Next step: C-class Article Improvement Drive

This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

With all the start-class articles pushed to C outside of a few lists we're still figuring out, we're moving onward and going to try and bring those C-class articles to B or higher! While this may seem daunting, consider the fact that we're almost halfway there as is. Reaching there, by the end of the year, is entirely tangible if we work together!

So to that end, Cukie has set up a list of all the C-class articles by game here: User:Cukie Gherkin/B drive

We can use this section here to develop ideas on how to approach the articles, consider any that may be worth merging, or sources that may help across the board in certain genres. We pulled off something pretty major with the previous articles: I don't think in the history of the VG project as a whole has there been no Start-class character articles overall. If that doesn't fill you with pride I don't know what will. Kung Fu Man (talk) 17:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

At some point in the future, I'd be willing to work with someone to improve Aloy. It's been on my to do list for awhile. -- ZooBlazer 19:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Two thoughts:

• I'm going to take a shot at Kim Kitsuragi.
• Lord British and Avatar (Ultima) don't really have meaningful reception. I say that having looked for it, as a fan of the series.

Shooterwalker (talk) 19:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I know, unfortunately there's been a mixed issue with Lord British where people have been uncertain where to merge it, and trying to brute force the Ultima Online incident as making him notable.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 04:56, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

The good news is there are 300 other character articles to work on. When there is no consensus, sometimes editing (or the lack thereof) allows a consensus to form. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:55, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

That's what I'm thinking. At some point people will have to look at the quality gap and go "why can't this improve farther"?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 23:41, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Two things: y'all might want to pin this discussion so it doesn't get archived, and for motivation's sake you should note how many C-class articles there were at the start of this drive (currently, there's 280 C-class). Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 22:53, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

A little over a month later, y'all are now at 261 C-class articles. SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

We are now down to 254. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:01, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

And now at 190 GA, 250 B, and 230 C. No change in the number of FAs, though, which y'all should consider eventually. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:53, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll be completely honest, I don't feel FAs are going to be a big or mainstream thing with character articles and will likely not be worth the stress for most of them.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 18:59, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Given the number of articles we still have to improve at this point, we're likely better off working on improving what's there instead of stressing ourselves with the intense scrutiny of making FAs. FAs tend to be way harder to do and have way longer processes. There's not much benefit, if I'm being honest. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 19:10, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I think being able to present your work on the Main Page is a pretty good benefit, but I also don't envy people who nominate in the process. QuicoleJR (talk) 20:39, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see many characters necessarily having the material for a FA to be possible. Maybe having all Top-importance character articles at FA (since probably all of them have high-quality sourcing available) would be a long-term goal to consider? Easier said than done though. λ NegativeMP1 20:50, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how that could be an issue. The comprehensiveness criteria only requires covering all the major points according to reliable sources, it doesn't require you to cover anything for which sourcing does not exist. QuicoleJR (talk) 20:58, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

Update: We are currently at 231 C-Class articles, meaning the number somehow went up by one. Probably a BLAR being reverted. QuicoleJR (talk) 14:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Probably better to let updates be a monthly thing, but a better suggestion would be how do we start chipping down those numbers? I feel like there's definitely a point where a lot of C-class articles are definitely those people just don't want to touch. In my case I just made one, but I know I'll get it to B. But isolating which of the older ones can be improved enough to B would be the safest route.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, you are probably right on update frequency. As for improvements, I'm not really sure how to get those numbers down. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:14, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

(Outdenting) June update: 220 C-class, 271 B-class, and 199 GAs. The number of C-class has decreased over time. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 02:38, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

July update (sorry I'm late!): 217 C-class, 269 B-class, and 210 GAs. The number of C-class has been hovering around that number for close to two months now. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 03:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

As of halfway through September, we are at 198 C-Class, 295 B-Class, and 215 GAs. The number of FAs has also increased from 9 to 10. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:20, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

End of November update: We are at 190 C-Class, 317 B-Class, 221 GAs, and 12 FAs. Great work everyone! QuicoleJR (talk) 23:15, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

February 2025 update: 160 C-Class, 302 B-Class, 228 GAs, and 13 FAs. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:53, 8 February 2025 (UTC)

Mid-April update: 167 C-Class, 303 B-Class, 234 GAs, and 15 FAs. QuicoleJR (talk) 18:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

July update: 175 C-class, 317 B-class, 249 GAs, and 15 FAs. The overall number of articles is going up slightly faster than the rate of overall improvement. There's also 119 Lists and 7 FLs, and at some point yall might consider checking the notability of all the lists with the same scrupulosity yall did all the characters. Kudos and happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:08, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

October update: 249 GAs, 335 B-Class, 169 C-Class. We've almost made it to our under 150 C-Class goal. Keep up the good work, everyone! QuicoleJR (talk) 17:51, 14 October 2025 (UTC)

Anyone interested in low-hanging fruit: the following C-classes just need a lead:

1. Alex (Street Fighter)
2. Ibuki (Street Fighter)
3. Sodom (Final Fight)
4. Bastion (Overwatch)

- Cukie Gherkin (talk) 13:55, 16 October 2025 (UTC)

So given the C-class articles are a bit harder to bulk up, some of which going to require complete rewrites, at Cukie's suggestion the goal has been refined to aim for less than 150 C-class article for the time being. This makes the overall goal feel less daunting, and honestly there's a good chance that we will never reach absolutely 0 C-class articles. Concerns also arose too that an absolute zero threshold may disaude editors from trying to do character articles.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 21:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

2026 March update: 16 FA, 283 GA, 357 B, & 183 C- for a total of 839 character articles; the number has gone back to increasing overall and progress towards the goal of sub-150 C-articles has gone down. There's still 7 FLs but 98 Lists, a noticeable decrease. That all noted, the average quality of new characters articles lately has gone up, so keep up the good work (and good luck to those pursuing FAs/FLs!). Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 20:00, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, it's definitely fallen to the wayside as options for C-class improvement have dried up a bit. A lot of what is left either would require a lot of research or is of limited interest for much of the project. (I started playing Dragon Age in some small part to improve those articles) - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 20:21, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I am in the early stages of potentially making a Horizon GT (kind of dreading the franchise article though). My main focus currently is finishing up getting the main 2 games promoted/prepped for FA. Then I'll do a small part of this drive with Aloy likely being the first article I focus on after. So that will be a whole ones less C-class character article! -- ZooBlazer 20:34, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

It's been harder to find time for bigger work drives on GA content. But I want to congratulate my fellow editors for making progress where they can. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:00, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Help identifying underlying source

Hi folks, this FLAREgamer article was removed as part of cleanup for Characters of Final Fantasy VIII. It was used as a source for a few choice bits of dev info so I'd love to be able to identify the underlying sources for the following if possible. The writer identifies her sources as "Squaresoft Staff, Ultimania & Dismantling [presumably referring to Final Fantasy VII Dismantled], V-Jump & Famitsu".

• Edea's design being based on Yoshitaka Amano's style
• Contrast between Squall's and Laguna's party
• Fuujin and Raijin being designed for FF7 but held back until FF8
• Zell designed as a "shounen protagonist" archetype

Any help would be appreciated, thanks! Axem Titanium (talk) 01:40, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• From what I can tell, the Nomura bit is attributed to a statement in V-Jump, but I can't find what issue it was.
• http://shmuplations.com/ff8/ mentions Fuujin and Raijin intended for FF7

Sorry that's not much help there.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 06:00, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort! It's a good start. I've found the translated interviews from the FF8 ultimania so all that's left is identifying mentions of FF8 in V-Jump and Famitsu. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Fate character lists

See two related discussions:

• simpler: Talk:List_of_Fate/Stay_Night_characters#Name/scope_(FSN_-_but_what_about_FZ,_FHA?) - should that list be renamed, since it covers not just FSN, but its differently named prequels and sequels (Fate/Zero, Fate/Hollow ataraxia).
• more complex: Talk:List_of_Fate/Grand_Order_characters#Name/scope_(FGO_vs_Fate)? - should that list (and the remaining FSN list linked above) be converted into one list for all characters from Fate franchise (several smaller lists were recently merged or redirected after AfDs, but there are also several "hidden" lists in articles like in Fate/Extra#Characters, creating a cross article mess (I just redirected a character from a target game in which she plays a major role in but is just briefly mentioned to a list where she has a bio note, but the list is technically about a different game... sigh).

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:48, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

When to mention and include cosplay

This is something that I've been mulling over for a bit, but early on in gaming cosplay was a HUGE deal, down to magazines and books devoting whole discussions around the phenomenon and characters that were significant focuses of it. But shifting forward to the modern social media era, it feels like it's a binary "if character is sexy or popular enough, they get cosplay", and as we discussed previously cosplay images in articles have started to feel more decorative than actually informing the reader. I think as we're trying to figure out more and more a MOS of everything, a bar does help to be set on when to mention cosplay in an article, and moreso when to grab an imagine from Commons and slap it into that reception section. Kung Fu Man (talk) 12:00, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

@Kung Fu Man I feel like the case should be like how we handle any other aspect of an article: How much coverage on the given topic truly exists? If a character has a book or chapter length discussion or what have you, include it, but if the character just has some light mentions that they have been cosplayed, I wouldn't deem it too important to include. If it is DUE to cover them, go for it, otherwise leave it out. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 16:18, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Concerns with the quality of some MiHoYo character articles

I've been wrestling with this for a bit, as we've seen a massive influx of character articles for MiHoYo works (Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, etc), a lot of it spearheaded by Gommeh. It's honestly a really impressive effort and I'm looking forward to seeing how far he can take it, but as thing have gone faster and faster I feel like there's been a decline in quality. This is more concerning too as many of these have reached GA rather quality after being created, yet looking over the GAN reviews they focus on prose issues more often than not and not on fundamental problems that appear when under scrutiny:

• Articles discuss concepts in-universe or in terms of gameplay without explaining to the reader the significance in terms a non-gamer would understand
• Having a section on design but not actually discussing or going into detail the design
• A lack of development information; while this can happen sometimes, there has to be at least *something* for many of these
• In-universe appearance sections often going into too much detail
• Introduction of concepts before they're properly discussed later in the article
• Overuse of fair-use images in some articles when a character article should often only have one or none at their size

I feel a fundamental reason this is happening is there's a sort of "speedrun" mindset when these are being written, to get them quickly up, pushed to GAN and moved onto the next, now slowly shifting gears to get Peer Reviewed and then FAC'd. That's leading to some real garish issues when we're already at an all-time low in terms of activity on here. There are some subtler concerns about notability in a few cases, but I think that plays into the speedrun element too; there's a feeling that there's a emphasis on satisfying WP:THREE over illustrating the real-world notability, and the quality of some sources may not be the best. This creates an issue with stuff like YXRB that was later found unreliable and could have easily caused a house of cards collapse.

Ultimately I am not saying these articles are "wrong" or to shame the efforts put into them. If anything I think Gommeh has done impressive work. I'm aiming more to pump the breaks and say "hey, there's a problem with what's coming out, let's pause the assembly line and start looking at each closer before we rush on ahead". Kung Fu Man (talk) 21:38, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Well I definitely try to avoid these issues in the articles I make, but at times I need to remind myself, "ok, better explain X concept" or "is this really important to know?" I don't think the appearance sections go into too much detail though; in my opinion, they go into enough detail so that readers can get a good picture of what's going on without being completely overloaded with unnecessary information. It's about striking a balance between what's needed for the reader to know and what may be beneficial for the reader to know to enrich their understanding. I generally try to cut out anything that doesn't meet one of those two criteria, and I think it makes the article more comprehensive even if the in-universe sections are longer. Of course, I do my hardest to make sure there's no WP:FANCRUFT either.

I can definitely see why you think I speedrun making articles as well considering how I work, but I don't think I do that (I'm not Dream haha) although I will admit I need tell myself to slow down sometimes. I do make efforts to make sure sources are reliable, as no doubt some of you have seen at WT:VG/S.

All that being said, I'm more than willing to address any issues to the best of my ability. In solidarity, Gommeh ^{(talk 🎮 sign)} 22:07, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

The "design" sections are largely stemming from my Chinese translations of those sections, which are generally labeled "创作及设计" there. That term translates over to "creation and design" according to Google, but I am currently considering making changes to the headers to more accurately reflect the contents in English. I have not yet come to a conclusion as to what they should be though. Overall I am not opposed to any criticism of my work (as a matter of fact I welcome it) and would appreciate examples of the problems so I can identify where my standards or workflow might need to change. I'd rather address a problem the right way than make small, isolated fixes while not actually learning anything. In solidarity, Gommeh ^{(talk 🎮 sign)} 22:30, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

In other words, I take these concerns seriously, but I'd like specific examples before I can really evaluate whether these are systemic problems or simply differences in editorial judgment/opinion on how an article should look. In solidarity, Gommeh ^{(talk 🎮 sign)} 22:38, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Well a few good points with development and design is while I understand MiHoYo is a company that *doesn't* really discuss their creative process, you can still mention some aspects (such as when they were previewed or hinted at in being in the game, maybe for example too if they were part of a greater theme like how Raiden Shogun ties into her country's but so does Yae). Design is definitely a big one, because that's where you're detailing how they look, and in a big part that often ties into reception (like knowing a character is a dark skinned woman with certain traits can play into a later discussion regarding racial views). Like with Firefly for example a huge problem was you had one tiny paragraph indicating her design, and that was a huge point of discussion there. That's where a GA can feel not as comprehensive as it should be for the reader.

Another part to bring up, I think the gameplay sections could benefit from a standardized approach. There is to an extent a question of the necessity of it: like with Overwatch, gameplay becomes more significant because those abilities are referenced and part of the overall character. In Pokemon though, if you notice we don't do gameplay sections outside of particular attacks or defining traits, because the broader gameplay loop isn't as factored in there. I'd recommend almost keeping it simpler, as stuff like a character's in-game rarity doesn't explain anything, but a good understanding of their role and how those techniques work can be more valid.

Lastly with appearances it's more a broad problem where many of these articles are covering the character's entire lore instead of condensing it down for readability and understanding. Kaedehara Kazuha is a big example of this; there's a lot of lore details thrown in there that can be condensed down, and going towards the gameplay we're already throwing terms at a reader they may not understand (what's an Anemo? Does their rarity matter outside of Genshin Impact? And so forth). A good example of how to condense down an appearances section is probably an article like Ash Ketchum, where he has a massive storyline, but the most important plot points are understood so the reader can grasp it.

Now that's understanding that the story elements for these characters are a significant point of discussion around them too in reception; that's not saying omit it entirely. But consider how much you need to throw at the reader for them to understand what's going on with this character especially given they only appear in one game and no cross media as of yet.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 01:21, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

That's some good advice. I'll think on how best to implement it. In solidarity, Gommeh ^{(talk 🎮 sign)} 02:19, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I've tried to take your advice into account using Acheron (Honkai: Star Rail) - let me know what you think. To help mitigate issues like this in future and act as some additional help, I have created a custom GPT that can help analyze these issues and tell me what needs fixing according to your comments, since sometimes I have issues spotting them myself (call it bias, perhaps?). This is, of course, in addition to feedback from other editors. In solidarity, Gommeh ^{(talk 🎮 sign)} 16:11, 6 August 2026 (UTC)