Talk:Minecraft/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Jesse V. (talk · contribs) 20:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Status

This section is supposed to be edited only by reviewer(s); please, leave your comments in the Discussion section below. The reviewer(s) will cross out issues when they have been sufficiently addressed.

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Please see the comments below about the Minecraft 4k section.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	There are a dozen citations in the lead. Per WP:LEADCITE, the lead's purpose is to summarize the body, which contains the citations. As such, it should need few, if any, references. If there are references in the body that the lead summarizes, then you don't need it in the lead unless it's an exceptional claim. You should be able to remove most, possibly all refs from the lead. See the FA Yogo sapphire for example, which has a longer lead, but with no refs. ~~There is an external link in the Footnotes section. Please make this a citation instead per WP:EL.~~ Consider reviewing Template:Track listing to compress the "Soundtrack" section, or at least reduce the huge amount of whitespace that's present in the center. Noteworthy tracks from the soundtrack or information about the style of music can also be identified and discussed in prose. ~~Xbox 360 is wikilinked multiple times.~~ ~~The lead is pretty good overall now, but it does not summarize the Critical Reception section. See Portal (video game) for an example suggestion on what to aim for.~~
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	It appears that most of the citations are organized in accordance with list defined references, however there are a few that don't follow this convention. Please convert all of them to LDR, User:PleaseStand/References segregator can help with this. There are some citations which don't use Template:cite web. They are just an external link inside a Ref tag. Open the edit window on the whole article and search for "http" to see what I mean. Some of these are in the infobox.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	There are {{Failed verification}}, {{primary source-inline}}, and {{citation needed}} tags that need to be addressed. Many of the web citations are missing \|work= and \|publisher= fields that need to be filled in. See Template:Cite web. \|date= \|accessdate= should be used in all web citations if possible. I'd also recommend that you add \|archiveurl=, \|archivedate=, and \|deadurl= fields to prevent linkrot over the years, even for the most stable URL domains. See WP:WEBCITE. It's good to have as many of the template fields filled out as possible. There are sections and whole paragraphs that are missing references. Remember that Verifiability is key here. There is information and citations in "Development" that you could use. See Portal (video game) for an example of what you need to aim for. ~~"The album is currently available on iTunes." is lacking a citation. Just by itself, I wonder if it's even important to mention.~~ "Auto3D-39" is a dead link. Consider using waybackmachine.org to fix this, or choose a different source.
	2c. it contains no original research.	The phrase "A player in Minecraft has a lot of freedom to choose how to play the game" is not supported. The last paragraph in "Gameplay" has WP:OR and other information that is not covered by the one provided citation.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	I'm not sure that it's important to mention that Persson was spending too much time reading emails instead of working on Minecraft, nor that the site suffered a DDOS. The bit about Tobias setting up the servers and the subsequent downtime is trivial. The statements make it seem like the downtime was Tobias' fault.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.	File:Album Minecraft - Volume Alpha Cover.png appears to be fine, but the others need to have their Non-free Rational and Licenses sections updated now that their version in Commons were deleted. They appear to be of a low enough resolution to no longer warrant the message.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	~~On hold until 04:00, 7 October 2012 (UTC). The issues below need to be addressed as well before the final assessment.~~ The issues were not completely addressed in the two weeks allotted to a GA nomination (WP:GAN). Therefore, this review must be closed. Please continue to improve the article and feel free to resubmit when ready.

Discussion

Please refer to the issues in the table above by their numbers (eg. 1a1 for first issue with "prose" criterion).

1b1. Fixed
1b2. Fixed
1b3. Started list collapsed
1b4. Fixed
2b4. Removed

Vacation9 (talk) 00:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That looks much better, thanks! As a suggestion, (this isn't a requirement) you could merge the History section with Commercial, though a bit of it could fit under Development. Just an idea, it could improve the prose a bit IMO. Sorry for not being more clear about the 1b2 issue; it was appropriate under a Notes section similar to how it was, but you could provide the quote and then add a citation at the end to Notch's blog. This would turn the external link into a citation, not the note itself. See WP:FNNR and WP:EXPLNOTE. • Jesse V.^(talk) 01:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the release information needs to be in its own section. It needs to be in the lead in some form. If you have to shorten it, and take the references out, that's fine, but that isn't material to make a history section out of, its lead info. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 04:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but the lead is supposed to summarize the information in the article, and typically doesn't provide new information all by itself. So the material should be in the body, but it can also be in the lead as well if it still in summary style and its presence doesn't detract from readability. See Portal (video game). • Jesse V.^(talk) 04:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do think the history section warrants its own section. It is important and interesting information about the game history. I can add a short section in the lead summarizing it. Vacation9 (talk) 11:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The release information is summarized from the Development section, so a "history" section would be an unnecessary content fork. I have moved it back, and moved the references from it around so that fixes your problem. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 14:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Thanks! Vacation9 (talk) 14:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1b2. Done
1b5. Fixed
2a1. I'll work on it, easy to fix
2a2. I'll work on this too. Also easy to fix.

Vacation9 (talk) 12:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

2a1. Fixed. Thanks for that script link!
2a2. Fixed.

Vacation9 (talk) 16:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. In addition to everything above, I don't really consider this article stable, because the game is still updated fairly frequently and so needs updating often. Also 3a -- I'm pretty sure there is more information from all the reviews and awards that aren't listed to cultural impact to significant number of let's plays. For a game with this much reception, the section is bare bones, to be honest. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 07:09, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Hellknowz -- There's a fair amount of instability that will be inherent to this article for the next ?year? or so. I have a bit of a vested interest in this article, and would love to see it become a GA, but it's just not there quite yet.

The third screenshot (the Nether) seems excessive to pass WP:NFCC. Also, the fair-use rationale is weak and/or inaccurate for all images except the album cover. On top of that it's standard to have the title card as the infobox image where possible per WP:VG. Two gameplay images (the infobox image, but moved, and the crafting menu) along with a title card and maybe the soundtrack cover are more than sufficient to instruct the reader and pass WP:NFCC.
Per WP:LEADCITE references should not be in the lead if the same information exists in the body. Per WP:LEAD anything that exists in the lead should also be in the body. Therefore there should be no references in the lead.
There are some redlink and underline links in the lead
There are numerous prose issues such as "2d" (instead of "2D"), using -- when — should be used, and others. There are instances of references coming before punctuation or nowhere near any. There is also at least one where there is a space between two references, and there may be others where there's a space between punctuation and a ref (dunno).
Whole paragraphs are unreferenced.
The Reception section is severely lacking considering the amount of media coverage this game has received. It should be easy to nearly double its length. Only one short paragraph goes into the specifics of reviews, the rest are of "top [x] award"-type statements.
It seems a bit on the side of WP:UNDUE to have an infobox and track listing for the soundtrack and have it dedicated to its own level 2 heading. It has only one line of prose. There is nothing on the soundtrack's reception or creation that warrants a dedicated section. It would seem the Merchandise section falls under this umbrella a bit, too. It could be expanded to include information on Xbox LIVE Avatar items, which are a form of digital merchandise.
Multiple sources are unreliable and/or need verification:

www.articstartup.com
Forums.tigsource.com
Boing Boing
snyapsesmp.com (an archived ref)
Planet Xbox 360
www.minecraftwiki.net
www.m00d.net (an archived ref)

I counted 24 primary references. Given the amount of media coverage these should (for the most part) be really easy to replace
Along with that there are instances either repeat (same ref twice) or two different refs source the same info. In these cases a lot of primary refs are backed up by a reliable source. The primary refs can simply be pulled in this case.
The date format may still be inconsistent. I ran a script to catch most of them, but there still may be more.

I have high hopes in the end for this article, but it seems to still need a lot of work before hitting the benchmark. The various contributors should be commended for what they've done so far, but I can't all the work needed being done in a reasonable amount of review time. Just my thoughts. --Teancum (talk) 13:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are enough editors frequenting this page to make this happen, so its entirely possible. Nearly all of these are fair issues in this GAN which need to be resolved, except for your comment on the Reception section, which I agree with but I don't think it'd be appropriate to make as a requirement for GA class. You are welcome to copy these into the Status section above if you like, it may make it easier for the editors to address and comment on.

This article is stable because "it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute." All articles need to be updated, but that doesn't make them unstable. It's still a good ways off until the 1.4 update anyway. • Jesse V.^(talk) 14:44, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Something just occurred to me. This article says nothing about Snapshots, the peek at new versions of the game. This is a very important aspect to cover.(Example of coverage:[1][2]) I would include it right now, but I am not sure what section of the article it would best fit. They are released every week, so placing it in a certain location of the Development section could be confusing. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 18:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and included a section right after the Classic section. This article really needs more sources in the gameplay section. _Blake ^{(Talk·Edits)} 18:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It might belong better under Development. It seems a bit on the WP:OR side; you might want to phrase it more factually. Something like "On [date], Mojang began releasing periodic snapshots of the game. These snapshots serve as a alpha test and a preview of upcoming features."[reference][reference]. • Jesse V.^(talk) 19:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe i at least partially fixed 3b, can someone confirm? - Lord Aro _{(talk page)} 22:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is much better. However, there are still a few citation tags, citation 12 is broken, and not all the citations have their fields filled out (70, 87, and 88 for example). Getting there though! • Jesse V.^(talk) 22:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article still doesn't pass 1b (MOS). Just from a quick look I see incorrectly formatted titles, wrong dashes, stray whitespace, capitalization issues, overlinking, missing suitable links, etc. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 10:31, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed a number of these using AWB and Advisor.js. I thought we resolved the overlinking. Could you be more specific? • Jesse V.^(talk) 14:44, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, take "Minecraft 4k" section, for example. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 16:19, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, that section has at least one WP:YOU violation, it doesn't follow the same standard as the other ports (mentioning the title yet again after the heading), has Beta capitalized, etc. It needs a good copy edit. --Teancum (talk) 17:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Y Done - I've cleaned up the section and added a ref from EDGE. - M0rphzone (talk) 02:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Minecraft 4k" was just the worst of the lot. There are other issues. "Minecraft" isn't italicized at places. Hunger is overlink. Terms like game mode aren't linked. Why are game modes and mob names being capitalized; those aren't proper nouns. Terms like "creeper" are not explained.

Recent summary mentions 1a only partly failed; but there is a serious copyedit required. I am not bothering mentioning individual things, because there are so many. For example, it talks about "the end" achievement, but that's the first and last place achievements are ever mentioned. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 10:44, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good call. I appreciate your assistance. Whenever a copyedit is needed, one effective strategy I like to use is to put each the sentences in a paragraph on a new line, and then start from the beginning and stitch them together one by one, carefully improving the prose as I go. • Jesse V.^(talk) 15:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've cleaned up the article a bit, but I really think this article should be written in a more sophisticated style. - M0rphzone (talk) 02:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]