Wikipedia:Peer review/Illusive Man/archive1

Illusive Man

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This is a fairly recent article to the mainspace, but it is one I've been working on for a while now in my userspace. Currently, it is at B status, which is nice enough, but I would really like for it to one day be a Good Article; here's hoping that this peer review will put it a step closer to that goal.

Thanks, – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 12:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Czar

Terrific work! I did a copy edit as I went, and I didn't verify or format/touch the refs. For next time, I recommend sending the article to copy edit before PR. For clarity's sake, please respond beneath my review instead of after each bullet, which gets messy.

Lede

• Lede could use a bit more on what Cerberus does, and what the Illusive Man's role is
• Who gave him eye implants? The character designers or the in-series story?
• Who designed his character? She should have a shout-out in the lead.
• Every mention of "indoctrination" is going to need solid refs
• Is any more of his origin story missing from the body? Can you squeeze any more out of Evolution?
• Side note: the ME books most likely need to be combined into their own article, if not the main ME series article

Concept

• What does a "pro-human" group mean? This part should be set up for a total outsider. What is the Council?
• Could use more on his development—what did they originally want in him and how did it change over time?
• Voice acting, and how that development and recording process went (and how it changed the character) would be useful (Sheen's picture should go in that segment)
• Worth mentioning similar roles Sheen played previously, how that affected the Illusive Man ("IM" or "the Man" here on out)
• Move all Sheen stuff to a voice acting section. This first paragraph should be about introducing the Man and his dev process, not the outcomes, then go into the development process, how he changed over time from original conception, how he came out, then go into either voice acting or the Man's remaining characteristics
• Clarify tag #1: this sentence needs rewording, but I can't access the source. The player doesn't recognize the Illusive Man by the end? Why didn't it fit the Illusive Man? Those are the questions to answer here.
• What catalog model?
• In fifties → what was going on during his birth years in-universe? What did he grow up in in-universe?
• What was IM's former career like?
• Voice is bouncing between developers and in-universe. Stay in one or the other
• "interaction with" → touching? What kind of interaction? Clarify
• Why was he not huskified?
• "his indoctrinated appearance": clarify, what does this even mean?
• What is the function of the Saren reference? Did those renderings make it into the game?
• Images related to this Saren statement would make cool additions, if you can find them. Do you have (or have in mind) any other concept art or files that could possibly be relevant for the article?
• Suit quotes are good—I'd like more of that
• "was created empty": need more refs on this—why is it empty? they created it like that? Why?
• Audience doesn't know that it's empty—set the scene here, possibly provide a fair use screenshot of his environment as it's relevant
• "holograms": What holograms? This needs to be introduced before it can be referenced. Clarify
• "only a small amount of concept art": why is this significant? Did they get it right the first time, or did they not care about it?
• John Jackson's pull quote should give him an intro (e.g., JJM, series author)
• "penned the script": script or story?
• "made sure to wonder": the company wondered? Are you saying that they thought out his backstory and just don't reveal it?
• This section's order is awry. Design should focus just on the design process—how they developed him, what the devs and designers thought. This should be followed by a voice acting section on how Sheen changed the character (move the parts from above)
• Need more on how he appears, his face, his suit, more pop culture comparisons for beef

Appearances

• Need refs for these plot points
• Consider adding how the game starts and ends knowing very little (non-narratively) about the Man even though he's a main character
• Pick a gender instead of going third-person plural—maleshep is canonical for the series, I believe
• Reaper introduction is good. All ME jargon need similar intros
• This section is basically a summary of ME2 instead of a telling of IM's role in ME2. It should go through all of the main interactions with IM in the game. That's what makes him important in the series. Why are any of the colonies worth mentioning?
• Introduce the Collectors briefly as well as the other jargon mentions (if they're worth mentioning at all)
• Why is it necessary to mention Feron
• This whole part should serve as proof of IM's character development—needs to be reworked
• All of IM's Evolution backstory needs to be really hashed out in the dev section. This section should be reserved for plot and obscure side-references only.
• So much of this jargon can be expanded interestingly. You're going to get a lot of bulk here. Don't add unnecessary stuff, but this basic plot summary could use more context in the terms it has.
• Why is he targeted in Deception?
• The Kai Leng mention—mentioning all this stuff is fine as long as the reader understands who Kai Leng is (and his role), which isn't apparent unless it's spelled out every few paragraphs or kept as a working term
• Consider grouping the comics series together and the novel series together. They seem haphazardly connected as is. It would be nicer to wrap them as prose when two or more or connected.

Reception

• Add the person who speaks for each reviewing org. Refer to IGN's so-and-so the first time and then IGN thereafter. (Actually you handled this well in later paragraphs.)
• Solid section. Stuff like the Smoking Man reference is golden. Can you find more?
• How did Sheen respond to this criticism? How did BioWare and the devs respond to the other criticism?

Misc.

• I changed a handful of words to the American spelling because this is an American game. If you would prefer to keep the British spelling since you wrote the bulk of it, feel free to change it back.
• Lots of citations needed. There should be one at least every two sentences the way this is written.
• Again, I didn't verify the refs even a little. They look okay for the most part. The later refs need their "works" wikified. Some of the entries need to be expanded. Consider doing WebCite archiving so you don't lose any sources. (If you do, remember to set "|deadurl=no".)

Response

Good work! Please leave any response below instead of inline above. czar · · 07:37, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Will get right on it. On the American spellings: it's fine. I was overall trying to go with the American spellings, but I am, of course, British, so obviously my natural writing is British. – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 14:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Correction: BioWare is actually Canadian, though from what I've seen in the subtitles they generally use the more USA spellings. They are also now owned by the American Electronic Arts, of course. – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 14:12, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

On the species: I don't think capitalising "Drell" or "Turian", for instance, is the right way to go. As a species -- much like "human" -- they tend to be referred to with a lowercase first letter. – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 14:34, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

All offshoots of the list of fictional extraterrestrials refer to alien species as proper nouns, which they are for all intents of an encyclopedia. I know the ME Wikia doesn't do this, and I'll grant you that it does look nicer, but they're also an in-universe wiki with less rigid standards. czar · · 17:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

"Pick a gender instead of going third-person plural—maleshep is canonical for the series, I believe" <- Disagree here. There is no "canon" for the series, though MaleShep is more present in marketting (though ME3 tried to equal it more). "They" is preferable to "he/she", though if it causes confusion it may be worth replacing certain uses with "the Commander", "Shepard", "Commander Shepard", etc. – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 16:43, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I said that since the game defaults to male and the reviews use the male pronoun (also "he/she" grammatical uncertainty defaults to male, historically, perhaps unjustly). I'm only looking for consistency. The spelling-out solution may be your best bet if you don't want to pick a single gender. czar · · 17:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

"Add the person who speaks for each reviewing org." <- The ones that are just "Site said..." are ones that were written by general staff, with no particular author listed. – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 22:18, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I noticed that. I was going to strike the whole bullet, but I added a parenthetical instead (in case the thought could be useful). czar · · 23:33, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm currently a bit busy in real life. While I can continue working on the article, I should warn you that I may be a bit slower than usual for the next, say, two weeks or so. – Bellum (talk) (contribs) 21:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

No sweat, and no need to respond at all (though you can if you want). It's here for posterity. If the review closes, give me a ping if you want specific feedback or a GAN review. czar · · 21:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)