Featured articleUr-Quan is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
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Article milestones
DateProcessResult
November 24, 2020Good article nomineeListed
July 19, 2021Featured article candidatePromoted
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on January 21, 2021.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that the Ur-Quan from the 1992 science-fiction game Star Control II are ranked among the best game antagonists of all time, and have influenced character design in modern games?
Current status: Featured article

Mediocre writing[edit]

It's really quite bad how the author of this page told the story of the Ur-Quan. Striving not to look like he's plagiarising the actual in-game content (which failed rather badly), he/she robbed the telling of most of its story-likeness. This looks like a police report, not something told in the presence of an open fire, to fascinated listeners. Single-verb sentences aren't really good for keeping the reader interested, you know. Someone PLEASE rewrite this?

--AbuDhabi


Why don't you rewrite it?

Agreed, why dont you show us how it should be done instead of criticising?

GA Review[edit]

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Ur-Quan/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Fuchs (talk · contribs) 19:43, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In progress. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:43, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Overall, while this article is competently written, I don't think it meets GA criteria at present.

If you can find additional sources to bolster the reception section, I will take another look. Otherwise I think the article doesn't meet standards at present. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:46, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for the review so far. Most of those issues are pretty easy to address and I ask a little patience as I work through them. I see your point about the reception section. I tried to focus on quality over quantity -- four sources proclaiming them as one of the best races -- but there's a lot of smaller praise for them as well. I'll chip away at all of this over the next few days and get back to you. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:23, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I took a shot at cleaning up the references and making them more readable. I also started to add some of the stronger stuff to the reception, where journalists are very specific about how important they are, particularly this. I still want to do some link-maintenance to avoid link rot. I have also found a lot more reception, but this is where it becomes a matter of style.
  • I've seen really short GAs like Covenant (Halo). I've also seen GA characters like Celes Chere or Ayla (Chrono Trigger) or even Zero_(Mega_Man). In all cases, they all have some of the high quality "best of" lists and more detailed explanations of why they're notable. But the latter also has mishmashes of passing mentions, long descriptions of plot, or general statements about the writing with the character cited as an example. I've avoided the latter, focusing on quality-over-quantity for the reception section (like "a rare design achievement" or "better than any character that came after"). I realize I might be too strict, and a lot of readers might benefit from seeing journalists briefly mention a character as an element of great story/characterization/music. Plus this is an older series from before the era of internet journalism and top ten lists, so for a journalist to comment on characterization at all is itself pretty noteworthy.
  • Let me know what you think so far, but I'll continue to work on this either way. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Next iteration

I went ahead and addressed all of your points. The current version should have access dates, time codes for the long video, and improved citations for the "Background" section. I also added new sources to the reception, focusing on both the quality of the source and the quality of the coverage. You'll see the reception section is expanded, with new sources and more detail. If this one is close to GA quality, I would simply call it here, WP:IGNORE the additional sources and analysis below, and I'd be happy to iron out the last few kinks.

On the other hand, I might be more strict on sourcing than other editors. I have enough self-awareness that I might be preventing the article from having as much detail as it deserves, and that might actually make for a better article. So I also wrote a version with even more detail in the reception, which I self-reverted as a matter of personal taste but but can re-add if you think it has merit. I've made notes on the 11 additional sources in this Longer Version:

As you can see, the longer (self-reverted) version has 46 sources, versus only 35 sources for the shorter (current) version. Like I said, I would err towards the current 35 source version as quality over quantity, which is still expanded from where we were a week ago. If we're up to standard, we can WP:IGNORE the rest of those sources in the edit history, and save yourself some effort.

That said, I can put in more effort if you can. I'd just need to know how many references we still need to cross the GA line. I don't mind working at this if you'd be gracious enough to give me more time and direction. I figure we can select the refs, and then I can spend time cleaning up the prose, particularly for WP:QUOTEFARM. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:28, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Checking in with User:David Fuchs. No hurry and I know this talk page is getting long. Don't mind waiting and don't mind getting a third opinion if it eases the burden. Still have the time and energy to bring this up to standard. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:20, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:20, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Exerpt from Fred Ford email discussion[edit]

"We really made a conscious effort to stay away from stereotypes and give every alien race a history that justified their behavior. ... In the Ur-Quan's case, they were under cruel, psychic control themselves for millennia and when they finally broke free the desire never to be in that position again ... overpowered any other mitigating factors."

— Fred Ford, Star Control co-creator, GameSpy Classic Gaming FeatureGameSpy Staff (May 24, 2001). "Star Control II History - Fred Ford discussion". GameSpy Classic Gaming. Archived from the original on May 24, 2001. Retrieved November 25, 2020.

I wanted to archive this here. I have no doubt that the quote is authentic, but the source is old and janky. It's documented here in case there is further discussion. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:39, 25 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 19:25, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(
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Improved to Good Article status by Shooterwalker (talk). Self-nominated at 19:59, 25 November 2020 (UTC).[reply]

  • checkY Article is long enough (9789 characters), is a GA, nominated in time (became GA on 24 November, nominated on 25 November), and article is within policy
  • ☒N WP:DYKHOOK says that "If the subject is a work of fiction or a fictional character, the hook must involve the real world in some way." This hooks is completely in-universe about Star Control and Mass Effect game universes, and the casual reader would have no idea what this hook is about. Please can you provide a hook that adheres to the above rule?
  • checkY QPQ exempt as the user has 1 previous DYK nomination
  • Overall the article is good, but the hook needs to be changed. Joseph2302 (talk) 17:58, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Working on this a bit. I'm trying to fix the in-universe nature of it. Does it help to rewrite it like this?
  • ALT1: ... that BioWare credited the game Star Control as an influence on Mass Effect, leading to design similarities between Star Control II's antagonist the Ur-Quan and the Reapers of Mass Effect?
  • Shooterwalker (talk) 20:09, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Checking back in on this. (I received what appears to be a phantom talk page notice.) Shooterwalker (talk) 14:52, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh sorry, this slipped my mind too. ALT1 is still confusing, because it's the same information as ALT0 but with the text in a different order. Most casual Wikipedia readers (myself included) wouldn't understand this or why it's interesting at all. Joseph2302 (talk) 17:21, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can see how it's a little too specific. Let me try again:
  • ALT2: ... that the Ur-Quan from the 1992 science fiction game Star Control II are ranked among the best game antagonists of all time, and have influenced character designs from modern games?
Aiming for a more general audience. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Notability[edit]

How is this notable? We do not have similar pages for more famous franchises (e.g. Zerg). This page has been deleted before for this reason. However, it was recreated with only "reliable source", not "secondary sources" or "independent of the subject".

Most of the "name drop" quotes in the "Reception" section are simply "mentions" in context of the game rather than about the race itself. They do not make the race stand out as a plot device or character. For example,

This similarly led GameSpot to rank the Star Control II soundtrack as the second greatest of all time, as "these themes were as diverse as the aliens' appearances. Your Green Ur-Quan masters had a commanding, pounding beat, while their more sinister brothers, the Black Ur-Quan, had a more menacing and subtle theme."

the above quote simply complement the soundtrack of Star Control II, rather than make a relevant statement about Ur-Quan's significance.--Voidvector (talk) 00:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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