Talk:Shoot 'em up/GA1

GA Review

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

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Is it reasonably well written?
A. Prose quality:
See below

B. MoS compliance:
See below
Is it factually accurate and verifiable?
A. References to sources:

B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:
See below

C. No original research:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. Major aspects:
Per WP:LEAD, the lead should adequately summarize the article. There is no mention of the "Types" section, so I suggest listing the types and possibly mentioning a very short summary of each type in a new paragraph.

B. Focused:
Is it neutral?
Fair representation without bias:
Is it stable?
No edit wars, etc:
Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?
A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:
If you're headed toward a FAC with this, you might want to try and find some free-license images to replace the last three, but I realize this would probably hard and that the current images satisfy GA criteria.

B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:

There are several problems with this article I'd like to outline:

I don't see the point of the "See also" section, as it mentions a link that is already used in the first sentence of the article.
"Shoot 'em ups are also known as 'shmups'" — What does this have to do with design? I'd rather delete this sentence and move its references to the mention of "shmups" in the lead.
"Shoot 'em ups are a genre of shooter game" — This sounds awkward. Maybe "Shoot 'em ups are a subgenre of shooter games" would be better.
"Others dispense with scrolling altogether: instead, when a player reaches the edge of the screen, a whole new scene appears at once." — Should this be in a paragraph discussing specifically "scrolling shooters"? Also, you should mention a link to flip-screen somewhere in this sentence.
"Space Invaders pitted the player against multiple enemies descending from the top of the screen at increasingly rapid rate." — Increasing speed or high speed?
Make sure you use logical quotation.
"The following year saw the emergence of another iconic shoot 'em up series, with Sega's game Fantasy Zone." — "Iconic", "premier" and similar terms are subjective and should be either inside a quotation or avoided completely. I suggest the latter.
Small paragraphs tend to "chop up" prose (as in "While shooter games..." in "Bullet hell" section, or "The genre's exact origins..." in "Origins and rise" section). You should expand them, consolidate them with larger paragraphs or re-organize the sentences in paragraphs.
How is Joystiq a reliable source?
You should lessen the use of game reviews for citing statements not related to the game itself.
Per MOS:BOLD, bolding in the prose should be reserved for the lead section, so I've removed it (it's fine now).
Please use {{cite web}}, {{cite book}} or {{cite journal}} for citing instead of hard-coding the references. The current style of references looks almost exactly like the cite template style, but it leads to problems such as in ref 27 (missing space), ref 14 vs 17 (references should be formatted consistently, a reader skimming through the references won't expect the date of ref 17 to be at its current location), or ref 11 vs 21 (use either abbreviations such as "Oct," or spell out month names in full, such as in "October"). Also, always use accessdates (at least with online sources) to avoid specific issues of link rot; and, instead of "Ashcraft p72" write "Ashcraft, p. 72"
When citing books and other off-line sources, don't link to a place where you can get the source, be it Amazon or Google Books; cite ISBN or ISSN instead
When citing a work using pages, you should write the full citation below the numbered list and use references only with surname and page numbers. You should not use:

References

Smith, John (1987). The Art of ABC. Xanadu Books. p. 41.
Smith, p. 43
"A new ABC". Google. Retrieved 2009-03-01.
Harris, Mark (2006). ABC in popular culture. XYZ Magazine. p. 227.
Smith, pp. 45–46
Harris, p. 229

Instead, use the better version (a reader will certainly have some trouble finding what "Harris, p. 229" refers to in the above example):

References

Smith, p. 41
Smith, p. 43
"A new ABC". Google. Retrieved 2009-03-01.
Harris, p. 227
Smith, pp. 45–46
Harris, p. 229

Smith, John (1987). The Art of ABC. Xanadu Books.
Harris, Mark (2006). ABC in popular culture. XYZ Magazine.

"Types" section:
- I suggest getting rid of the first paragraph ("Shoot 'em ups are categorised..."), because it's too short and I don't see a way to expand it.
- "Scrolling shooters" and maybe "Run and gun" are the only paragraphs I'm happy here with. All the others should be either expanded or consolidated in the bottom in a paragraph that goes like this: "Other types of shoot 'em ups include ABC, which features DEF; XYZ, which is known for JKL...". There is probably more than enough of material to expand each of these paragraphs, such as mentioning prominent examples, their era popularity, etc. I've personally expected this section to take up a larger part of the article.

I'll check back in a few days to see if progress has been made. Feel free to drop me a note on my talk page if you look up my suggestions earlier. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 18:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I made some changes. Sorry about the formatting:

Removed See also section
It's in the "definition" section, not design. It's important as it's an oft-used alternative term; I rearranged it so it's more readable.
- Sorry, my bad. It's just not a good practice to write entire sentences about this if you're not doing some explaining beyond what is mentioned in the lead (i.e. etymology or something similar).
Changed to sub-genre.
It's debatable, but I think its place there is warranted. The source I used talks about it in the same context "dispensing with scrolling" etc; they work the same as scrollers in other respects and there's not enough info about them (I doubt anyone's made one for about 20 years) to warrant their own section. I mentioned "flip-screen".
- I tend to agree with you here, since I actually have no idea where to include them if not there.
Increasing speed. To be honest I don't see the issue.
- Although I speak it quite well, English is not my mother language, so I might not be the best person for this job. However, it sounded ambiguous to me, so I've changed it to "increasing rate of speed".
I removed one of the instances of "iconic" and modified the other one to conform to the source (which calls the protagonist "emblematic"); I don't thing "premier" is unqualified since the source calls it a "high water mark" but nevertheless I changed it to "acclaimed".
I did some rearranging of the small paragraphs.
- You've done a good job, except that I'd probably leave bullet hell separated as it has its own history section and seems quite important to me.
Removed the joystiq citation.
"You should lessen the use of game reviews for citing statements not related to the game itself." Specific examples?
- I was not sure about using IGN or GameSpot for sourcing paragraphs like the one about run and guns, but it doesn't matter anymore, since I found discussions on the reliable sources noticeboard, which conclude that IGN and GameSpot are reliable sources.
I went through all the formatting and I think it's consistent now.
The books linked at URLs weren't added by me; I think they're fixed now, as far as possible.
I added a general reference to the Ashcraft book. I left the others as only one page of each is used.
- Good job about the book references, but I still didn't find any {{cite web}} templates. I realize it's a tedious job and I'm not setting you any deadlines, but it's in my opinion necessary for a GA. I've added a few to the article as examples.
I did some rearranging of the types section. Also I disagree regarding stating what was popular when, as it should be covered in the history section. I especially disagree regarding mentioning "prominent examples" unless in exceptional instances (e.g. Zaxxon, which is only well known example of its type), because we inevitably end up with a list of everyone's favourite games. There were lists of "examples" before and they took up about half of each section, as well as being a mess. I think there is something of a consensus on these matters on the few decent genre articles we have (e.g. Fighting game). Again, the prominent games are mentioned in the history section, obviously. bridies (talk) 07:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- With "prominent examples" I meant things like Space Invaders, that are perceived to be somewhat synonymous with the genre, but I agree, it's almost impossible to objectively select them.

You're doing a good job, the only problems are the cite templates and the lead (see my objection on criterion 3(a) on the preliminary review template above). Admiral Norton ^(talk) 15:13, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added a paragraph on types to the lead. The prose may need tweaked as I'm not sure on the level of detail; it's quite curt but any more and it will be somewhat lopsided. I'm not going to change to templates as it's not necessary. I prefer to type them out and the MOS states: "The use of citation templates is neither encouraged nor discouraged" (WP:CITE). bridies (talk) 17:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I copyedited the new paragraph in the lead. As for the citations, the apparently is no guideline on cite templates, so suit yourself. Anyway, I believe the article is good enough for GA standards and I'm passing it. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 18:09, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]