Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/World of Warcraft/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 06:17, 31 January 2007.

[edit] World of Warcraft

archive of previous nomination

• I feel that this is a great article. It is currently a GA but deserves better than that. In the case that it fails, I hope to find new ways to improve the article. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support - Per nom/myself. Greeves ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - World_of_Warcraft#Deviation from the MMORPG archetype is still tagged as unreferenced, and World_of_Warcraft#The_Scourge_Invasion still has an in-universe notice. Carson 04:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object - In addition to the above, there is no discussion as to why the game has both sold well and been well-received by critics. Nifboy 04:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support - The problems present in this article are largely miniscule and fixable. The content itself is extremely thorough and well-rounded, and presents a comprehensive view of the subject. Hojimachong 06:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object - World_of_Warcraft#Deviation from the MMORPG archetype is completely unreferenced and unwikified. CloudNine 09:03, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object - The above definitely need to be addressed before FA. What is the reason for the semi-protection? Instability of the article seems to be a problem. I also question whether the CD section adds much to the article. I would suggest deleting it or at minimum splitting it out. Johntex\^talk 10:32, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose - The Major World Events section is unreferenced, as are many other paragraphs/sections. The lead also needs to be expanded to summarize the points in the body of the article, and (minor point) you don't need to cite in the lead, assuming those points are mentioned in the article and cited there. I see at least one assertion (number of players in China) is not mentioned, so should be dropped from the lead or added to the article. Your footnotes also need to be properly and consistently formatted. Please see WP:FN for detailed information about how to do that. There are several errors in the referencing formatting. Lastly, I am never inclined to support a FAC which is protected. If it is unstable now, it will become even more contested after it is featured (in my opinion). Jeffpw 10:39, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object - The article is thoroughly non-comprehensive because it is written from a single point of view only: that of the players. Thus, it is lacking critical discussion of major topics, such as:
  • Development: Who conceived the game? What is their background? How was the game developed? How did it evolve through development? Which design departments were involved? Engine, graphics, gameplay, sound, music: how were they created? How long did the development take? How is the game being maintained?
  • Business/financial: Who came up with the pay-per-play business model? How much money are the making from it? What did the game do to the financial results of Blizzard? Is Blizzard both the designer and the publisher of the game, or do they employ the services of a separate publisher? How about marketing? Advertising campaigns?
  • Games industry: What effect did the game have on the games industry? Did it start a move towards pay-per-play? Were there any attempts at copying the success of WoW (successful or not)? Did the game invigorate the MMORPG genre? What are the major competitors to WoW and Blizzard?
  • Technical: What kind of infrastructure is used to support WoW? What do those "server clusters" do? Where are they hosted? What are their specifications? What software is running on it? How do clients and servers communicate? Who maintains the server infrastructure, and how?

  These questions are not meant to be all-inclusive, but should give you some idea of the topics that need to be addressed. I'd recommend excising a significant part of the fancruft-y, in-universe content (and do we really need a full listing of the WoW soundtrack?), and to replace it with a more distanced, critical view of the game as a whole. The "Criticisms" should not be relegated to an atrophied section at the bottom (with even those scant criticisms being refuted in the same paragraph), but should be handled in the main body of the article. I see no reason why the majority of "Criticisms" is relegated to a separate article, either. Merge, and use it to make the article something else than a hagiography for fans. --Plek 13:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

This is really spot on criticism - it would be awesome if all articles on games/books/tv shows included all this sort of info.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 03:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose mostly per Plek. It's much too in-universe; it needs to give a much more general overview of all aspects of the game, not just the gameplay itself. Trebor 18:43, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose {{unreferenced}} tag in the "deviation" section. Not everything is cited. Perhaps this should go to GA/R as well? Hbdragon88 08:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose per above, esp. Dmz5's point about lack of wider context. Semperf 22:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose, there is particularly one section that is disturbing me. A section with no references and in bad quality? Please rectify the problems asap. Terence Ong 09:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose The article is messy and there's violet boxes that says it might not meet wikipedia's content policies.--Superplaya 00:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.