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Notability of Custom maps?

4
Mikado282 (talkcontribs)

Hi, I have noticed your recent postings of Custom maps Dusk, Conifer, and Zinkenite Valley. You have also been adding to existing incomplete Custom map pages Panic and Vector.

Have you followed the recent discussions on disposition of Custom maps? A concern here is that Custom maps should have some notability to qualify for inclusion in the wiki.

I have recently made a quick assessment of the notability of all existing Custom map pages on TFwiki. I have marked (?) those for which I found uncertain reason for inclusion or no reason that I could find. Feel free to contribute. I was particularly frustrated that the pages for TF2Maps.net contests had no dates or links to blog posts. I took the time to add the year, cardinal number, and link to A/D CTF and Payload Race Contest. I also noted that not all TF2Map.net events are tagged as Community events; but I would think that all of their events are Community events. I would appreciate anyone adding these details to the other TF2Maps.net contests.

Your edit explanations claim Conifer and Zinkenite Valley are β€œpopular”; but, my observation is that at best they only ever filled one server at least once, and that may have been in playtesting. I looked for them today at rush hour, but no community map hosted Conifer, Dusk, or Zinkenite Valley. In contrast, I found several MvM event maps hosted by different organizations; strangely, last night, I found several of them occupied, some with full teams. At the moment, according to teamwork, 10 players each are on mvm_downtown_final4b_adv_entert and mvm_waterfront_rc3_dihydrogen_m (to be fair, more of this custom MvM maps activity shows up on teamwork than on Valves community servers list, so, some of this may be private testing for another MvM event later this year.)

M I K A D O 282 πŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒ πŸŽƒπŸŽƒ πŸŽƒπŸŽƒ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 01:38, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Arabian gaming network (talkcontribs)

Hi, I'm sorry for not being able to reply yesterday (bit busy), I understand your concern for the proposed lack of notability in these maps (particularly the lack of servers hosting these maps, which I assume you mean the community server search feature for TF2), but I'd like to give a few reasons as to why I believe these maps do deserve Wiki pages.

1. If you do in fact mean the lack of servers hosting these maps in the community search, I'd just like to say that from my experience the community search feature doesn't cover all servers running in TF2, for example, Creators.tf is currently hosting the map pl_vigil on one their European servers, yet when you search for pl_vigil and set the location to Europe, it doesn't show up (I've made sure to refresh the server list multiple times). So it is very possible that at least some servers could be hosting one of these maps I have made pages for.

2. If Teamwork.tf does indeed reveals the answers as to what maps are notable enough, this means by that logic, maps such as Furnace Creek, Strata, Glacier and many other maps also don't deserve Wiki pages since practically nobody is playing on these maps. I checked the Furnace Creek, Strata and Glacier pages on Teamwork, and it shows 0 or 1 people playing the map currently (I've checked multiple times by the way). Again, I believe Furnace Creek and those other maps DO deserve wiki pages, this is just by the logic that Teamwork.tf is a reliable source as to what is popular and what is not.

3. These maps do have quite a bit of downloads on TF2Maps, Zinkenite Valley has over 1000 downloads and Conifer has over 4000 downloads. Meanwhile one of the maps listed: 'Backlot' only has 600 downloads. I'm no mathematician but these maps definitely have more people wanting to play on them. Now I know downloads can't be the sole reason these maps could be listed as 'popular' by any means, but it's definitely a factor as to why the pages I've made do have notability to them. Although I do have to admit that Dusk only has about 600 downloads, but then again if maps with downloads like Backlot are on there, I don't see why maps like Dusk couldn't be on there as well.

4. I've checked your user page about the list of the notability of some of custom maps (this one: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/User:Mikado282/Sandbox/Custom_map_study_2020). And by what I think you mean, you're saying that the maps have to have some relation to a community event or have a Halloween counterpart that has been made official. (I apologize if I'm wrong about what you're saying). But after checking that page you made, I found that map pages that were made a long time ago (map pages like Alpen, Antiquity, Cashworks, Final Destination 2015, Hybrid, Stoneyridge, Strata and Traingrid) have no relation to community events or have a Halloween counterpart whatsoever, and yet they've been on the Wiki for years with absolutely no issue. I don't see why just three more maps without relations to community events or Halloween can't be on there. Also, I'm pretty sure Dusk was originally made for the 'Night of the Living Update' event, but I couldn't find any proof of this so I didn't reference it in the page.

So I do believe these maps are notable enough to be on there since other maps have been on there with no issue.

Arabian gaming network (talkcontribs)

Thanks for the concern though.

Mikado282 (talkcontribs)

First, sorry that all we have to work with here is Flow. (rj is trying to fix) You can also place comments here, where Flow is not used:

[1]

and

[2]

I wholly agree with Furnace Creek, Strata, Glacier, Dusk, Zinkenite Valley, etc. are comparable on the notability question, at least from the metrics that were known to me. The presence of a map on my study list was NOT to say it was notable, it was merely a list of ALL Custom maps on the wiki. Were I was aware of no case for notability, I tagged it "?unknown". Where I was uncertain of in any other way (such as 14th place finish out of 16 entries), I also used "?" rather than "+" or "-".

I see and commented on the same, that there are maps with no notability AFAIK that have been on the wiki for around 10 years. But I think I also see that at some point, addition of notable maps became sharply limited (roughly 8-10 years ago, if you judge that the number of new Custom maps made after 2012 is a much larger number than those made before 2012, one would have expected an increase in coverage rather than a sharp decrease].

(coverage of hugely used Trade Plaza and Minecraft variants has been removed as not notable).

I have not seen downloads as a measure of notability, but it is plausible to consider if you make the case. It is also important to note that some proportion of community play is not visible through Valve's list of Community Servers.

"...since other maps have been on there with no issue." It is a fair point, and that observation is the reason for my posted study, which is clearly not concluded and the reason to engage you and others in the discussion. I do not know what to think about the 2007-2011 maps that do not meet the present range of proposals for inclusion or exclusion.

One end of the proposals is that any map not in List of maps should not be permitted on the wiki (presumably removing all that are presently on the wiki) -- that would be much easier to implement and enforce. The counter is that a significant portion of play is on Community servers with maps that are not on that list, but it is not practical to support every map or Mod ever uploaded.

The particular existence of the 2007-2012 Custom maps has established a de facto policy, which should be addressed.

M I K A D O 282 πŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒπŸŽƒ πŸŽƒπŸŽƒ πŸŽƒπŸŽƒ (talk) (Help Wanted!) 14:12, 7 October 2020 (UTC)