Talk:Codex

Verbatim quotes, again

Something has to be done about the issue of the codex content. Wiki policy is to avoid quoting large parts of in-game text verbatim as it can be seen as a copyright violation. On the other hand, it is the kind of content that people may expect to see in a wiki -- the one on the digital sharecropping platform that starts with "f" and rhymes with "random" certainly isn't bothered by copyright concerns and gleefully includes all that text verbatim. I guess this makes certain contributors overlook the boilerplate text at the bottom of the editor window... To me the main issue is that raw text, contrarily to images, cannot be given a different license type from the default CC-BY-SA 4.0. Maybe if a presentation could be designed to make that copyright exception clear, the problem would be alleviated and that content could be included? --Gez (talk) 02:54, 2 November 2020 (CST)

Basically there's no theory under which such use would be called fair use. Using the whole of a work (in this case, in effect all written material that resides inside Doom Eternal's assets) is never qualifying. My approach has always been to cover such material via paraphrasing, rewriting, and integrating what the game says with analysis and commentary on what it says. And arguably this is the core purpose of a game wiki - not to act like a strategy guide and simply regurgitate verbatim but to be an encyclopedia about the game, offering something beyond the game itself. If I just want to read the Codex entries, I can load DE and read them after all.

At some point this has become lost on the majority of potential users, and as you astutely note, crapdom is largely to blame with its lax policies that are effectively assured by its majority stakeholder being Amazon, a company that could defend it against lawsuits to the tune of billions of dollars, or just negotiate its way out of trouble by making special deals with whatever publishers would be bothered by its content.

Changing our policy on this would be a fundamental shift in the purpose and make-up of the site and I'm not sure I could be on board. --Quasar (talk) 07:37, 4 November 2020 (CST)

I concur about the wiki's purpose and the futility of adding verbatim material that can already be consumed in-game. But otherwise stay away from most Doom 2016/Eternal contributions because I own neither game and am thus unqualified to review such edits. --Xymph (talk) 07:46, 4 November 2020 (CST)

Perhaps if the policy is changed to allow more quoting of in-game text, there could still be limitations on what could be allowed on the wiki. The only things that come to mind are Codex entries and transcripts. Anything else would be fat that's better off being cut. --Dustyoo10 (talk)11:03, 4 November 2020 (CST)

One point I'd dispute is that the codex is "the whole of a work" -- the whole of the work here is the game; nobody is going to buy Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, or TAGPO just to read the codex entries. I'll admit that my reasoning is also informed a bit by my time on the UESP which does contain a pretty exhaustive verbatim copy of all the in-game books from all games in the series. However, obviously, the articles for the physical books (such as the Elder Scrolls novels) are just a normal overview and don't contain the book's text. --Gez (talk) 11:26, 4 November 2020 (CST)

Having spent some time reading from other wikis, I will say that having a repository of information from the game neatly categorized is very helpful, and I don't believe that would change the fundamentals of how this wiki works, as the codex entries are 2-3 paragraphs long at maximum and would occupy a single page. Although, this all relies on whether Bethesda is okay with this or not, and what the rest of the wiki would think of it. --Dustyoo10 (talk)11:34, 4 November 2020 (CST)