This page was made in reference to the Leeroy Jenkins article on Wikipedia about a World of WarCraft character made famous for his role in the "Leeroy!!" video, being aware of the information About the group from the Leeroy Jenkins video.
Wikipedia's article says, at the time of this writing:
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Leeroy was given a substantial boost in notoriety by the publication of an article in the August 2005 issue of PC Gamer UK by author Craig Pearson, entitled "The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins". Pearson's article claims that the original video was designed as a negative commentary on the kind of "nerd-guilds" that meticulously and statistically plan out raids the way Leeroy's guild was apparently doing. Leeroy is in fact the hero of the piece, acting against the geekiness of his guild. Those familiar with game play in World of Warcraft have noted that the "plans" his guildmates were making relied on casting spells in a way that would be impossible according to the game's mechanics. Further an overall plan to activate all the enemies and fight them at once would be a rather unlikely occurrence among actual players of the game. However, some experienced players, such as those in the Twelve Prophets raiding guild, are reported to use this precise strategy. Giving further credence to this assessment and to Pearson's allegation is the fact that the dragon hatchlings in the Rookery are an optional engagement, not a required one. Indeed it's entirely possible to simply skip the eggs in The Rookery. While the Devout Shoulders item mentioned does require this engagement, it is considerably easier to do so a few at a time rather than all at once. Also lending credence to Pearson's theory is the fact that most of the characters in the video are using superior-level armor and weapons. Some are even wearing equipment that can only be obtained in an area of the dungeon after the Rookery (although players often repeat areas many times and it is not uncommon to return although you have better "gear"). |
Wikipedia's article makes it seem like Pearson's idea is just a "claim", and Wikipedia documents some evedience that only minorly supports this claim. In fact, there is far more to support Craig Pearson's arguement than the "impossibility" of some minor detail, or the optional nature of the eggs. The plan was designed to be more than just "rather unlikely" to work.
The fact (proven by an analysis on another page) is that the plans being discussed were meant as a complete joke to those very familiar with the game.
It is unbelievable that the Twelve Prophets guild uses the "exact strategy" of all the plans made in this video. (It is feasible that they might expertly use an "area of effect" spell to usefulness, but it isn't feasible to think that they would be successful by regularly using Divine Intervention on mages at the start of a fight.) It isn't made abundantly clear in the Wikipedia article that the phrase "exact strategy" is referring only to "area of effect", particularly to someone not familiar with the details of the game. The way the article is written now, the opinion of the Twelve Prophets guild (which was a group being famous for being suspended from World of WarCraft) is treated almost as authoritive as PC Gamer UK's Pearson.
Furthermore, the "support" of Pearson's claim, as written in the current article, is exceptionally weak. The statement of how the plans are impossible is separated (by paragraph breaks) from any discussion about Pearson or his theory. The fact that the Rookery is optional and that they are redoing the area are both referring to a common practice, and does not adequately address the uncommonly horrendous aspects of the plans being made, so these comments about revisiting the rookery portray Pearson's claim as if he's making something out of nothing, when Pearson clearly is not. Pearson's theory would be presented in a better light if it had no justification, thereby being portrayed as not needing any justification. Including supporting arguments instead, and using such lousy "support" at that, actually makes Pearson's correct theory look weak.
In the spirit of helping people learn, and believe accurate information (namely, in this case, Pearson's documetnation), I suggest Wikipedia use stronger verbage. This isn't going against Wikipedia's Nuetral Point of View policy. Rather, I'm suggesting that the language become more nuetral. As written, the language seems to be weakening Pearson's view, which I disagree with. In the spirit of Wikipedia's No Original Research policy, I agree that commentary promoting Pearson's view should not be exhaustive on the page, unless, perhaps, if the view is universally accepted and explanation would be widely believed to help people to understand the video better.
Instead, just as an example, I would propose the entire body of "Leeroy's popularity rise" be replaced with:
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Leeroy was given a substantial boost in notoriety by the publication of an article in the August 2005 issue of PC Gamer UK by author Craig Pearson, entitled "The Ballad of Leeroy Jenkins". The original video was arguably designed as a negative commentary on the kind of "nerd-guilds" that meticulously and statistically plan out raids like the way Leeroy's guild was doing. Leeroy is in fact seen as the hero of the piece, acting against the geekiness of his guild. The plans discussed by the group in the video are clearly flawed in design, often being detrimental and even being partially impossible to perform as planned. Much of the humor in the design and later execution of these plans relies on knowledge apparently designed to be detected only by those familiar with this late part of the game. Because of this, many people introduced to the video without this knowledge of the game errorneously view Leeroy and his actions as the reason for the downfall of the group. Regardless of how specific the target audience may originally have been, the video has been appreciated by people who view Leeroy's action as unpredicted by other group members. |
(and then perhaps commentary about the "to leeroy" verbage as is currently documented on the Wikipedia page).
The removal of words like "claims", "allegation", "theory" and the phrase "Giving further credence to this assessment" just seems to be less weakening in nature.
If the term "Devout shoulders" is to be used at all, it should not be capitalized as "Devout Shoulders" like it is written now. After all, the spoken words didn't clearly miscapitalize things that way :) The item referred to is the shoulderpads from the "Devout" set of items, but capitalizing "shoulders" will make it look like part of an item name as if the item's official name actually is "Devout Shoulders". More clear, I think, would be to link to the Devout Set's shoulderpads. Thottbot is a widely used source of information, and so there's little reason to not link to the item. This will only help support Pearson's claim, as people familiar with the game play and who see the item might instantly realize the validity of the joke to having a group risk their lives so that a Paladin could have these shoulders. I would even be so daring as to refer to the Devout Set's shoulders by it's official name when linking. An example of this, done clearly (on the local leerygrp page) is: "Devout Mantle shoulderpads (called the "Devout shoulders" in the video)"
Personally, I would favor having a section on the Wikipedia page to explain the game mechanics so that people can understand the jokes, and get more humor from the video that was meant to be humorous. However, even though this is not information that I invented (such as the game mechanics how Divine Intervention works), I still felt making such a section myself on the spur of the moment felt too much, for my likings, like what Wikipedia calls original research (even though what I documented is information coming not from me, but from another source), so I decided against adding this to the page right now myself. I also didn't want to take up a huge amount of page/screen space on an original posting of this topic in the Leeroy Jenkins "Talk" page on Wikipedia. So, I decided instead to put my point of views in an HTML file, which I later split into two files (one containing less opinions and more game/video information and a separate page, this page, containing my opinions and recommended action for Wikipedia), so that I could add a much more abbreviated comment on the Wikipedia Talk page.
Now I hope that perhaps someone else, a third party other than myself, sees and recognizes and agrees with the changes I propose, and improve the page. Perhaps this would be done by someone more familiar with editing Wikipedia pages (including following Wikipedia culture), or someone who could quote some more sources, being perhaps more familiar than myself where some information is documented online in the World of WarCraft website community.