Talk:Simon the Sorcerer/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Freikorp (talk · contribs) 04:53, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   "The game was inspired by works such as the Discworld series, and the character of Simon was created to compete with the characters of such works" - two uses of the word 'works' doesn't flow smoothly, I'd mix it up a little.

   "A boy called Simon was having a party on his 12th birthday, which included a magician specialising in pulling rabbits out of hats and conjuring infinite amounts of gaily coloured handkerchiefs, which impressed Simon" - I find this sentence reads awkwardly. I'd say "A boy called Simon was celebrating his 12th birthday, and was impressed by a magician performing at the event who pulled rabbits out of hats ..." Also 'gaily' is a rather antiquated term, but I won't make you change it.

   "(the iOS and Android versions feature touch-screen controls[5][6])" - try and avoid putting anything in brackets if you can avoid it. You can avoid it here. Also even if you didn't remove the brackets I'd put all three references together rather than having one outside the brackets purely for aesthetics.

   "Some actions are binary" - I'd explain what this means to the reader.

   "The Secret of Monkey Island II" has no wikilink, though you link to Monkey Island (series) later. I'd try and link to it at the first mention of a game in the series.

   "He also explained that he was invented during a journey down the M5 motorway, because they needed a character to compete with characters such as Rincewind" - this is confusing. Are you trying to link these two clauses? As in, did competing with Rincewind directly have something to do with a journey along the M5?

   "AGOS (Adventure Graphic Operating System)" - I believe the accepted standard is to have this the other way around. I.e "Adventure Graphic Operating System (AGOS)"

   "a sentence parser" - this needs a wikilink or an explanation. I assume Parsing#Computer_languages would be the correct wikilink.

   I'd merge the three final paragraphs of the 'Development and release' section together. You should avoid single sentence paragraphs in general.

   Every paragraph, outside of the lead and plot, should have inline citations. Find the inline citations that back up the statements in the opening paragraph of the reception section and add them in there.

   "Tawny Ditmer of Gamezebo lauded the story as "hilarious" and the scenery and music as gay" - the source doesn't use the term 'gay' at all. I'm going to ask you to change this. The term is, unfortunately, colloquially synonymous with 'stupid' (it shouldn't be, but it is) and readers may get the wrong impression of what the reviewer is saying.

   Merge the final single sentence paragraph of the reception section with the paragraph above it.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   It's not a requirement to pass GA, but I strongly reccomend you archive all your online sources. Doing so will significantly decrease the chances of this article losing its GA status in the future when links inevitably start rotting. Personally I use Archive.is.

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail: Well done overall; an interesting read. Looking forward to passing this one once issues are addressed. Freikorp (talk) 05:32, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@Freikorp: I've made most of the changes you said are necessary. As for the "gaily" bit, the source uses the term "brightly", but I tend to use synonyms where possible because it helps avoid paraphrasing the source too closely. "brilliantly" and flamboyantly" might be a bit over-the-top, and "showily coloured" sounds a bit odd, as does "colourfully coloured". As for the source doesn't use the term 'gay' at all. I'm going to ask you to change this. The term is, unfortunately, colloquially synonymous with 'stupid' (it shouldn't be, but it is) and readers may get the wrong impression of what the reviewer is saying. I see what you mean. but I don't think lauding something as "gay" can mean "lauded" something as stupid. I only used the term "gay" because it's the most concise and breviloquent way I could think of paraphrasing "colorful and cheery". I looked for another term that could do it, and the closest I found was "radiant", but I'm not entirely sure it's appropriate because "radiant" as in emanating joy might only apply to people (the Oxford dictionary says it does). The Cambridge dictionary simply gives its definition as "obviously very happy, or very beautiful", which seems to fit, so I'm not sure. Or should I just quote the source? I try to avoid quoting if possible, because it's easy to overdo it. As for citing the first part of the reception section, I don't think that's necessary because it's just summarising the rest of the section (I'm not sure how I can cite a summary of this article or part of it anyway). Adam9007 (talk) 19:18, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@Adam9007: I'd probably just quote the source if you can't think of an appropriate synonym, though I'm not going to hold up the nomination for one issue like that. As closing remarks, I'll say that I don't think 'oeuvres' is an improvement as its such an uncommon term; I'd just change the term back unless you can think of a way to reword the whole sentence. And I thoroughly recommend you format your inline citations to the manual using Template:Sfn. Great work overall. Happy to pass this now. Freikorp (talk) 22:41, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@Freikorp: The only other term that might fit is "creations". But I'm not certain. Adam9007 (talk) 23:10, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@Adam9007: I think 'creations' works better. There's no doubt a better way to rephrase the sentence overall, but I can't think of one. You could always nominate the article for a copy edit with WP:GOCE. They tend to do a good job there and you've got nothing to lose by popping it in the queue. :) Freikorp (talk) 11:03, 3 October 2017 (UTC)