POV, incorrect information about the game, to spelling changes, in addition other material by me and other users. User:Ele9699 21:11, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Could you please be more exact? Where are things based on opinion in the original version? Where is incorrect information? Where are spelling mistakes? There is certainly not everything from other people included, yes, just like not everything is correct, npov, pertinent, accurate ... fitting Wikipedia. I'll verify my claims tomorrow. As I see, the page is protected anyway, which allows us to focus more on debating than on editing. I've got to do something today. Cu tomorrow.User:Nightbeast 21:58, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) Well depending on whether your talking about edits by you, your 'friend' Rememberme, or any number the IPs that 'you' have edited from there are a wide range changes that across the board, and a lot of these we have already gone over actually. Also, its not just about what is there, its about whats not there and whats missing. User:Ele9699 22:17, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) * You have both broken the 3 revert rule already. Cool down or the page will be protected from editing. User:Kukuman 19:47, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Suggested changes== Here are my suggested changes. First, probably the most obvious, is get rid of traces of bias and POV. The "Realism" section needs to be done away with. Realism in games, especially "violent" games, is a point of contention. The Cheating section should be removed too, as it isn't really noteworthy and not unique (almost every online game has identical cheating problems). Also, remove pictures that aren't directly related to the game (eg the pictures of real-life weapons). This has the side effect of making the article smaller, which is needed, since last time I edited it it was over 32 KB. Anyway, I would appreciate it if everyone else would chip in with their suggestions without resorting to attacks on other editors. I think it is possible to incorporate ideas from each editor in one article; almost all of the reverts made so far have been very hasty in my opinion. User:Kukuman 01:46, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Sure great I would be fine with those changes. Note that I have no problem with User:RememberMe / User:Nightbeast / User:BeOnGuard / 62.134.105.101 / 212.144.105.156 / 149.225.40.78 / etc. adding content about it being for army recruitment (even "propoganda"), etc. and associated links, but he ("they") have never taken me up on the offer, prefering large reverts. I do however think that there should not be a large section on the controversy, because the focus should be on the game. I also refuse to let the page be reverted to that old version, first done by a anonmyous dymaic ip, though now mainly done by nightbeast and rememberme after I refused to interact with the "ip". User:Ele9699 02:17, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::"Ele", "you" seem If the focus is on the game, the game as a whole, and not somewhere on in the gameplay, which is only a means to an end, "Controversy" remains one of the most important sections because it explains WHAT the game is about and the EFFECT/result_of_the_experiment (the cause is explained in "History"). This fills the viewer in on WHY the game was made. This is completely about the game, even about the game's situation as a whole, while the virtuality part is out of the picture and in its irrelevance focusing on many and very small details. I've given the main reasons in "Minor mac changes", above.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Realism ::I agree partly. First off, realism has relevance not only to the non-fictional part, but also to the fictional. The non-fictional part is informative to both gamers and non-gamers, while the fictional is informative to gamers. The developers claim it is realistic. Realistic, that means, showing reality instead of escaping reality, which games usually stand for. Why play a game for reality when you face an accurate 100% reality in the free of charge game called the real world? Anyway. A claim that something is realistic is equivalent to a claim that something is the truth. What is real, is true. In reality = in truth. So if someone claims the game is 'ultra-realistic' like a newspaper did, or the game 'represents the real army' (instead of 'misrepresents') like the developers said in a statement, it is like making the ''message'' called America's Army a ''statement'', a ''claim''. The fact they they claim it is close to reality makes the game similar to an allegation about reality. Of course it needs to be analysed to what extent the claim is true, whether the game is for teaching about reality or for distorting the truth. The realism must of course be differentiated: doom3, for example (ele said this game turned out to be unrealistic) is much more realistic concerning physics, the graphics and sounds. For instance if a zombie in the game happens to touch a ton, it shakes and might fall if it was hard enough. This example also shows where the game is unrealistic: it is science-fiction, the protagonist is supposed to fight monsters in a made-up future. America's Army chose to depict a non-fictional world, which doesn't necessarily make the game realistic. Graphics and sounds, the physics, are only a small part of what the word "realism" all includes. Of course Doom 3 is considered unrealistic immediately, by latest when you see some flying and burning skull want to fly into your face. ::Realism has always been one of the most popular arguments players presented for the game. "I like it because it is the most realistic action game out there" blah blah blah. This needs to be analysed. Realism is probably the most important focus that the game has (or not). First question from FAQ: Q: What is the America's Army game? ::A: …an accurate portrayal of Soldier experiences … ... Read through all the questions on the FAQ on americasarmy.com and you'll get to know how teaching the developers claim the game to be. If the game's alleged purpose is to teach, it is necessary to check to what extent truth and the game's fiction differ.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Cheating ::Certainly most first-person-shooters have problems with cheating, but in other games there are also weapons, and maps, and versions, and communities, and other things pertaining to their virtuality. Also, unlike all these other points, cheating is what the players care about, it is one of the most popular discussion topics in the game, and despite of its age, it hasn't lost topicality. Cheating-section can certainly be put on the same level like the other virtuality-concerning topics, which are: "Weaponry", "Classes and their specific equipment", "Weapons planned for future versions", "Accounts", "Training", "Maps", "Clans" (will later be reintroduced after the article's split, just like more details about "OPFOR Transformation") and "Versions". Also, note that these names that I just wrote are objective while "Training Missions, Medical First Aid" is not for example. "Medical training" is only part of the training and it would be biased if it has such a big proportion of training.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Pictures ::Pictures make alive articles so it can only be in the interest of the article to have pictures in general. However, these pictures must fit and be in a fair proportion. Pictures about weapons from reality that are depicted in the game are redundant: that's not the game. Do you think a corpse from reality would fit the article for Doom 3? (I like that example for some reason.) Reality and virtuality doesn't match. I have a picture of Zyda standing in front of a screen with AA (he delivered a speech about the MOVES Institute) and a happy Wardynski also standing in front of an AA screen. I've also shots from the E3 2004 with soldiers advertising for America's Army. Concerning virtuality, I have screenshots about the game, which are fair! This means, they've standard settings of graphics and were taken on the most often played maps. One is the player spawn on hospital (the most often played map) escort team, one depicts a teammate on pipeline (the second most often played map) and one the same guy from the enemy's point of view. As I see you, Ele, have reintroduced the advertising picture from americasarmy.com and labeled it "screenshot". The map it depicts is unpopular, the graphical settings certainly as high as possible, and the situation is rather unusual. I've explained why this picture should not be included to another person already and I don't know why you did it. Advertisement shots by the developers should not be included. I don't support your MILES-shots either. MILES is nothing in the game. Say, are there still servers for it at all? You're overemphasizing this totally.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well lot idea's I would agree, though lot of incorrect things/don't make sense/ things I would disagree. Overall I think I will still go kuks suggestions. I think that will help trim things down. ALso, your shots of e3 could be good too. User:Ele9699 22:49, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Don't say "I would agree" or disagree. Add further reasons for agreement/disagreement. Or it provokes the idea that you don't have any reasons at all. If you're opposing my view without reasons, my view must be correct - you don't know anything against it, it is reasonable and makes sense. Opposition without reason(s) is opposition without sense. It proves you're opposing for reasons you don't want to express because they're unlogical, unreasonable, self-centered or anything other unacceptable to be tolerated in wikipedia.User:Nightbeast 08:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well I already issued my earlier response to kukoman suggested changes, and you had yours. The important things is that regardless of the details I didn't change my mind from my earlier position. The reasons details etc. for the most part had already been gone over both in yours and earlier posts. User:Ele9699 18:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) Ok, ok, I get it. As Kukuman states cheating and realism ought to be removed with you agreeing on that, I conclude that you are in favor of "remove" rather than "move" irrelevant stuff and I hope you're talking of ''in general'' instead of thinking "cheating and realism was written by ''others''.". Am I right in guessing or not?User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Im not entirely sure what your saying here, but certainly those sections need to be at least overhauled, or maybe just trimmed down. For example, maybe just include the aspects of realism that are uniuque to AA. User:Ele9699 22:06, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Propaganda?== As i see it, America's Army is propaganda software, with the purpose of recruit young americans. It is the largest and most ambitious investment in propaganda software in the world. This is what is most interesting about this game, seen from a larger, NPOV view, and I belive it should have have main part in the article. But should we talk about propaganda, or commercials? * The word commercial is when a firm tries to give the public a posetive view of a comercial product. * The word propaganda is when a government tries to give the public a certain believe or ethic. America's Army is produced by the government. It's purpose is not to sell any comercial product, but to give the belief that the US army is "good". It fits best with the word propaganda. There is probably a lot of people who don't belive it is propaganda. It would be great to hear their views. I would especially like to hear what they believe the purpose of the game is, if not that of propaganda. I will do my best to stay on topic, and keep to clear, logical argumentation. I hope others will do the same. --User:Kasper Hviid 16:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Wow dude you off topic- There is little or no debate over it being a massive advertisement for the us military, at least not from me. 1) The problem is that the focus needs to be on the game, not on papers written about it. 2) you welcome to add these idea's to the article, just not by reverting the entire page to a old version. User:Ele9699 16:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::Kasper, most of the discussion page is about Propaganda (mainly in archieve 1, but also in archieve 2). The result is this discussed but not current version [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=America%27s_Army&oldid=10521986] if you're interested in the topic. At the moment there's a dispute so the site got frozen.User:Nightbeast 20:50, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Yes I was obviously talking about the ''current'' discussion. Furthermore its very misleading to say that page is the 'result' of discussion. Not only were many things added that were not discussed, but the majority of changes were left not because you reached a compromise, but because they got tired of arguing and undoing your reversions. For example, take your "discussions" with a user andre, it ended with ''I quit, people. I can't deal with this page anymore and Nightbeast/anonymous editor's nonsensical arguments. Sorry. Andre (talk) 20:21, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)''. User:Ele9699 00:56, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::That's YOUR opinion. As I see you're helplessly trying to gain support by the old opposition, so far unsuccessfully. What do you expect? Do you actually think just by being against me and pretending to be in the support of the "out-dated" (<- in your words, wouldn't it be?) opposition would give you any support? Be right, and you'll have support - be wrong, and you won't. Get used to it.User:Nightbeast 08:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Well the current discussion is the current discussion, thats not really my opinion. Im not neccisarly looking for support, just involvement and in that case neither, I was citing it as example of somoen response to your behavior. Also, im not 'against' you either really, as we agree on a lot basics things. Such as the need to mention how it was for army recruitment, about the moves inst. etc, really. Not that we don't have differences, but at least on some 'core' issues. User:Ele9699 18:07, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) No, what I was talking about was why Andre left. He said it was because of a lack of time or something and I said it was because of the fact his version was protected and because he couldn't give ANY reason - however irrelevant - why my last edit should have been "vandalism" or anything else besides a reasonable change. But that's history and redundant anyway. Sure, you were looking for support, but not for impartial support. Back to topic: our versions' differences conflict with each other. And there can only be ONE article.User:Nightbeast 00:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) Ele9699>> I agree that the article should be about the game. But "about the game" is NOT just about the game from the players point of view, where we look at the gameplay, weapons, classes, cheating etc. It should also address what the reason is for the US army to produce the game. 99 % of all games are produced to be sold, where America's Army to 7.5 million Dollars are given away for free. From any other angle than that of the players, this is what make America's Army interesting. --User:Kasper Hviid 22:05, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) :Ok once again, AA is not a commercial product, its a goverment product. Saying that its ''not'' a commercial product is meaningless. That is also a very narrow defintition of propoganda, as it can came from other organizations besides a goverment. Neverthless, the game has the purpose of aiding recruitment among its goals. Its the official game of the us army afterall, and it should be mentioned, but it should not dominate the articles content which is already overloaded as it is. In depth analysis of papers written about the game and other aspects need there own space, like how is done elsewhere in the wikipedia. User:Ele9699 22:42, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC) ::No, actually in depth analyses of small, virtual issues should have its own, small place while a summary of university material, including an explanation what America's Army is exactly and what was its reception/effect is adding a crucial contribution to the big picture. Getting stuck on small gaming details without context is everything but what an article needs. It's like an interpretation of a poem describing the first letter of every first line although this has doesn't contribute to the big picture at all - it is beside the picture, it is correct, yes, maybe, but it's got no relevance. Controversy states what THE GAME is, the virtual part states what is IN the game. If the article should describe THE GAME, and not somewhere lost in the game, you know what has more relevance very well. ::I will not comment on propaganda any longer. The discussion with two users created over hundred kByte of text and if you think this discussion is incomplete to any extent, you can discuss it with your history teacher if you like. I will not comment on propaganda as it seems to me to be a distraction, making an attempt to avoid commenting on the current dispute because you seem to know you're wrong. It is obvious that you only commented little on what I wrote, helplessly trying to take advantage of another oppurtunity to distract. Since the original version was discussed THROUGH, it has grounds. What was not discussed in it, was not ignored but agreed on. Your version ignored what was discussed and needs to be discussed at the same time. You cannot raise objection because you cannot give reasons other than 'I oppose because it's mine'. That's why you only discuss a bit, saying "We agree on some, disagree on others" as if you could only say that you disagree.User:Nightbeast 08:45, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC) :::What is important for me, is that a the reader who read the article will be informed about the purpose of the game, and about the gameplay. The first should not dominate the article, as Ele9699 states, but it still requires a certain percentage of the article to be explained. If the article is too overloaded for that, we will have to remove something. :::Ele9699, if you feel that the propaganda issue is not discussed throughfully, it will of course needs to be continued. However, I hope that you just wanted to point out weaknesses in argumentation. Anyway, NightBeAsT said youre were runing another disbute, so let's put the potential propaganda discution way for now. --User:Kasper Hviid 10:52, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC) ==Terrible== I just stumbled over this looking for info on the game and this has got to be one of the worst articles on the Wikipedia. I read about 20 lines down and had to give up... The total lack of grammar is making it unreadable. Why is it protected in such a terrible state? Please fix :) User:Preisler 01:29, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) :It was protected because of an edit war. I made copyedits in the past but the article was protected before I could make a copyedit on the latest revisions. User:Kukuman 01:41, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Unprotected== The article has been unprotected and I have made some changes to the article, mostly what we discussed here. User:Kukuman 23:01, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC) Fine. Then we can update to the current discussed, agreed on and basic version again. This here is my last week in which I've almost no time but the good news is that after this I'll have several months free for this article. :) Ele, if you think I'd give up the article to pointlessness and anarchy, you're miscalculating the situation. I've spent almost half a year on this very article already and - maybe you won't understand this - I'll protect its progress and quality for the years to come. You might have had more time than me while I only was right and had reason, but I'll soon have time again so look forward to it :D. Kukuman, as you've deleted sections for irrelecance not according to the relevance-ladder (what is LEAST relevant should be excluded FIRST), I've now done so myself up to Gameplay like a user proposed on the talk page without facing any objection. As you all seem to agree on the small-article attempt excluding irrelevant parts instead of the long-article attempt moving irrelevant parts, I've fully realized the change and will now call the version the "current version" which should be our basis. This must be like this because the version should proceed, not restart. We cannot leave behind progress once achieved just because one user thinks the article should glorify the game instead of the standards of Wikipedia. By latest next week I'll have a look at ANY edit made in the article to see if I haven't forgotten any parts that were reasonable to change, so your constructive contribution will not get lost under any circumstances.User:Nightbeast 16:11, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) Bond, I know you can't stand me but that's all but a reason to start lying. There are TWO possibilities to handle the article: ONE delete irrelevant information, TWO move irrelevant information to neglect them. OTHERWISE the article would be BIASED because the proportion of relevant information would be neglected in favour of a spamming uniformative insider information overkill whose importance is next to nothing. There is no other way than these two ones to keep the article UNBIASED. So you're claiming the status quo is BIASED? Proof?! Your allegations are as weak as your lies, lies such as: "no one agreed to that". Look at what Mediaright wrote! I agreed to that, RememberMe agreed to it and NO ONE disagreed = 100 % agreement = unanimous agreement. If you're in favour of the big-article solution, do it yourself. You're still disagreeing only because you won't agree with ME as a person. LolUser:Nightbeast 18:41, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) Oh,I see why you're participating again: the other version included "serious game" and the advertisement picture. A screenshot is not an advertisement picture, and they all rejected "serious game", especially the neutral observers, who even doubted the existence of that at all. But I guess it is easier to some to click on "edit" than to accept the truth and bow to reason.User:Nightbeast 19:06, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) :WTF are you talking about. No where in this discussion page was it ever decided to delete half the page of RELEVANT information about the game. Sorry. This page is about the game. I guess you don't get that. User:K1Bond007 19:42, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC) I wonder if you could read as well as you can curse ("WTF". Hope you're not getting into personal attacks again). Read through what Mediaright wrote and its replies. There are two ways, like I said. If you want the big-solution, do it. Until then the small version remains. There's no other way in this except for BIAS and I think that JUST what you want. Remember: the page is about the P-R stunt America's Army. The developers didn't spent any money for a computer game. The actual game is just a means to an end and 1/3 is rather too much than too little. You still couldn't point out BIAS in the basis version. What's your idea? Just express an allegation at the top of the page to make the article look biased? No, forget it. Prove or yield.User:Nightbeast 20:00, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Because I want the page to have information on the game instead of what you call a "P-R stunt America's Army" that it's bias? This article is about the -game- plain and simple. Theres another article devoted specifically to the controversy of it. What was your reasoning for removing the versions section? No one agreed to that. What was your motive for replacing the history of the game with incorrect information... such as 2.3 being Q-Course. 2.3 is out and is called Firefight and has nothing to do with the planned Q-Course addition. You respond saying look at what Mediaright wrote and it's replies, but there is no real discussion there. It's just you and your opinion of the article. No discussion, no consensus. This page needs a complete rewrite and an overhaul and the changes you made were not for the better. User:K1Bond007 20:45, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC) I've said two or three times already why the other parts are less relevant so please find the line and comment on that instead of beginning once again. This beginning reminds of the "new" versions of the article as well: always restarting. This is not progress, this is just inefficient, this is a progress to a move backward. Can it be called "new"?? Anyhow. You said "no one agreed to that". Mediaright proposed it, I agreed, RememberMe agreed, and no one disagreed meaning they didn't mind-> they agreed. Of course they read it. To me, too, this step is a double-edged sword, because as you can see "Realism" and "Cheating" and also a bit of "accounts", "Versions" and "weapons" were written by me to a great extent. I do not mind if it is deleted because doesn't fit the article. I do not really mind if it is moved and thereby neglected because then the information isn't lost but fairly neglected. In fact I do not care whether possibility you all agree on, but the biased way is no way at all. It is biased, not because of the information, but because of the proportion of information. Since I don't think ONE computer game needs TWO articles and since it would take more work for all of us, I'm in favour of the shortcut-solution, and won't establish the long-solution. Anyone else would have to do that but then I'd have an eye on the other version too. Since I'm short of time this weak, I've established the shortcut-version already, so this is at least an unbiased solution. If you want to keep "Bias"sign or not, does not matter but after two weeks or so and no proven allegation I'll delete it so it can no longer mislead. I'm sorry Qcourse 2.3 Dogfight 2.3 ..whatever.. mistake. Such a little incorrect line can be fixed within seconds. But I won't have time to check all the edits till next week.User:Nightbeast 21:35, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==leaving== I give up on this article. I thought it was going the right direction with the removal of useless cruft but now the cruft has reappeared worse than ever. I'm giving up on video game/computer game articles completely since this happens over and over again with these. You guys have your fun. --User:Kukuman 01:30, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) No, if you leave, Ele has achieved JUST what he wants: successful aggravation of the article in the form of a spam-edit-wave as means of punishment, punishment that he wants to make use of any time he is unhappy about something and unhappy means that his edits are not accepted. If such stubborness and dogmatism against all reason and purpose of wikipedia is tolerated, wikipedia CANNOT work. I thought discussion could work but for discussion not only a reply is required but an open mind on both sides. Just to reply on the talk page to pretend to care about other opinion but ignoring them is not what I consider a discussion to be. Statements and arguments are enough here already but Ele seems to come to a different conclusion than me for some reason and since his edit-rampages continue even worse than before, we need some kind of neutral RULING referee here. Ele has already had his version, the "worst" version of the article according to User:Preisler, frozen for two weeks by now, two weeks too many. I consider it even a destructive fact that a spammer gets his version frozen only because he's increased the chance of his version being frozen through the dominating number of edits and because his number of edits were the reason for the page protection, but now such a lot of time has passed and still his version is there, because the discussion isn't over, because he doesn't want it to be over, because he knows he can only delay the reconstruction, because no neutral observer has had the power to make a decision here. My consequence: next step of dispute resolution: survey on the question whether the article should be 1) the short-cut version of the basis version but focusing only on what really matters (history, controversy, gameplay) 2)Two articles: Short-cut version + referral to a collection of irrelevant sections so they're fairly neglected. 3) a modernization of the basis version with its less relevant sections (like accounts and cheating and weapons etc.) 4) Ele's version with its emphasis on irrelevant sections (eg map and class descriptions) and irrelevant details to draw attention from the relevant ones + wilful neglection of the intention, message, controversy and reception of the game (Controversy) --> bias I'll have the survey conducted tomorrow and will set the deadline on next monday. After that I'll surely start with the next steps of conflict resolution, up to arbitration committee. I'll revive the article again, no matter how many years your edit outbursts will be sustained, Ele. You can convince me with reasoning, Ele, not with overflow of energy wasted on destroying the article.User:Nightbeast 17:06, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) :Actually the sections that Kuko wanted removed (cheating, etc) were ''already'' left out and remained so. Also, the extra info was added, but also condensed down- and another section trimmed out as well. The large sections on the controversy are not deleted, they have there entire page! Finally, your welcome to edit in your idea's to the page- something you have ''never'' done. If you think things are missing from the page just add them! We'v already discussed the major issue's but I don't even now where you stand in terms of what you want added, becuase you'v only done large reverts. 18:35, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) Meant by 'useless cruft' is completely irrelevant information IN GENERAL, not specifically irrelevant information also revealing the negative side of the game or written by someone else. If you delete due to irrelevance, you don't only delete parts somewhere in the middle of list of relevance, but also what is below, what is even less relevant. Before you delete "peter has once seen the president", you delete "peter has eaten breakfast 234 days ago". I explained why the other sections were less irrelevant than "cheating" already. Just because YOU wrote mainly about less relevant issues is no excuse at all to keep them in. And don't you tell me speculations about weapons that might be included in following versions of the game are more relevant than all about player accounts. The "honour" and all that is one reason why so many still play the game, therefore it contributes A BIT to the ''big picture'' of the game. OH, but I see it wasn't written by YOU! That's why you deleted it with a smile on your face for irrelevance but kept alive such idiotic nonsense as map descriptions or weapons names because they were written by you. In what way do they contribute to the big picture??! "Oh, there are weapons in the game!! Never knew that!! That's surprisingly for a first-person-SHOOTER!! Now I understand the recruitment experiment America's Army!!! That's why they spent millions of dollars!!". So controversy was not played down?! I think differently and so do you. Or don't you?? Fine I will accept that you are serious and that's why you won't have problems with the irrevance sections being moved to another article and linked to by "''America's Army (small issues)''". Or like I said, remove these other issues. That's the only two unbiased choices. If you keept "your" version, you'd only apply the rule of irrelevance to topics you don't like personally. I'm welcome to edit my ideas back in?? I've an idea! Let's just make the article conform to the standards of wikipedia! My ideas are: either the redundant crap is removed or played down by moving, you know, so it gets "an entiiiiiiiire paaage" for itself. THAT'S THE MAJOR ISSUE. With your redundant information you're not only playing down the more relevant ones, you're also achieving an information overkill. I cannot realistically depict anyone caring about such crap as map names or fireleader if the user has already played the game. If he hasn't, he couldn't care less either. So since you're not a hypocrite but you really think "Controversy" is happy about having an eeeeenttiiiire site for itself in a peaceful environment, you can just as well move the irrelevant portion onto this site instead. (sorry for sarcasm) User:Nightbeast 19:48, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC) No, I've changed my mind now. I don't think a survey would make much sense because I don't think you - Ele - would agree on 1) or 3) anyway, so to achieve a compromise, I'd also agree on 2) [4) is of course out of question] and I'd create the version myself. I will have finished it by wednesday week and I will include all the reasonable edits that I'd ignored so far and put all sections that are out of the picture to another page. I'd best do it myself because I can no longer see such POV redundant anti-wikipedia crap like "A large part of its success can not only be atributed to it being a US_Army game, but by simply being a free first person shooter. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is another free FPS has done even better during the same time period, much better then its nearly identical predeccesor Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game which must be purchased." (source: link to "his" controversy) one recent edit by you, Ele. What possesses you??? Now, do you think you could do whatever you want to here??? Do you look down on the concept of wikipedia that much?!? At the moment you still have energy, the power to edit and time. I'll soon have both energy and time and if that article vandalism continues, it will soon reach the arbitrary committee, where neutral observers do have influence. How are you going to justify your edits?? Delusion of grandeur is no excuse at all. You're NOT the centre of the universe. Also, stop believing it's YOURS. I think you believe so because of several clues, for example on your talk page: "Users with dynamic IPs are not allowed to post on my talk page". Now, to come back to the version, I will also add a few lines to the three main paragraphs. For example the army's past with video games before their breakthrough with AA, why the game can be considered a statement and I'll add some new lines for "gameplay" as well. I'll also include pictures like I once announced, I mean pictures in connection with the game (project), not pictures of the real army's weapons or so. When writing an article about Platon, you just don't add a picture depicting a TV with the headline "This man existed at a time when you couldn't watch TV" (or something incoherent like that) either. Where you don't agree, Ele, don't revert it back or don't you want to apply on your own rule of not reverting anything? If any edit of you will not be included, I won't have ignored it, but disagreed with it and will be able to justify my rejection as well. Just ask. I do that although you've ignored other edits (even widely agreed on edits) and outcomes of discussions (e.g. serious game, advertisement shot and game popularity <- I'll come back to that) yourself, but I like the moral principle that an unfair action on one side doesn't justify unfair actions on the other. My compromise shouldn't be considered that I give in or that I would think I was wrong, and insisting on your extreme version won't make me approach it more and more. I cannot stand it when I propose a fair solution instead of an unjust request on my side and when a person insists on an opposing unjust request only to demand a solution somewhere between fairness and his request. Bad explanation. Okay. For example when someone has the unjust request of adding "This game is awesome" while the other has the unjust request "This game sucks", then the fair solution would be "The quality of the game is a matter of opinion", but when someone starts with "The quality of the game is a matter of opinion" and another instists on including "The game sucks", should the former give in and write "The game is not so good"?!? If I have a look at your first changes, Ele, I already see where the basic information conflics with yours. Examples. You replaced "US Army (MOVES Institute + students from the Naval Postgraduate School)" with "US Army (MOVES Institute, other army organizations)" WHAT OTHER ARMY ORGANIZATIONS??? You just made that up, eh? You replaced "AA- July 4, 2002" with "AA- July 4, 2002 AA:SF- November 6, 2003". You can include the release of America's Army for game consoles but not the release of a redundant upgrade! Just because no one agreed on splitting the article into "America's Army:Recon" and "America's Army: Special Forces, you just cannot ignore it. An update that changed parts of the name is nothing more than an update that changed parts of the name! How about "America's Army: Organisations". Also another redundant change of the name. America's Army has been released ONCE! When the console version are out, then it will be changed. . . . About the game's popularity. I might not have expressed myself undestandably and you were too lazy or dogmatic to ask me or you misunderstood me. I heard the game's "Number of players" is the number of accounts and it all ties up: 1)How can you count players? Always changing IPs and providers make it impossible. But can you count the number of accounts? Of course you can. 2)why does the number of players increase all the time? People create more accounts than they delete. 3)Why does the number of players NEVER fall? Accounts can NEVER be deleted. 4)Why can accounts not be deleted? Even banned accounts are not deleted. Answer: Why should they let the number of players be allowed to fall. They boast about it like children and make people wrongly believe they had that many players. 5)Why is the number called "REGISTERED players"? What do you do to register? Answer: create an account. 6)How can they keep up the lie? Answer: how can you 100% disprove it?? Does anyone have access to their database??? 7)Does anything conflict with the theory of it being the number of players? I found nothing. Can you find anything?? Also, note that even if it were not like that, which is unrealistic but you cannot disprove there statement without having access to the source, you just cannot accept the statement the game has 12345 players as if they had the infallibility-dogma of the pope in 19th century! The number of players is MISleading and claims that AA is the most popular computer game ever, which is ridiculous. That's why only the number of players playing together at the same time will be included with the number of Counter-Strikes as comparison. Only this way is Npov while keeping your change borders fact-vandalism to distort the truth. But I will not touch your version and change it because then I would not only include the correct change but also confirm other senseless changes by you as if they all had a right to exist in an ENCYCLOPEDIA! My consequence: overhaul of the article.User:Nightbeast 23:29, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Versions== Why was the section versions removed from the page -again-? I'm not going to argue much of the latest revision (I haven't read it, just skimmed), but the versions section was very notable to the page. User:K1Bond007 22:35, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC) Honestly, why should they be included? It is true information, sure, and you don't find that so easily on the net, but c'mon: who could need that?User:Nightbeast 22:52, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) Who knows. You shouldn't pick and choose information to add because you don't feel someone would look for it. Why does Mozilla Firefox have a section on it's release history or any other software product for that matter on Wikipedia. If you don't want to list it, then write a paragraph about the releases or the notable ones. Some add news maps, new weapons, etc some are just security fixes and aren't really notable at all. You may just be able to insert a few sentences here and there in the history section to cover this. Overall, it's notable information that should be added. User:K1Bond007 23:01, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC) In AA there you can only play the most current one because the other don't have any servers. It's not like you could just say "this version is better. Let's play it". I must admit that I found it interesting as a player how many versions were before the first one I've played but there was nothing else interesting about that. The rest of the text is far more interesting for gamers but it is also interesting for those who examine the game while versions could only confuse them. There are far more interesting things than version that even had to be neglected, e.g. America's Army: Soldiers. But then again you could write hundreds of pages about the game if it isn't summarized, which this one research paper demonstrated and what it wrote was even more interesting than "versions". To me version would be an information overkill. Would it be okay for you to put "versions" on another site and link it so it is played down but can be used for those that are interested in it? The AA-site is pretty big anyway.User:Nightbeast 23:15, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Overhaul == So here it is: a mixture of all edits I found reasonable together with a lot more information. It took me several days and I had a look at all the other edits. If there are linguistic mistakes, please fix them. If you have problems with the content, don't revert anything, Ele, as you're always telling me because I've reconsidered ANY edit and will give you reasons for ANY change. Just talk and I will consider any statement with an open mind and reply. I will not include more information because to me, the article is brilliant now, and so I will try to prevent any drop of quality for the article in future. After all I can only say that working on it was worth it but since it completed in my opinion, I will not create a further total overhaul. Before I forget: if you think information about weapons and maps should be included, I can only say "RTFM". Yes, installed with AA is an over 200 pages manual with all the trivialities a player could want to know. Likewise there are explanations for the other edits as well. Just ask me if anything else doesn't appear rational at first glance. My ICQ Number is 201-401-028 in case you want a quick replyUser:Nightbeast 22:49, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC) == Constructive discussion == I see that you've had problems with edit wars and disagreements here. There's plenty of commitment to this article and I'm sure that if all of you could just act a bit more Wikipedia:Civility and refrain from making WP:NPA, you'd probably be better off. Remember: there are no excuses for making personal attacks. Instead of just reverting one another and complaining about things like grammar or poor judgement about including facts, fix the problems yourselves. No one likes to hear complaints about mistakes all the time. Try to be constructive in your criticism and try to reach consensus instead of bickering about who's 100% right. Now don't take this as an excuse to start fighting over who did or said this or that. Start over instead and try to summarize your problems and see what can be done to fix them. If you just stick to the principles of Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:WikiLove, I'm sure you can reach an agreement on how to make this a better article. User:Karmosin 23:51, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC) ==Image copyrights== There are many images on this page which have no source and appear likely to be copyright violations. Please note all sources and justify anything considered Wikipedia:Fair use. Images that cannot be proven to be legal to use on Wikipedia may otherwise listed on Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images for deletion. User:119 06:36, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) Done (except for two or so screenshots of "Gameplay". These are made by me). "Justification" is a good start in general. It is the problem of the article and this discussion page. Let me give a short introduction. I've been involved in this article for roughly 5 months now and it could be stable by now if the way to justify things had been changed. I've played video games for 11 years, America's Army for 15-16 months and had an eye on the game in general for two years so you could say I know a bit about this all. I've been involved on the entire discussion page and know its outcomes of the arguments, and I know the discussion pages vicious circle: it's way too long. That's why new persons just ignore the discussion page, the articles about the game, and start to edit, making the article an unstable moving train of thought. When someone excludes the answer to the Why-question concerning the game from the short summary paragraph (why did they spend millions? why do they keep up the project? why did the game get successors? answer: the game successful propaganda and recruiting tool, which was discussed elaborately in this page here and successfully ignored during the edit), then I disagree and do I need to justify that? I've tried to explain that these "millions" of players the devs proclaim to have, is a serious and successful misinformation (you could say it mirrors the game) and I justified that twice already. Now I probably need to justify it for the third time since no person would care a damn to get informed about the game before starting to edit. I mean, how could I demand that a user shall read through something for e.g. an hour when I needed 10 hours to write that??? The edit the user would do would ignore the discussion, an ignorant edit. And when I edit it back, the user will demand a justification for that ''instead of'' giving a justification for his change. Some user would even find it too unfair to have to justify the edit, and just go on editing (no names) and no matter what you try to explain, you get ignored. The perfect example that anyone without any knowledge of the game can understand would be "series of games". America's Army for PC has, like so many other programs, patches and addons, other versions, the POV-term would be ''updates''. You don't call two versions of the same program "two programs". If the developers release a new version, you can't even say "I keep the old version" because the old one will soon not be playable anymore. So you can say everything but "series" to the game. Since it is merely a mod by developers for UT, it can qualify for "game" at best. So this above is ONE justification against editing "game" to "series of games", an explanation against an unreasonable edit that cost less than 5 seconds. One of hundreds edits. Wikipedia says: "Be Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages" but it also says don't be reckless. If you want any information about the discussion page, the game, the research papers, the entire AA article, please ask me via my talk page, discussion page, email or icq. I'm so sick of the article's unstableness. Get it right, then get it written.User:Nightbeast 17:34, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==Reverting 30 March 2005== First off, NightBeAsT please note that no one owns an article, and in my opinion you have no support in saying "I won't justify why I reverted, justify why it should be changed!" Now, reasons why the version you revert to cannot stand: *POV: distributed free by the US Army as a global public relations stunt to present the current US Army in a glorifying way so as in part to help raise the US Army recruitment numbers **No opinion but fact and it answers the WHY question. Not answering the question would be biased. Say: AA has been alleged to be a first-person shooter if you like weasel speech *POV: America's Army is primarily playable and subliminal video game propaganda and a virtual recruiting tool **No opinion but fact and it answers the WHAT and WHY question. Excluding them would be as biased as above. *POV: America's Army falls into the subgenre of an online infantry wargame and serious game. Contrasted to reality, it is relatively authentic in terms of visual and acoustical representation, especially pertaining to weaponry, but not modern war. Unlike Special Force and Under Ash, the game does not belong to the category of realist games. **Please explain in what way and why it is POV. *POV: The game also extends the military entertainment complex **DOES IT NOT??? Read the external links. *POV: globally promotes a one-sided and self-glorifying message about this army with its interventions **The world's premier landforce fighting terrorism and for freedom. Isn't it self-glorifying? Isn't it one-sided? *POV: Although ''America's Army'' claims to represent the real Army and gives largely true information, it contains partisan bias and fails to paint a complete and balanced picture of the US Army along with its conflicts, mainly playing down or excluding negative facets of the Army. **Do you know sf_Abu_Ghraib, the new map? Doesn't exist. Nor do civilians on the maps (with ONE map exception). Nor does the readme's of the game or the game itself include traumas, crippled soldiers, cries of fear, hostages, ambushes, verbal abuses, hysterical soldiers, ugly soldiers etc. Where are such things in that "accurate portrayal of soldiers experiences"? My opinion? *POV: Research papers of four different universities that have analysed ''America's Army'' all confirm that the game is propaganda **You can remove that sentence. Please read Wikipedia:Neutral point of view for information on the "non-negotiable" requirement set down that articles not state opinions as fact. Furthermore, it's just poor writing to define something primarily by comparison to another thing ('AA is similar to Counter-Strike'). That won't explain anything to people unfamiliar to this topic, nor stand up to time. You've also overwritten a lot of formatting and general writing corrections. User:119 18:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) I know very well that I've no right at all for the articles and if I thought so, why would I delete so much of what I contributed, entire sections. Like I said, should I justify why I reverted before you justify why you change? Justifiying why something needs to be changed makes it crucial for the contributor to have GOOD reasons. "Good" in the sense of reasons that you could use as arguments in a debate. Change for the sake of changing certainly isn't a good reason and would be prevented by that rule. I've already read through that Wiki:NPOV twice. Sure, many people don't know CS but then again 15 times or so as many gamers. There's no other game that similar and it tells that it was the model and how the gameplay works at the same time. It's impossible to describe the gameplay in the summary understandably in other ways. Also please justify your claims instead of just saying 'this and that is POV, now disprove it.'User:Nightbeast 19:18, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) Nice references but that doesn't justify the rest. You changed the version, I changed it back, you changed that back.... what's your point?? Edit war??User:Nightbeast 20:24, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC) ==User:Mediaright== A New Beginning Let's begin. Hi. I'm a volunteer. First, I apologize for deleting everything, but it's for the best in the long run. I have played AA for a while now but am a reasonable human being and not a fanatic. This article has had many problems from the start to the present, including this new version. There has to be a new organized dabate about all of this. Ok. One that takes into account everything. Here's how it's going to work. Below there are sections for each issue involved. If a new one comes up, feel free to add it. I'll start by adding my comments. Please add another block for any other non content related issues. Sorry. Thanks. More vs. Less Content -Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of information. Not a database of edited articles. Information is our goal and under no circumstances should information be compromised just because of space or feeling that it isn't useful to anyone. If you write it, they will come. It's a sure thing at one point or another. Article Splitting: Gameplay and Game Development Article Splitting: AA1 vs. AA SP Once again, I'm sorry. This was drastic but needed. == "Justification" == Now here is the list of explanations for w