Wikipedia:Featured article review/The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

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[edit] The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Article is still a featured article

[edit] Major review commentary

The prose of this article is not "compelling, even brilliant", and it therefore fails to meet Criterion 2a. Here are some examples.

    • A few more commas throughout would help our long-suffering readers, e.g., "struggling against his nemesis Ganondorf for control of a holy relic known as the Triforce that grants the wishes of its holder".
    • "Unlike most Zelda games that take place predominately on land, The Wind Waker places the hero Link on an island." Um ... but an island is land. Unclear.
    • "Link lives with his grandmother and younger sister Aryll on Outset Island, one of many islands in the Great Sea, although few are inhabited." "Although" is wrong here.
    • "The people of the Great Sea pass down a legend of a prosperous kingdom with a hidden golden power." Is it the people, the legend or the kingdom that possess the hidden golden power?
    • "The elders of Outset Island customarily dress their youths in green like the Hero of Time when they come of age, hoping to inspire in them the courage the Hero of Time knew." Who's coming of age: the elders or the youths? I guess we can work it out, but good prose doesn't force us to. Who's hoping to inspire in whom?

Nearly every sentence needs some kind of fixing. And why are dictionary items, such as "green", "boat" and "sail" linked?

I hope that the contributors can enlist support for a thorough audit of the prose over the next two weeks. Tony 07:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

How could nearly every sentence require some kind of correction? This leads me to believe that all of the content that I have read is wrong one way or another. I disagree with "nearly". —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I would like a reference for the It has also been confirmed that a novelization of the game is a WIP (work in progress). comment. -- ReyBrujo 12:51, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I've fixed some of your concerns, but you (or someone else) may need to point out any other problems, as I wrote most of this article and won't be able to see my own mistakes.
  • The first sentence you mention -- adding commas to that section wouldn't be correct. It seems readable to me, but that's just my opinion. Pagrashtak 03:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Neutral: the article is well-referenced, features images with proper copyright rationale, and is very enjoyable to read. However, I do not believe that the writing is of an unreadable standard, and I find most of the examples which User:Tony1 provided to be quite clear within the article (with exception to the "island" and "land" bit). Therefore, I remain netural. —Eternal Equinox | talk 22:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I've fixed the problems I agree with and haven't heard any input in a few days, so I suggest closing this review unless anyone else has something to add. Pagrashtak 18:40, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

  • More examples of substandard prose, from a section chosen at random:
    • "a very realistic looking Ganon and Link"—"a"? Aren't there two of them? Should "realistic-looking" be hyphenated? Or changed to "realistic"?
      • Fixed.
    • "fall 2000"—see WP's guidelines on avoiding hemisphere-centric expressions.
      • You'd have to talk to Sony about hemisphere-centric expressions, as this is a direct quote. However, the Japanese release date is earlier, so I switched to that, which avoids the problem.
    • "Nintendo had several software demonstrations to showcase the power of their new system"—had demonstrations? This is not compelling prose.
      • I'm using had in the sense of possessed; I've added the phrase "on hand" to make it more clear.
    • Spell out "IGN" on first occurrence, even if it is linked.
      • Just like KFC, there's nothing to spell out.
        • I believe he is referring to the fact that the article supposes the casual reader knows what IGN is. In example, instead of "Staff at IGN referred...", it would be better to say "Staff at IGN, an online website dedicated to videogame reviews, referred..." or similar. Just like the first time Famitsu is mentioned it is clarified that it is a magazine (although it would also help wikifying it and stating it is a japanese magazine dedicated to videogames. Remember that a casual reader should understand everything without needing to click wikilinks. -- ReyBrujo 16:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
    • "The official translation of The Wind Waker was given on 2 December 2002"—to give a translation?
      • I've reworded it.
    • "A new Zelda game using a heavily modified version of the Wind Waker engine is currently in development"—I guess that commas aren't compulsory, but they'd make it easier for our readers. Perhaps even change the word order.
      • I'm not sure what to do, this sentence seems perfectly readable to me. This may just be a style preference problem. Pagrashtak 16:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is good enough yet. The challenge is to fix all of the article, not just the examples I've provided. Tony 02:43, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I realize that the examples you gave were just examples and not the entire problem; however, as I mentioned, I wrote this article and have a hard time finding my own problems, so I must rely on you (or another editor) to point out what needs fixing. I'm more than happy to keep this review open and improve the article as long as someone can tell me what can be improved. Pagrashtak 16:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Spell out? Well, what does IGN mean? Tony 01:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, IGN doesn't mean anything. It's a company without an unabbreviated name. Pagrashtak 14:32, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I just gave a small hand and changed all dates from dd mm yyyy to mm dd, yyyy format, per date formatting guidelines. If you find some more, please fix them on sight. -- ReyBrujo 02:59, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Note that a good number of dates are in both formats, that is not really nice to see. -- ReyBrujo 16:35, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I've copyedited the article. I fixed many of the example problems listed here and any other places I thought could be tightened. The dates should be consistent unless I've missed some. Please let me know what other problems you see, and I would appreciate it if addressed objections could be struck out for clarity. Tony, could you clarify the meaning behind "spell out" above? Thanks, Pagrashtak 04:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concern is quality of prose (2a) Marskell 15:34, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - This article is in better shape now than when it was featured. Pagrashtak 03:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Delist - Quality of prose is a current requirement: standards have improved. Sandy 22:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Quality of prose was also a requirement in February 2006 when this article was featured. I don't think the prose standards today are that different than they were a few months ago. Would you mind pointing out the parts of the article that you feel do not meet the standard? Pagrashtak 01:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Neutral for now. This could get there and Pagra seems interested in continuing to work. I placed a fact request in the intro. Also, is it Ganon or Ganondorf (or are they used interchangeably)? This should be mentioned early. I'm also a little concerned that the citations don't start appearing until the article is more than half over. Marskell 16:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, I'm more than willing to continue addressing any complaints about the article. I removed the fact request in the lead, as the lead is a summary of the entire article, which is itself referenced. If others also feel that the lead needs to have citations, it should just be a matter of copying them from the text. The story and gameplay sections do not have any references because everything in those sections is directly supported by the game itself. Pagrashtak 01:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment. Pagra, I re-inserted the fact request. As noted in the edit summary, it shouldn't be up to the reader to have to hunt through the article for a ref. I also removed some redundancy at the top (it's mentioned about four times that the game is set on a group of islands). I'll try and do more later and I would note that I'm still not convinced this needs to be removed. Marskell 09:33, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
        • Fair enough then, I've copied a ref from the body to the lead for the fact request. I also mentioned that Ganon is Ganondorf in the lead and changed a "Ganon" to "Ganondorf" in a section title to be consistent. Thanks for the copyedit. Pagrashtak 15:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove per Tony, Sandy Zzzzz 18:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Tony has not voted to remove. I have fixed his examples and more and have not received any futher comments from him for several days. Would you mind pointing out the parts of the article that you feel do not meet the standard? Pagrashtak 01:07, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Tony has now: Remove. More random examples of substandard writing from just one section:
    • "One new addition"—pick the redundant word.
    • "He wishes for a future for Link and Zelda"—odd.
    • "With the ocean falling all around the tower,"—odd.
    • "in a body of water known as the Great Sea"—spot the six redundant words.

This is not FA material. Tony 01:45, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

    • Well, those examples came from two sections, but that's beside the point. Fixed, reworded, reworded, and fixed, in that order. However, I might note that any sentence about a falling ocean could be expected to have the word "odd" applied to it. Pagrashtak 15:23, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Fixing just the examples misses the point: they're intended as evidence of a wider problem. Tony 02:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Comment. But he is fixing them. I think we should keep this open until the concerns have been exhausted. Marskell 09:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
Fixing the examples improves the article, even if slightly. The examples you've provided here all (or at least nearly all) existed during both the peer review and the FAC without mention. This would indicate that few editors have the capability/time/energy to spot these problems. Since I wrote the majority of the text of this article, I'm at a disadvantage - it's hard to copyedit one's own writing, as you are surely aware. Therefore, I appear to be left with only two options - fix the examples you present or leave them as is. I think I'm choosing the better option, given the circumstances.
You have made it clear several times that you feel the article is poorly written; you don't have to tell me again. I understand that fixing the examples is not correcting the entire problem, it's just the best I can do right now. Pagrashtak 00:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
And a question: what do we generally do with fictional character and place names? Quotes or italics or just leave it? Here things like "King of Red Lions" and "Din's Pearl" are simply presented as is. Marskell 09:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe the current presentation is correct, just as one would write "Bilbo Baggins stole the One Ring from Gollum" instead of "'Bilbo Baggins' stole the 'One Ring' from 'Gollum'", but correct me if I'm wrong. Pagrashtak 00:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: this sentence is odd: "This disc, The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition, could be had by purchasing a special GameCube bundle containing the disc, by registering a GameCube and two games at Nintendo's website, or by subscribing or renewing a subscription to Nintendo Power." I don't know how to go about fixing this one. — Deckiller 23:16, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
    • I rewrote it. I think it's better, but you might be able to improve it further. Pagrashtak 23:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep. Overall, I think this clearly meets 2a in relation to the majority of the featured articles out there. — Deckiller 01:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The prose is looking a lot better. Tony 04:15, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll try to make another run through the prose tomorrow. — Deckiller 04:19, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep After the various copyedits, I am comfortable moving to a keep. Marskell 06:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep after copyedits Jaranda wat's sup 23:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep as the prose was improved greatly. :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 22:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
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