I have highest regard for the Wikimedia Foundation. They've truly made access to information much, much easier, and truly enable wonderful content to be created.

It's just that they're, at times, narrow at topics they cover. I can't blame them for that, of course: some regulations on what to do are always in order.

Wikimedia has a great project called Wikibooks. They founded the thing as a place for textbooks on various topics - place to get everything you need for good, educational, in-depth stuff on various educational topics. An educational foundation doing some very educational things.

However, there was probably a slight idea problem at Wikipedia: When people started making really long and unencyclopedic additions to Wikipedia, about all sorts of small but loved enemies and whatnot of games, people suggested to take that stuff to Wikibooks. Wikibooks has started to be the odd place for all sorts of odd how-to guide stuff. Game guides? You can have game guides too.

Except that now, Wikibooks is clarifying its policy. They're going back to the original mission: Wikibooks exists for textbooks. Heads will roll - but fortunately, not very far.

On Wikibooks, the computer game bookshelf will have to go. It's been tossed around for a last few months. Final decision to get rid of it was made late last month. Jimbo Wales said, "I am unaware of any elementary school, high school, or college courses which require computer game walkthroughts as a text." Of course, he's pretty much right: if I ever taught a game course where people had to play through a game, I'd at least ask the students play through the game without looking at too many guides. =)

Fortunately, the content will be transwikied to a newer wiki called StrategyWiki, complete with histories, if at all possible. It has been planned well over the last few moments, and is now in progress. There's some discussion over StrategyWiki about this, too. A lot of stuff has already been moved, and StrategyWiki looks like a rather lively place.

Now all that remains to do is to take StrategyWiki under Wikimedia Foundation's wings - after all, some critics of Wikimedia might call this move a bit humourless. I'm a huge fan of theirs, and I'm still a bit baffled, but I can understand the thing because this was, strictly speaking, not the proper use of Wikibooks.

It's just that now I need to fix my Final Fantasy VII guide. Again. =/

Or, why game walkthroughs need some attention.

Every gamer, no matter how serious, has probably been quite a few times to GameFAQs. It's definitely in my bookmarks. I'm not perfect. I'm currently trying, first time in my life, to determinedly play a game (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes) through without using any of these outmoded spoilers and walkthroughs. I'm slowly losing my sanity at times. I've got to admit that I've needed to check out a few FAQ bits for that game - only to find out what I, strictly speaking, knew, so I don't think those times count. =)

Yet, the first thing that anyone who visits there probably notices that there's many FAQs. Many many FAQs for the same game.

I know variety is one of those things that make the world go around, but sometimes, all of this just feels like wasted and duplicate effort.

Aww, heck, my head isn't in the condition to do really really long rambling anyway these days, so I just conclude it thus: I think old FAQs are getting somehow busted. At least I think it would be really great if FAQ authors would cooperate more. They clearly are cooperating; Most good FAQs I've seen have loooong credits lists listing everyone who bothered to email stuff to the author's direction.

The communication is the problem. Usually, maintaining a single page and incorporating changes emailed by the users is pretty painful.

Also, GameFAQs generally only accepts FAQs in text format: there are cases when graphics really clarify things. I remember people throwing a lot of heavy critique to Jeff Rovin's direction for How to Win at Game Boy Games and related book titles, because they didn't have much graphics to go with the text.

I remember one horrifying night when I played Metroid: Zero Mission. I read the FAQ, which was, obviously, in exact same format as Rovin's book and the gameplay description hadn't changed much from those days: "go left and jump up there and shoot that and then go left and..." I squinted at the map and tried to make sense of it, went down wrong hallway, and such. Then I realized how to do the whole thing, all by myself, by accident.

So, here was my big rambling for the day. I'll just add this little plug here, though, because it's definitely on-topic. Wikibooks, these days, seems to also have game walkthrough guides. I saw their Final Fantasy VI book and I was amazied: This is probably the perfect format for game walkthroughs and guides. It allows inclusion of exemplary graphics, and allows people to immediately include the changes they were thinking of. Now all Wikibooks needs is some exposure: I really hope people will find out how great medium for game FAQs this thing is.

And my own plug here, finally: I recently started a Final Fantasy VII Wikibook. I already have some great (I think) stuff there, in form of exemplary notes and diagrams which just would get messed up in textual FAQs. If you know anything at all about the game, please come and edit it.

Here's my new random idea that I think might be worth doing.

Every time - well, not quite every time, but close enough - that I will complete a game, I'll try to think of contributing something to people who will be playing the game in future. A new informative piece or something.

When I first completed Ultima VII, I made a map. I took a raw world map that had been dumped from the game, then added labels to every building I went to. The end result was a... gigantic map. The next time I beat the game, I created a plot diagram - diagram of the stuff that had to be done to finish the game.

I'm not saying that every time anyone completes a game they should submit a new, complete walkthrough to GameFAQs. I'm saying people should contribute to some game-related cause while the game is still fresh in their memories. I've just beaten Final Fantasy VII; I may be hanging around the Final Fantasy Wikis and Wikipedia in near future, to fill in some of the details.

So that's a Random Good Idea of the Day. Hopefully, this might turn out to be interesting too.