Talk:Cortana (Halo)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ed! (talk · contribs) 21:53, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Will give this one a look. —Ed!^(talk) 21:53, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

GA review (see here for criteria) (see here for this contributor's history of GA reviews)

1. It is reasonably well written:

   Not Yet

   Description

   • Recommend pulling the "Character design" graphs and putting them first here, in order to establish how the character was created. Then you can go into the "description" parts where her in-universe and in-game roles are explained.
   • "Cortana is classified as a "smart" AI, meaning that her creative matrix is allowed to expand, in contrast to the limited matrix of other "dumb" AI characters in the stories." -- Probably unnecessary detail.
   • The second graph of the section feels a bit out of place - the rest of this section is sort of told in an in-universe lens, but this graph does a better job of explaining what the user experiences in the game. Perhaps it would be good to move this to a new sub section within description, "In the Games" which explains what role she plays (essentially as a guide for the player though most levels, helping solve puzzles and providing advice to help the player complete levels.) You can move the details from Frank O'Connor to this graph.
   • Also probably helpful in this graph to explain that she is on a chip inside Master Chief's armor so someone not familiar with the game understands how that works.

   Appearances

   • I like the way Master Chief's article handles the "Appearances" section, and suggest this do the same thing, how her backstory is mostly given in the books and then a graph each on her major activities in the games. This allows a biographical look at the fictional character while also helping the reader understand her development a bit.
   • There's a need for better explanation of some of the fictional elements here. A reader will be confused without better explanations of Alpha Halo and Delta Halo, what the Covenant is, the Forerunners, the Created, Noble Team and the UNSC. Just some very basic descriptions will do, but yes, the article has to transition in and out of the fictional elements a bit more seamlessly. The article as is goes a bit too far in assuming familiarity with the in-game universe.

   Character design:

   • Fix: "Cortana's original The character model's face was based on ..."

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable:

   Not Yet

   • The entire "appearances" section needs references, again note the Master Chief article, an FA.
   • Ref 50 is a bare URL and needs formatting.

3. It is broad in its coverage:

   Not Yet

   • "Promotion" should include more media uses, including action figures for Halo 4, Funko, etc. This character along with Master Chief are two of the main symbols of the very popular series to break into the popular culture so there should be a more comprehensive list of the mentions here.
   • Any other characters in other fictions that she inspired?
   • Any academic analysis of the character?

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy:

   There are a good variety of sources.

5. It is stable:

   No problems there I'm seeing at the moment.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate:

   Two images shown. Any chance to use images of previous sketches of the character?

7. Other:

   Dab links, dup links and external links show no problems at the moment. Copyvio tool returns red mainly because it's picking up a fan wiki that probably copied from WP.

On Hold Pending some improvements. A bit more work needed on this one, I think. —Ed!^(talk) 22:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Hey Ed, thanks for the review. I've taken a stab at a bunch of the above, and will continue. Some comments on the feedback, however: my concern with moving the character design bits to before the description and appearances section is this renders a lot of the context around her story unclear. In the character design section we're talking about her descent into rampancy and her role in the story in Halo 4 and Halo 5, for example, which doesn't really work without repeating plot points outside of (and before) the appearances section (I did move the O'Connor quote further down as that was the only commentary on her description from an outside source.) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:08, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Understood, but the problem as it stands is it sort of tries to get into the character from both the real world and an in-universe perspective at the same time which makes it confusing. Articles that start with character conception, as I have seen them, do a better job setting things up from the start – building the real world story first, then going into the in-universe information later. That kind of idea is helpful in an article like this because there's a lot you have to explain on the base about her (how she appears, the lifespan, the in-universe creation and personality quirks) so trying to have that setup in the same place as the character's RW creation story makes it jumpy. MC's page does it well but there are others too – Mario and Ron Swanson offer other ideas for how to set this up. —Ed!^(talk) 00:21, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Ron Swanson builds its structure pretty close to how this article does, starting with a 'background' section (which seems crazy long to me personally) and appearances before covering development. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 22:48, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@Ed!: Hey, just checking in. I believe I've addressed all of the above comments except the ordering of sections. There's not really much scholarly analysis of Cortana that I would say is useful directly to the character rather than tangentially; there's also not a ton of merchandise for her, which is included in a new ref I mentioned. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:00, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

OK. Taking a look and noting the extensive additions to the piece in the past month, I think my concerns are largely addressed. The format of the article I'd think of as a writer's choice, and since the material is still covered appropriately I don't see it as running afoul of the GA criteria. Based on this, going to Pass the GAN now. Thanks for the work! —Ed!^(talk) 03:56, 26 February 2019 (UTC)