FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

If you've ever done a Google search for a game, business, movie, album, etc you've probably seen the Google Knowledge Panel showing on the right hand side of the search results. I was looking at something completely unrelated, actually looking for information about youtube gaming and how they get the information for the games, and realized that Minetest doesn't have a knowledge panel. After some quick research it looks like it could be created with a bit of information being added to the minetest website. Obviously I can't do this, as I can't go around editing information on websites other than my own.

It looks like there wouldn't need to be that huge of an amount of work put into this, I found this in a quick search https://gofishdigital.com/create-google-knowledge-panel/ of course this wouldn't guarantee anything, but would be a good start anyway. I'm not sure if Minetest already has a wikipedia page, but it seems as if that is taken into account by Google. I'll take a look into that, and see about getting it created or improved.

I think it would be a big help to Minetest in general if when people searched for it, they saw a knowledge panel right away, gives us a little more credibility

I have no idea where the sample images come from, if that is drawn from the related website, or wikipedia/media or other image sharing sites, but I imagine there are probably enough pictures out there that are already tagged with Minetest that Google should be able to find things easily enough.

Whomever the web maintainer is would need to do the brunt of the changes on the minetest site, but I wanted to put this out on the forums to see what people thought about it.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minetest

Sorry , but there isn't an English wikipedia article!

I know some Spanish, I can do a little translating, and write stuff that is completely new. Just need to create an account and get some free time.

In spanish there is a "Knowledge panel" about Minetest too...

Unfortunately, Minetest did have a Wikipedia page some time ago. But some crapheads decided that it wasn't original enough and that they didn't need to have a page for "every Minecraft clone".

They also proceeded to accuse the MT devs of having single use accounts, which is the most bull crap reasoning I've ever heard.

In short, I read the discussion history whilst it was still up, and this is all that's left:

This page is protected from creation, so only administrators can create it.

No information, no "Hey, that was a load of crap, can we have a say in this?" Nothing, absolutely nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_administrator_attention???

Indeed, Google only looks from well-known site (such as Wikipedia and other site which provides information about the subject).
Actually in Google Search Indonesia, Minetest in search result (not in knowledge panel) is more structured than MInecraft. But as Nathan has said, Minetest lacks in knowledge panel.

MineYoshi wrote:https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minetest

Sorry , but there isn't an English wikipedia article!

But, we have Deutsch and Indonesian which have long enough article and good enough sources.

benrob0329 wrote:... They also proceeded to accuse the MT devs of having single use accounts, which is the most bull crap reasoning I've ever heard. ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... f_interest

I get their point, but what if the (objectively) best written article on Wikipedia was written by someone with a COI? Should his/her page be taken down because s/he happen to be involved? What if that very thing is what gave him/her the insight to write the article in the first place?

Wikipedia is great, but I don't think they've thought of all circumstances for their rules.

I mentioned this problem at least once before, and nothing changed so significantly yet?

It was taken down due to lack of citations. Wikipedia is a web encyclopedia, everything on there should have citations. If it doesn't have citations, then it's not considered notable.

Hopefully now that people have been using Minetest for educational use, there will be quite a few sources available.

I wish I could help out on Wikipedia more often, but I can't because, if I were doing significant changes or writing new articles, I may end up being lazy to cite my sources (or other articles with uncited text), unless I referenced one already.

I'll take a look at this, but when I get back home I'd be more than willing to work on a page for Wikipedia or fork the website to make the needed changes.

We need bigger media coverage. That way, we've got enough references for a new Wikipedia page, and therefore a Google knowledge panel. So, how do we attract media attention?

Is there a blog website or something that takes requests?

Blogs don't count as citations. It needs to be news article, a research paper, or a game review from a bit reviewer like IGN

rubenwardy wrote:Blogs don't count as citations. It needs to be

news article,

Pretty easy to achieve, as news write for traffic.

a research paper,

This is even easier, write a paper comparing Minecraft and Minetest performance for example.

or a game review from a bit reviewer like IGN

This is hard; especialy from IGN. Would require at least an existing news article.

Well, we have to start somewhere. If we need to get a news article and research paper written, that should be easy enough. I'll try and give it a go too when I get a chance.

I honestly don't think Minetest is ready for a review from anobody like IGN. I think there are still a few things that need to be worked out in the engine, such as player animations, animated blocks, and directional lighting. Once those have been done (and the first should be easy), I think Minetest would be more ready for such a review.

When writting other papers, the authors might want to take into consideration the things I mentioned in the above paragraph too.

Remember, there can never be "too many" news paper articles or research papers written.

lisacvuk wrote:

news article,

Pretty easy to achieve, as news write for traffic.

Let's do it then

lisacvuk wrote:

a research paper,

This is even easier, write a paper comparing Minecraft and Minetest performance for example.

A published and reputable research paper

rubenwardy wrote:A published and reputable research paper

Could that not be a paper written by one of us and even published in a blog? I'm getting the idea that you mean something with more authority, but is that really needed? As such resources grow, the first would become more reputable anyway.

Published in this sense does not mean made available. It means published in a paper review magazine/journal.

It's the reputation of the publisher that matters, not the medium

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped ... ng_sources

As a general rule, none of us can create citations, only send letters to news sites asking for them to be made