Veteran Comments policy

Early in 2008, the FreeSpace Wiki community came to the consensus that many of its Veteran Comments sections had devolved into blogs. Veteran Comments were originally intended to provide useful information about various ships that wasn't apparent from their table statistics. From now on, contributors are asked to maintain a certain level of quality in their Comments.

A Wiki forums discussion has come to some conclusions. Here are a few examples of what information a useful Veteran Comment might include, although this list is far from all-inclusive:

All articles:

• Notes for FREDders (the Nephilim doesn't carry bombs in its default loadout, certain bombers carry Phoenixes but the good-secondary-time SEXP must be used to enable them to fire)
• Info on special gun placements and which banks correspond to which guns (Ursa's top-right gun, which is uselessly inaccurate versus anything small)
• Warnings about any problems with the ship (Tauret can't really use Kaysers due to energy constraints)
• Weaknesses (the weapons systems on the Erinyes and Athena are extremely exposed. Think 95% hull and no weapons working)
• Any interesting facts that have not been pointed out elsewhere

Capship articles:

• Blind spots (in front and ever so slightly above a Moloch, only a single blob turret can reach you)
• Special issues (the Azrael is effectively impossible to disable due to the engine placement)

What a Veteran Comment should not contain:

• Blog-like descriptions that point out strengths/weaknesses under rare circumstances.
• Speculation about how powerful the given ship would be if its default armament weren't what it is. (An Arcadia could be more powerful if it had beams, but it doesn't!)
• Discussing about a ship's default loadout that doesn't make an in-mission appearance (The Lucifer in FreeSpace 2)
• Speculation about the motives behind a given ship or weapon (Why did the NTF use Prometheus R cannons instead of Kaysers? Why was the Valkyrie decommissioned?
• Mission-specific comments (This ship is very useful in this mission under these circumstances). Comments like these are to be made in the relevant article. (Use the Trebuchets like this in Bearbaiting)
• Highly subjective and debatable statements like extremely weak or totally useless.
• Vulgarities like a piece of crap.
• Useless and trivial information.

The thrust of the Veteran Comments reform movement is, do not treat Veteran Comments like Myspace. Verified and useful information is valued; highly subjective and useless comments are not.

Through all this, remember that this policy is not meant to discourage helpful contributors. Be bold, as they say on Wikipedia. If you're not sure of something, start a discussion on the Talk Page. If you are fairly certain of it, edit the article accordingly. Thanks to the Wiki architecture, errors can very easily be corrected or removed later.