The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Laser brain 16:55, 8 February 2011 [1].

Tales of Monkey Island[edit]

Tales of Monkey Island (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Sabre (talk) 01:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've been at this article for a while, and I think its time to give it a shot at the big apple. I'm confident it meets the criteria. The article has received a peer review, and was extensively copyedited by JimmyBlackwing, to whom I am eternally grateful. There are, however, two points I'm going to bring into the open to address immediately.

I'll be glad to have a go at fixing any issues reviewers may have with the article. Thanks, Sabre (talk) 01:17, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. This is purely in response to the commments about linkrot—I haven't read the article (by the way, I assume you've tried archives for the site?). If a replacement cannot be immediately found, then my understanding of Wikipedia:LINKROT#Keeping_dead_links is that we should keep the links in the hope that it helps us find proper verification in the future. It is not meant to be the long-term solution. Even if we feel that new references could be found (which doesn't seem hugely likely in this case), then at present it still fails 1c. The information supported by the dead links is not "verifiable against high-quality reliable sources". This simply cannot pass with information in the article which is entirely unverifiable. In my view, you must either find alternative sources, find copies of the originals, or remove the information which is cited to these sources. Trebor (talk) 02:05, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have to agree with Trebor on this point, simply because Mixnmojo wasn't the most reliable source to begin with and there's no offline access. Plain removing the information would be painful, but luckily it's not relied on so heavily as to compromise the article's comprehensiveness, in my opinion. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:01, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's not been my interpretation of LINKROT, but since three people have just effectively told me the same thing, I'll do another sweep to try to replace the sources. I'd also dispute Mixnmojo not being reliable, but that point is moot if we need to replace all uses with working ones that will have to be from elsewhere. Watch this space. -- Sabre (talk) 23:39, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The dead links are no longer an issue. I had a bit more luck finding replacements than the last few times I tried. Three dead links have been replaced by alternative references, though I had to remove the fourth and its accompanying point entirely as I couldn't find that information anywhere else. -- Sabre (talk) 15:54, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd argue that the last paragraph of Design establishes enough content to warrant the Guybrush concept image, but I'll leave it up to Sabre. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 10:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here's what I've done. I've ditched the concept/ingame comparison image, and replaced it with a screenshot of the opening ship battle scene, the one that's cited as being key in the creation of a cinematic director. That satisfies WP:NFCC#8 in my mind, especially when one considers it also provides a snapshot at the art direction and the pointy-clicky gameplay mechanics in the final thing, though the caption analyses it from the cinematography perspective. The image also lacks the baggage of being two non-free images packaged into one file (raising issues with WP:NFCC#3a), as the other one was.
As far as the other image goes, I've redone the caption and had a shot at redoing the rationale, and asked someone better experienced than me to look over and strengthen the rationale for that, because I frankly suck at writing decent rationales. I still maintain that this image's use is justified, the caption now tries to provide a bit better insight into the image's importance. The image isn't so much about the evolution of the character, though that is a factor, as it is more about LucasArts' control over art direction. The changes shown in the image may appear minor, but they are important. As Jimmy says above, the relevant paragraph for that image is the final one of the design section, and I've added to that to provide more context within article content. I wouldn't really feel comfortable removing the image entirely, not after several other reviewers have already given their affirmation to the non-free content, so I'm working on the basis of preserving and strengthening its usage. -- Sabre (talk) 17:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As explained, my issue with the Threepwood design is that the article had little commentary that was of the image. The recent changes alleviated a measure of this concern, but like I said, I am not certain if the little changes in the character design (in my view) warrant an image to help readers understand them. In light of the recent changes in the article text,[2] my concerns might be marginal. In matters about NFCC, a degree of subjectivity is usually involved. Jappalang (talk) 03:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dab/EL check - no dabs or dead external links; about a dozen external redirects which I did not fix as they were too numerous. It's mainly the metacritic ones, though there are several others. Use the external link checker in the upper right corner of this page to see them. --PresN 22:09, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

--♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:52, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a few minor remarks I have after going through the text:

  • "While those games feature entirely 2D graphics"
I would change the "2D" to "two-dimensional" here because "entirely 2D" sounds a little awkward if pronounced like that.
  • "are entirely oriented toward 3D graphics development"
Possibly replace "entirely" here since it's been used only a sentence before.
  • "About.com considered the series to be the second best Wii game of the year"
Possibly replace "series" here (perhaps with "season") since it's been used only a sentence before in a different context.
  • Some verbs use American English ("tantalize"), others use British English ("criticise").
  • "Very few environmental resources were reused between episodes, and the developers removed the central hubs and "comfort zones" that were present in [...]"
I don't understand that sentence. If I had to make a guess, I'd say a central hub is a location or an overworld map from which the individual locations in a game can be reached (like Peach's Castle in Super Mario 64), but I don't know what it means if that's the case, and – as someone who hasn't played any other Telltale games – I have absolutely no idea what a "comfort zone" is. An explanation would help here, I think.

Support: Other than that, I would give the article a support since it meets all the criteria: the prose is comprehensive and of high quality, all non-free images have a strong fair-use rationale and caption, all the MoS guidelines are fulfilled from what I've seen, and sources are either primary in nature or from reliable publications. Prime Blue (talk) 08:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've dealt with those minor issues, and I've redone the bit on central hubs. Hopefully that should better explain the central hub business. That definitely needed redoing if the sentence made you reach the conclusion that it was talking about an overworld map, which is way off the mark! What it meant was that past TTG games used a consistent set of locations as a "base of operations" for the player in each episode, such as each episode of Sam & Max usually starting in or around their office. TMI, however, doesn't do that, the character is always on the move into new locales, so players won't be familiar with the environments of each subsequent episode. -- Sabre (talk) 13:03, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Read the new version without your extra explanation here and understood it this time. Great work on the article! :-) Prime Blue (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
:the "Cursed Cutlass of Kaflu" - does this need to be in quotes? I'd have thought ok without.
"'was in retirement - sounds odd, why not "had retired from acting" or something.

Otherwise looking good from a prose and comprehensiveness angle..Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've dealt with those two prose issues. -- Sabre (talk) 21:26, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support - with regard to Criterion 1a only, I do not feel qualified to comment on the others. Graham Colm (talk) 13:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

Other than that, I think the article is in good shape. Keep up the good work. (Guyinblack25 talk 23:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC))[reply]

I'm rubbish at creating source rationales, so bear with me:
  • N-Europe and WiiChat have been replaced, I'd forgot to get rid of those when better sources emerged. Both were used to reference two release dates for the PAL release of the Wii version. I'd prefer to reference Nintendo or TTG for these, but they've been inconsistent in producing statements regarding the dates for the PAL Wii version.
  • Bit-tech is an online computer technology and games magazine run by Dennis Publishing. Some of their background is on their about page. There's some evidence for it being cited as a source in a number of related books in the industry.
  • SPUDVISION is the personal blog of Steve Purcell, who drew the game's cover art. The source is used to reference Purcell's own thoughts on doing the artwork. I suppose that makes it a primary source.
  • The remaining ones are all the less mainstream sources I referred to at the beginning of the page. All are accepted as valid reviewers by CBS Interactive's Metacritic and GameRankings and contribute to the scores that these aggregators assign to games. Due to a shortfall in critical reception from the usual mainstream review suspects, its been necessary to draw on these to help build the reception section. Had the game acquired more reviews from the mainstream video games sources I wouldn't be using them, but since we usually use these aggregator sites to gauge the overall critical view, I thought it prudent to use some of the same secondary sources to make up the shortfall. -- Sabre (talk) 17:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Minor support: I'm not crazy about the use of such sources, but I know others at FAC have allowed them for opinion purposes only, which is a reasonable expectation. I believe everything else (including the images) meets the criteria. Good job. (Guyinblack25 talk 17:01, 31 January 2011 (UTC))[reply]

WITHDRAW. One section is so full of citations it is impossible to read. This is taking "scholarship" to the extreme. It doesn't work, it's unprofessional, and impedes the flow of the prose. Fails to meet FA criteria 1(a) well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard. Sample: "episode's writing received near unanimous praise,[123][126][127][129][130] and response to the supporting cast was much improved over the preceding episodes;[124][129] praise centered particularly around Murray, a demonic, disembodied skull.[123][124][125][128] Criticism of "Lair of the Leviathan" primarily focused on the chapter's brevity and lack of varied locations.[128][129][130]" WITHDRAW and clean this mess up. 56tyvfg88yju (talk) 14:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Demanding a withdrawal is a little drastic. There is no guideline that dictates a specific number of references to follow a sentence or paragraph. And even if you do see it as a problem, this can be fixed easily with reference groups. Prime Blue (talk) 15:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've just re-read the section, I've not really found the citations getting in the way except for in that bit that 56tyvfg88yju pointed to, that's the only part where it starts to get a bit excessive, but its still manageable. Given Prime Blue's above, I'm going to hold off implementing reference groups unless anyone else agrees, I'm concerned with how to deal with multiple uses of a single source without entirely repeating the full citation in each reference group; the current method avoids that particular concern. If I was using five or more citations in a row for most, I'd probably agree that reference groups were necessary, but the majority are only three in a row, which I think is still workable. -- Sabre (talk) 09:38, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Off-topic discussion moved from project page) --Andy Walsh (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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