Talk:No Russian

MW3 connection

Is it worth detailing the level's appearance in Modern Warfare 3? The confrontation between Yuri and Makarov and the "attempt" to stop the attack could be detailed at the bottom of the plot section, but again, I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning it on here. Aria1561 (talk) 18:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I actually included the connection to MW3 in the article for a little while (it was even in the version that passed its GA Review). However, I cut that sentence because the only way to source that line was to use the actual game as a source. I've never been a big fan of sourcing an entire game. Although personally, I can go either way with including the connection. I also think the plot section should be left only to how No Russian plays out in MW2, but again, that's just my opinion. Famous Hobo (talk) 20:05, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

And just for reference, here's what the sentence looked like: The events of "No Russian" are also mentioned in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. In a flashback sequence, one of the game's characters, Yuri, attempted to stop the massacre, but was shot and almost killed by Makarov. The ref was also included. Famous Hobo (talk) 20:08, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

I found one source that I think will work better than the MW3 source: [1]. I think it's better to mention it, since the level and its appearance in MW3 are directly connected to each other. If this source won't work for some reason, then you should leave it out, I guess. Aria1561 (talk) 02:14, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Nitrobeard is not considered a reliable source. However, I still ended up putting the sentence back into the article. Famous Hobo (talk) 18:03, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

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Peer review

Per [2],

• "Kelleway 2011" is missing the full citation
• Does the lede need to name Allen/Makarov? Would it be sufficient to say "the CIA agent" and "the terrorist leader" without making the reader remember names?
• The lede skips what happens in the level. Is it important? I'd put the part about optionally killing civilians here
• Who designed/was responsible for the level? Appears to be Alavi but unclear
• ...did IW/Activision anticipate the level's reaction?
• The opening sentence of the lede could be stronger. It's a level in MW2 that... did what? Summarize its importance in a single sentence?
• Would "Much of the level's development was spent designing the massacre portion to not feel contrived or traumatic" work? (Omit needless words)
• "derided the ability to skip the level" this warrants more explanation—how/why?
• "the fourth single-player level": this is jargon-y. Try "fourth level in MW2's single-player campaign mode" to give it some context
• the player doesn't need to act, yes, but the reason why this is controversial is... what are the consequences? If the player doesn't act, does anyone say anything? If the player does act, is she encouraged? How does it work as a walking cinematic?
• "complete the level"—how? a checkpoint? a trigger? or: "Killing the armed soldiers ends the level"?
• i think it's worth weaving the plot into the body of the gameplay summary—no need to separate, as it wouldn't be separate for the player

• "unimaginable, albeit plausible": this is an oxymoron, no?
• the Stern quote is a bit gratuitous, can be further digested/paraphrased
• 'Alavi never intended for "No Russian" to attract controversy' is this true or something he said at the time? (was he really that thick?) they had to have known by the time it was playtested...
• "Much of the level's development constituted designing the massacre portion." What other portions are there? What exactly were they designing?
• Russia doesn't have a "rating system" or is it more that Russia doesn't have a regulatory body
• if known, why were the German/Japanese games changed?
• "often given a high content rating": were the censored versions not given the same ratings by the ESRB? Usually, if the content rating is exceptional, want to say why. If no major difference, maybe only mention the BBFC 18 certif. The BBFC quote here can be paraphrased too.

• I personally don't advocate for including game reviewer names in the prose, but that's up to you and your own reviewers (see Wikipedia:Copyediting reception sections)
• kind of looking for areas in which the journalists have consensus, and then you can pull a single phrase/sentiment from a single reviewer that best illustrates the consensus in action. Otherwise reads like an unorganized morass of opinions. Sterling quote needs copyediting.
• 'journalists heavily criticized the content of "No Russian".': needs direct citation as an exceptional claim (also I think the other quotes in the article need direct citations too, though I haven't that policy in a bit)
• "Matthew Payne": who is this person? an academic? give an epithet so that we know what to do with his opinion
• is it necessary to mention that he analyzes three levels? we're interested in just one
• "Robert Rath of Zam.com replayed "No Russian" and examined how the level mirrored real life terrorist attacks": can reduce this exposition to "Rath/Zam.com described NR's plot as absurd in comparison to real terrorist attacks, though the attack itself was realistic and teachable"

• Academic sources: if you have access to academic databases, I'd take a look for new analysis, but you can start with these hits in Google Scholar, Google Books, and academia.edu/ResearchGate searches. I wouldn't force scholars in for their own sake, but if they add new dimensions, worth considering. Also might want to list the sources you're not using on the talk page so others can see why you chose against them.
• consider using {{r}} and list-defined refs instead of <ref></ref>, for readability

• Right now I still have to add more information about the initial reception from both gaming journalists and major new publications, the British parliament debating the content of the level, more analysis from research papers about the impact of No Russian, and the possible connection to the 2011 Norway Attacks.

  these ideas sound good and yeah would want a lot more than speculation for the connection to the 2011 incident

This was a quick pass so please excuse any curtness. Also the questions are mostly rhetorical, so no need to respond inline. On the whole, this is in decent shape with no glaring blind spots. Hope the expansion goes well! (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 02:47, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

@Czar: Hi there! Thank you for the peer review! I like the fact that as soon as I say that I've gotten back into editing, life throws a bunch of curveballs my direction, great...But fortunately that's all taken care of, so I can get back to this. I'll try and take care of most of the comments today. I know you said not to respond inline, but I wanted to respond to a few comments in particular.

• Who designed/was responsible for the level? Appears to be Alavi but unclear So this is one of the most annoying parts of this article. I can't find any article that explicitly mentions why Alavi was so heavily involved with No Russian. The PC Gamer source I use states that Steve Fukada came up with the idea for the level, but then it just goes straight into what Alavi did in the level's development. It's annoying, and this is basically what I have to work with. So while Alavi wasn't responsible for the level, he basically developed it alone. Any ideas on how to get around this?
• 'Alavi never intended for "No Russian" to attract controversy' is this true or something he said at the time? (was he really that thick?) they had to have known by the time it was playtested... Believe it or not, he said this. To be honest, I kind of believe him. I mean, with or without No Russian, MW2 was going to be one of the best selling games of all time. Why cloud the game with unnecessary controversy when it didn't need it to sell well? Granted, it's a terrorist level, so not expecting controversy is rather thick.
• if known, why were the German/Japanese games changed? Unfortunately I can't find any articles stating why the Japanese and German versions were censored. They may even be other international versions that were censored but weren't covered in gaming publications.
• these ideas sound good and yeah would want a lot more than speculation for the connection to the 2011 incident Unfortunately (probably not the right word given the context, but you know what I mean) it's a very limited committed connection to the 2011 Norway attacks. The perpetrator of the attack straight up said he used MW2 as a "training tool", and you assume a guy using a video game as a so-called training tool would use the terrorist level as inspiration. However, he didn't say he used No Russian as inspiration, and making that connection would be original research. I think a CNN article mentions No Russian, so I could at the very least quote them as saying they believe he used the No Russian level as inspiration. Famous Hobo (talk) 19:35, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh and I just remembered, there is a Screen Rant article talking about the similarities between No Russian and the 2016 Atatürk Airport attack, but since Screen Rant isn't a reliable source, I wasn't sure whether to include it or not. I wonder if the trend now is anytime an airport attack happens, a journalist is going to compare it to No Russian. Famous Hobo (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

re: Alavi, I'd just be careful about giving proper credit. I'd assume that no one person is the specific level's designer/owner unless stated. This source puts Alavi as "one of" the designers. Where did it say he developed it alone? What's the exact quote about him not intending for it to be controversial? (Might be worth adding the quote to the footnote, since I imagine others will want to see it at a glance too.) Regardless as to whether he meant (1) that he naively didn't expect the level to be controversial or (2) that he didn't mean for it to be as controversial as it was, clarifying who expected the game to be controversial (and when) will be important to tease out before this goes to FA. It could be as simple as merging all comments on the dev's expectations of its controversial effect into a single paragraph. Or could just rearrange if the sources support that Activision realized that the level was controversial by the time it entered playtesting and that one tester refused it.

Have you tried German and Japanese sources for info on the censorship? Could ask the WP:VG equivalents in those languages or on enwp's noticeboards related to those languages for help with sourcing. Non-English sources are totally fine.

If no sources directly connect the level to an attack, I'd drop it from the article as either trivia or puffs. Perhaps those would be worth mentioning in context in the game's article, but unless a secondary source is making the connection, we shouldn't be doing that original research for them. And ya, if Screen Rant is the only source covering the connection, I'd contend that the factoid hasn't proven that compelling to secondary sources. This said, searches in academic databases might open up whole new literatures behind paywalls. Worth checking out! czar 02:48, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Kevin Omar Mohammed

This is a GA, so any content added needs to be up to that standard, including both grammar and adherence to WP:V. The source being used is simply speculating that his twitter post of a screen shot of No Russia led to his arrest. This is clear in the language they use such as it just might have been what set off alarm bells. No where does the source state specifically that the screen shot was the trigger and there appears to be no official statement towards that at this time. Considering how long ago this was, it's unlikely new information will become available.

Possible alternative text:

Kevin Omar Mohammed was arrested on weapons charges in March 2016, shortly after he posted a screen shot of "No Russian" on social media, asking for a modded version featuring Brussels Airport.

This cuts it down to straight relevant facts. -- ferret (talk) 14:13, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

As a courtesy to other contributors, could we discuss complicated or controversial issues on the talk page, not in our edit summaries...

I added a brief paragraph about how the arrest of a Canadian who tried to travel to ISIS territory was triggered by his request for the "no russian" MOD.

Another contributor reverted my addition with an edit summary asserting the source didn't explicitly name the "no russian" MOD. No, why would an article for general readers name an obscure name?

However, the article did republish a screenshot from "no russian", specifically from about 2 seconds after the player and his cronies open fire on innocent civilians. Compare the screenshot used in this article with the screenshot CBC News published, from a few seconds later from this YouTube video.

• File:NoRussian.jpg
• File:Abu Jayyid tweet requesting a customized scenario for Call of Duty, set at an airport recently attacked by terrorists.png

So, I restored the perfectly reasonable short paragraph I had added, and started to leave this explanation.

I was unpleasantly surprised to see, Ferret reverted me two minutes later, with the edit summary "Undid revision 903241421 by Geo Swan (talk) WP:BRD, take it to talk. The article says "may have triggered" and does not specifically tie it to the arrest. I do not believe this content belongs here at this time. As written, it fails verification."

Ferret, some overly-aggressive editors call on BRD to justify starting edit wars. Don't be one of those guys, even by accident, OK? In paricular, I strongly urge you to refrain from the highly disruptive practice of solely explaining complicated or controversial edits in your edit summaries.

It is very hard to conduct a meaingful discussion through a series of edit summaries. Everyone's first impulse is to immediately reply with an edit summary of their own. In my opinion the practice you engaged in is the number one trigger for edit warring.

Not only are these "discussions" very hard to read for uninvolved third parties, not only can third parties only attempt to decode what the dispute was about, by paging through each edit, one at a time, to match what was being changed with the necessarily brief and often inflammatory edit summary, but, in my experience, even the principals have trouble explaining what the dispute was about, when time has passed. Geo Swan (talk) 14:31, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

@Geo Swan: Please see the talk section I opened on this topic directly above this, spare me the lecture. -- ferret (talk) 14:36, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

"Robot"

I cannot find any sources, credible or not, that state that the Getaway driver is named "Robot". I found every other associate of Vladimir Makarov to have a name but it's stated that the getaway driver is unknown. Even the names in game that show up for each individual character if you hover over them prove that the getaway driver doesn't have a name, but all other characters do. The anonymous editor may have found game files through an ambiguous source that may or may not be reliable, but this also has problems. Many game files have codenames that may not be the official name of the said object, character or otherwise. Another instance of this was for Tag Der Toten in the original Call of Duty: World at War had the file classed as a prototype and this classing style remained in every other file of this map in every other game that had it in its files. If any sources (even if they might not be fully credible, just no sources that are known for trickery or lying) say that his name is robot, please share. JPaul Getty ptoductions (talk) 17:49, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@JPaul Getty ptoductions, there is no such name for the getaway driver, the name Robot maybe came from a TF141 name randomiser as the game uses randomised TF141 NPC names for tf141 characters. You can check the article in https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/No_Russian ABruhRandomUser (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Differing accounts of the level's origin

So the 2019 USGamer article cited in the Wikipedia article states that the original idea for the level was for the player to pilot an AC-130 and kill zombies in Moscow (This is coming from Jason West, a cofounder of Infinity Ward). Once that idea was scrapped, the idea shifted toward the Moscow airport massacre. However, a recent article from IGN seems to offer a different origin story. Alavi said it was lead designer Steve Fukuda who pitched the idea of the player jumping out of an APC and shoot civilians in a mall, and that it was Alavi who eventually changed the setting to an airport. Alavi made no mention of the AC-130/zombie idea. I'm inclined to believe Alavi because that zombie idea was, bizarre, to say the least. The point is, I'm not sure how to mention it in the Wikipedia article. Should I just say that there were differing accounts as to the level's origin? There's also the possibility that the APC pitch came after the decision was made to scrap the AC-130 plotline, but there's no source to backup that claim. Famous Hobo (talk) 23:38, 5 December 2023 (UTC)