User:DekuGuy

Sup.

I once edited guides here and there on this wiki, particularly the one designated for Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories. (Ah, I still fondly recall the countless hours wasted researching and punching in every last statistic... Even now I wonder if they have been or will be put to any use.) Eventually, though, I realized something: this system doesn't work. The best guides are solitary projects by a single individual or well-knit group; these can be done almost anywhere you can post a guide. The worst guides are the ones in which a disassociated mob descends upon the game; these can only be done in a format such as Strategy Wiki.

The idea behind Strategy Wiki is a good one. Unfortunately, the community is not large, dedicated, and knowledgeable enough to cover such an immense scope as "every game ever made" in the depth it would require for good, solid strategy guides. Sure, there's hundreds listed as "thorough" and "comprehensive"... but so many of those, when you go to actually use them, fall short in one aspect or another.

Maybe if each guide marked as "comprehensive" was given a test... If every last section of it was thoroughly read and used by a designated, respectable, and dedicated team of game-players who would then pass judgment upon it, either throwing it back into the masses as undeserving, or holding it up as a gem whose pages should be often monitored and rarely edited. (I'm sure you're thinking of the "Featured" guides, but I'm sure you can realize the process used to select them is far from ideal, and leaves out many excellent guides all the same.) If then only those rigorously-tested guides were presented forth as "usable"... if all other guides which fell short of this golden standard or have yet to reach it were marked as such, and if they should have a "warning" flag at the top of every page... then maybe... Maybe that would allow Strategy Wiki to be a source of guides at which one could marvel... one which could become widely used and contributed unto... over time.

But, at the end of the day, I suppose some fool who knows nothing of the game, of the guide, or of the English language is still going to come in and ruin those guides. And that fool will perhaps eventually drive away those dedicated to making and maintaining good guides, convincing them that a medium with one author is truly best... and then perhaps we will be right back here, again, with a handful of truly decent guides and nothing more.

Farewell, StrategyWiki. Despite my doubts, I wish you luck.