Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Ada Wong/1

Ada Wong

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted.–Retrohead (talk) 20:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article's contents are hardly neutral. Not only are there next to no mentions of anything negative about Ada Wong in any form, but the article is full of seemingly unnecessary and repetitious references to how great she is. It reads more like an advertisement for the game than like an encyclopedia article, as it is filled with quotes praising the character for various things that wouldn't look out of place on the back of a game box in a store. Since neutrality is a requirement for good article status, I would think that this article does not meet that status. It very clearly was written by a fan of Ada Wong, and by my estimation would merit a fairly large amount of editing before being eligible for good article status. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roflcopter gamer (talk • contribs) 21:41, 14 August 2014‎ (UTC)[reply]

Note: this reassessment request is the first (and thus far only) edit on Wikipedia by user Roflcopter gamer. BlueMoonset (talk) 05:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If this will be the only edit the nominator will make on the site, I can keep an eye on it. GamerPro64 19:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can see where the nominator is coming from: I didn't see any criticism of the character at all, and that's just unnatural. I mean, I'm a big fan of Lightning, but I did my best to include a wide range of opinions on the character, positive, middling and negative. Added to that, the lead section does not conform with WP:LEAD and some of the references seem a little suspect. It should be noted that the user who seems to have contributed most to this article has an occasionally questionable history in the eyes of the WikiProject Video Games community. I remember trying to make some edits to the article to tidy it up, but most of them were reverted or deleted. This just reads like an effusive tribute to the character. In the face of this, I think that this article should be downgraded and undergo major work, then possibly renominated when it seems ready, to stand or fall at that time. --ProtoDrake (talk) 21:23, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to reception, pretty much all reception sections in articles on this topic and all reviews of the games may as well begin "Resident Evil is very badly written but...". Have you attempted mining the reviews of the film she was in? Those are less likely to have gaming journalism's positivity bias. --erachima talk 23:22, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Positivity bias? erachima, are you talking about the Four Point Scale, or about overenthusiasm toward female game characters who aren't helpless princesses? Tezero (talk) 04:48, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

All of the above and then some. The reviews are half advertizement, the expectations for writing are set VERY low due to the medium and franchise she's from, she's naturally reviewed in contrast to the president's deadweight daughter, and so on.

In short, the current reception may well accurately reflect the published opinions of reviewers, the real issue is that there's a load of systemic bias in there. --erachima talk 04:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, that seems to settle it. We can't inject any more "Your character is bad and you should feel bad" into the page than neutral mentions of the apparently hideous reception given to the games she was from and her cast-mates in them. Things like this are why, despite its use for conveying objective facts that might be useful in purchasing decisions, I very much disvalue the ratings/qualitative-assessment aspect of game reviewing. (There's also the fact that not all gamers value the same things, but that's getting off-topic.) Tezero (talk) 05:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, the major omission I'm noting is that the reception says nothing about what people thought of her in the movie other than some vacuous "fans are excited" thing that probably shouldn't even be in there. --erachima talk 05:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In all fairness though, "Play editor Gavin Mackenzie criticized her perceived "bitch" personality in Resident Evil 4 in retrospective from the events of Resident Evil 2" and "Matt Cundy of GamesRadar found Ada's outfit from Resident Evil 4 to be unsuitable for the game's theme, ranking her iconic "out-of-our-price-bracket Shanghai hooker" look as the most impractical of all main outfits of the series' stars and commenting that anyone dressing like her to fight zombies would have to be certifiably mental" constitutes as reasonable criticism of the character. Besides, reception of Ada Wong seems to be almost exclusively positive, so demanding equal amounts of positive and negative opinions on her would be undue weight. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 12:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not only the bias but also that there are tons of repetitive references to multiple sources essentially saying the same thing about the character. Also, the reception section on this article is larger than reception sections on most actual games, and does not seem at all justified in being so large. I don't think Ada Wong needs a larger reception section than the game she came from... Also, there are numerous issues with the rest of the article. For instance, is it really relevant how much the wig an actor wore while portraying Ada cost? Is it relevant what that actor thought of the character, or what the producer thought of that actor, shouldn't that information be on the page for that film, rather than the page of this character? There are many issues like these in the article, and I cannot see why it ought to earn good article status in its current state. Roflcopter gamer (talk) 14:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Notability is an extremely shaky and fickle ground to stand on for fictional characters, especially video game characters, so honestly, the more coverage that can found to stick in Reception, the better. Tezero (talk) 14:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As to the length, I blame the common confusion among our writers of summary and synthesis. It tends to result in overblown and redundant writing, as they'll have five sources that all say the character was badass but rather than saying "X, Y, Z, Α, and Ω all said the character was badass.[1][2][3][4][5]" they'll quote every one of them individually. --erachima talk 20:48, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Problem here is that editors often give the source's reasoning behind why the sources say what they say, such as in this case Ada being "badass", and different sources give different reasoning. I believe that there was a debate on WP:VG a while back whether "list" sources of characters constitute significant coverage (such as "Top 10 most badass characters" or "Top 25 hottest video game women") and the general consensus was is that they shouldn't unless reasoning is given (as an example "Source X listed Ada 7th on their list of most badass characters" isn't significant coverage, but "Source X listed Ada 7th on their list of most badass characters because Y" is given more weight). Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 22:54, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's an issue of whether the list actually has any editorial endorsement, since lists like that can be either official "best-of" stuff or pointless intern-generated clickbait. --erachima talk 23:01, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but I don't get what you mean, though for me "Source X listed Ada on their list of the badass characters" is less comprehensive, informative and useful for the reader than "Source X listed Ada on their list of badass characters because Y". That being said though, I'm neutral in this debate as to whether the article gets delisted or not, having no strong feelings either way. Satellizer (´ ･ ω ･ `) 07:08, 18 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - this is a hallmark of Niemti/Snaake's awful writing: a parade of one liners and list positions which does not convey any kind of coherent themes (other than repeated sledgehammer references to sex), and is bloated and barely readable. bridies (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not perfect, I agree, but I think most of the fault lies with the game reviewing industry. As for the rest, well, I'm undecided as to whether it doesn't meet the GA criteria or simply doesn't meet FA. As a whole I'm also neutral in this debate. Tezero (talk) 19:32, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I see someone actually made this point above, but: even if there are loads of instances of these kind of quotes in the secondary literature, they should be summarised, not listed exhaustively and repetitively. Also, being familiar with Niemti's contributions, I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't whole other patterns of commentary, not deigned worthy of inclusion because they didn't discuss tits. bridies (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should be downgraded, if this wasn't clear from above. bridies (talk) 15:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Demote - I don't think this article can be salvaged in terms of improvement. GamerPro64 15:04, 27 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I am not sure what the general procedure is with this. Should I just remove the status? Is there something else I should do? Do we need more discussion first? Thanks for your help. Roflcopter gamer (talk) 02:08, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think in this process, an uninvolved editor looks for consensus on the discussion and determines whether to have the article keep its status or have it delisted. Also, its worth mentioning that Niemti, the nominator of the article for GAN, has been indefinitely blocked from editing. GamerPro64 02:32, 4 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: It appears that the article has issues with its neutrality and comprehensiveness that will take time to address. I'll be archiving the reassessment shortly.--Retrohead (talk) 20:35, 5 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]