Wikipedia:Featured article review/Xiangqi/archive1

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

The article was removed 10:40, 31 May 2007.

[edit] Xiangqi

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:Flcelloguy, China, Strategy games, Board and table games and Chess. LuciferMorgan 15:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is poorly written and poorly organised. It has only 12 references, and some sections are too short to be comprehensive. --Kaypoh 01:58, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

• I largely disagree with the preceding comment. Some sections need referencing, but most of the content is informative, is well organized, and provides enough information to be comprehensive without getting into "material of interest only to fans of the game" like so many game articles do. The existing references are good sources, not somebody blogging about how much fun he had, or how every game should be played a certain way based on the results of two games he played (see the strategy comments that people keep putting into the Diplomacy (game) article's country descriptions), or inside jokes. Barno 18:33, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I re-organized the sections a little bit. This article is still a reasonable FA, but as mentioned, needs some more references in couple sections. I disagree with the "poorly written and organized" statement also. (AQu01rius • Talk) 18:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. No special characters in sections headings, try to eliminate the slashes. Unformatted footnotes (see WP:CITE/ES or use the cite templates). Books section - what is that? Further reading or References? See WP:GTL. Incorrect use of dashes. The article is undercited. These kinds of parentheticals can be improved to brilliant prose or converted to a See also template at the top of the section: (See chess in early literature or timeline of chess.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:22, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Here's some more issues:
    • Section headers shouldn't repeat the title of the article,
    • The pics are little jarring, also the placement of left aligned pics might need tweaking according to this section of the MoS. That might make it worse though given the nature of the pics.
      • This guideline was recently changed. Quadzilla99 08:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Article also needs copy-editing, the lead is fairly weak and has little to no flow. There are some short sentences like "Xianggi has a long history" and "Xiangqi is one of the most popular board games in the world" which are written in very simple English and could perhaps be combined with surrounding seentences to improve flow. Quadzilla99 16:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• I have to agree with prior comments, the intro does need to be a bit stronger, and in general, there are some problems with language. For example "This is a very important feature of the Xiangqi game and is often forgotten by new players of the game." is a rather clunky sentence as it references the game twice. Is that even necessary, since it'd be understood that it's about the game anyway? It might be better to say "This important feature is often forgotten by new players" or even merge it back into the preceding sentence. The section on Approximate Relative value also has language problems. I know what it's trying to say, but I don't think it's doing a good job. I'm also bothered by "During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, wars were fought for years running." in the history section. I'd have to think on how best to say it, but I think that needs work. I also think that the order of sections is a bit strange. At the least, I think the history section should be closer to the top. FrozenPurpleCube 02:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
• I've fixed at least one problem that seemed obvious to me, but for the rest, I'm not sure what the best choices might be. I'd be glad to offer further input on any changes, just let me know. FrozenPurpleCube 02:47, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The comments by Quadzilla99 and FrozenPurpleCube show they agree that the article is poorly written.

12 references is too little for a featured article, where almost all information should be referenced.

I suggest you read Chess, a featured article which I think deserves this status. Compare the "History" sections of the two articles (the "History" section of Xiangqi includes no information on modern history, for starters). Compare the short "Modern play" section of the Xiangqi article with the "Competitive play" section of the Chess article.

--Kaypoh 08:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Some other clunky sentences are present like "It is possible for one player's horse to attack the opponent's horse while the opponent's horse is blocked from attacking, as seen in the diagram on the right." - triple use of the subject in one sentence, and others like it. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), references (1c), formatting issues (2). Marskell 06:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per 1c. LuciferMorgan 12:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
• Remove per nom. I suggest you add "comprehensiveness" to the FA criteria concerns. --Kaypoh 13:32, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
• Remove See my comments on FAR, the article hasn't been edited since May 20. Quadzilla99 23:40, 29 May 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.