The Sonic Wikipedia page

I'd brought this up in the 30th anniversary topic, but I felt like it was worthy of its own topic. So, here's the gist...

As an editor of Wikipedia, I've been a major contributor to the Sonic articles; I got the '06, Adventure, and Knuckles' Chaotix pages to "featured" (highest quality) status, and a bunch of others through basic review. One of my biggest goals has been to get the main Sonic franchise article to featured status so it can be run on the main page on June 23, 2021. I didn't start until around October since it was such a daunting task. But jump to now...

... and we're almost there! This is how the article looks now, compared to how it looked in October. I've just got two sections to finish up before I submit it for an initial review, then we're on to the featured candidacy forum. It's been a big task for me, especially that "commentary" section. However, it's been a labor of love that's come out of my diehard appreciation for the franchise.

I hope you guys enjoy the article; if you have any suggestions, please let me know! I'll keep y'all updated on how it's going.

 

I fixed it, just had to revert to an older version. It's not official artwork because, on Wikipedia, it's generally preferred to use free images if they exist.

 

It's not "fan art" per se, it's just not from Sega itself. Per Wikipedia guidelines, the general rule of thumb is to avoid using non-free images if a free equivalent that serves the same purpose can exist. Take this Shadow story map, for instance. We could use a screenshot from the game, but this image serves the exact same purpose, and hey, it's free. The Chaos Emeralds image is the same. It works just as well as an official image, but it's not copyrighted, which makes it better.

 

I did update the image to feature the correct colors, and it looks pretty close to official art. For whatever reason it takes a while for the page itself to reflect image updates, but it should pretty shortly.

 

You know, the more I think about it, you're right. I've removed the image.

 

Thanks! Right now we just need to finish sourcing some sections. There's a list of reliable sources that are considered fine to use; just type WP: VG/S (without a space though, I just added one so the smiley won't show up :P) in the search bar to find it.

 

It's actually been a pretty contentious thing to debate! It boils down to a few things:

1. Sega's never labeled it a spin-off (for instance, Secret Rings would be considered a mainline game if Sega hadn't said it was part of the Storybook spin-off series), and it's not obviously one (like Chaotix and Shadow).
2. Similarly, sources don't really consider it a spin-off.
3. It retains the mechanics of previous games (platforming, running fast, collecting items, etc.) and ignoring the Flicky collection (which isn't all that different) it doesn't really deviate from the established formula.
4. Sonic Team played a central role in its creation (Traveller's Tales did the programming, but they built it based on what Sonic Team came up with, which was everything from the concept to level designs)

Overall, the general consensus is that 3D Blast doesn't check the spin-off boxes. There was a lengthy debate in 2017 that almost led to that changing... until all the accounts on one side of the debate were discovered to be the same exact person.

 

So I've been thinking recently, and I wanted to hear what you guys think - under the "story" subsection, do you think a subsection about the series' lore and how the games' plots have evolved over time? I think that'd be good information to include for an overview, but I'm not sure if it's relevant to the series as a whole in comparison to the individual games.