Talk:Gen Con/GA1

GA Review

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Hey. I'll be doing the GA review for this article. When I review, I like to give generic suggestions first, and let the editors of an article work on them before adding more specific statements. Here are the initial suggestions:

Images

• File:Gen Con Indy Logo.png needs to be replaced with a smaller version. See the tag on the image's page. Image removed.
• "Unusually elaborate games, like this custom board, are a draw for many players." - this caption reads like original research. Who says they are a draw? Removed.
• "Cardhalla at Gen Con 2005." --> "Cardhalla at Gen Con 2005" - periods only go at the end of captions that are complete sentences. (FIXED — Alan De Smet | Talk 00:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC))

WP:MOS

• Game titles, such as Dungeons & Dragons, need to be in italics. I see at least a couple of cases where this needs to be fixed.
• The paragraphs in the article are short and choppy. The paragraphs with only one or two sentences need to be combined with others or expanded.
• There are several instances in the tables where a dash is used where a endash should be used. See WP:DASH.
  • (I think I've fixed this. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC))

Sources

• There is quite a bit of information in the History without sources. Anything possible controversial or with a statistic needs a citation. For example, "Attendance steadily rose from 5,000 paid admissions in 1985 to a peak of 30,000 in 1994, making Gen Con the premier event in the role-playing game industry."
• Most of the attendance stats in the tables have sources, but a few do not. These need sources because they are possibly controversial.
• The Noteworthy events are almost entirely unsourced. This section should possibly be renamed with something less POV sounding. What makes something noteworthy?
• There is at least one citation needed tag.
• The link for the author in Ref 32 is messed up.
• The random link in the references section should be put in a Further reading section unless it is already cited in the article.

External links

• Wikipedia:External links#Important points to remember says that there should be no external links in the body of the article, so the ones in the tables should probably be removed.
• The subheaders seem un-necessary.

That is all for now. I'll give the editors of this article seven days to make these initial fixes before I look more in-depth at the the text and sources. Nikki♥311 22:38, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good; I'll look into some of these things soon. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the subheaders of the external links and fixed ref #32. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Re: External links in the tables: These are links to the official sites for individual events. They're good external links, as they're full of more in-depth information. The more general links (For example, the "main" Gen Con UK one) isn't a good enough replacement, as those sites don't typically link to the previous years. We could move them all down to "External links", but it seems like they would turn that section into a bit of nasty blob. I think the current position is a slightly better solution, and as such warrants an exception. — Alan De Smet | Talk 00:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay. That sounds fair enough. Most rules have the occasional exception. Nikki♥311 20:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Nikki311: I've seen on other review pages a style where people strike out things that they believe are resolved. I don't know about the protocol, so I want to check: is marking off things we think we're reasonable addressed acceptable? — Alan De Smet | Talk 00:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You can reply within my list above, but I'll strike things out when I consider them done. Nikki♥311 20:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that everything in the "Images" section has been addressed. -Drilnoth (talk) 12:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the in-table external links; I think that if all of the cons were linked there, it wouldn't be as much of a problem, but having just some linked is kind of weird. -Drilnoth (talk) 12:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Would it be sufficient to include the links as refs instead of straight links? BOZ (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The links can stay (see comment above), but if there is consensus to remove them, I don't think making them references would be appropriate because they aren't technically "referencing" anything. Nikki♥311 20:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm happy to see so many people replying to my review! I will check your work later tonight and mark off items from the list that I consider completed. Nikki♥311 20:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, your input has been helpful so far. :) BOZ (talk) 20:25, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I plan to get to work more on this article over the next day or two; I've been really busy with some other stuff recently, but I think that I'll be able to start referencing some more of the stuff and fixing the grammar/punctuation/style errors. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:58, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, great. Just leave a message here when you are done and want me to look it over. Nikki♥311 02:36, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi! I know we haven't been very active lately... however, since our other project has been put on hold, I plan to focus on moving this one along, if you're willing to give us more time. :) BOZ (talk) 05:02, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

How is everything coming along? I see that a lot of work has been done. I'm on vacation right now, but I'll be back home with regular internet access on Jan 4 or 5. I'll look through the article then if that is okay with everyone. Nikki♥311 02:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. :) We've done a lot of work, and hopefully it's a lot better, but it might not be quite a GA. Have a look at it when you get a chance and let us know what you think! BOZ (talk) 02:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Review part 2

The article is looking much better, but I don't think it is quite a GA yet. Here are some suggestions:

• The paragraphs are still short and choppy.
• Some of the sections in the history section are too timeline-like. A lot of the paragraphs begin with "In (date)".
• The lead is supposed to be a summary of the article, and it shouldn't introduce new information. For example, "Most Gen Con attendees are men between 20 and 39 years of age who earn more than $50,000 per year.[4]" should be located elsewhere.
• A good bit of the events sections is still uncited. There is still a citation needed tag.

A lot of good work has gone in to this, so I'll give everyone more time to work on it (maybe another week?). I also like that the timeline was moved to the end; before, it interrupted the prose sections when it was in the middle of the article. Nikki♥311 22:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! :) I'll see what we can do. BOZ (talk) 02:08, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I cleaned up a lot of that. I'm not sure what else can be done about the sourcing, other than to remove much of the events section, which I am hesitant to do. It's clear to me that the article would be a whole lot better if I had a copy of the 2007 book "40 Years of Gen Con" by Robin Laws; without that, I am at a loss with how to cite most of what's there outside of many going to the actual GenCon website. BOZ (talk) 15:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a dilemma, for sure. The article can't be promoted to GA with a section that is so under-referenced. Can that book be accessed through the "search inside" function in Google Books or on Amazon? Maybe another person who frequently edits this page has that book? If the official website can source some of it, that would be great...a primary source is better than none at all, IMO. One more thing...besides working with Good Articles, my other stomping ground on Wikipedia is articles about female professional wrestlers (dumb, I know!). During my editing a few days ago, I noticed File:Gen Con Indy 2008 - Gail Kim.JPG, which is an image of Gail Kim at Gen Con Indy 2008. Do "celebrities" frequently appear? Anybody worth noting? Nikki♥311 20:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Nah, not dumb, nothing wrong with that. Yes, celebrities do often appear, though no like A-listers or anything. The majority of people you see there are writers or artists who have something to do with role-playing/board games/wargames/card gaming/video gaming industries, but you will also get people associated with anything like sci-fi, horror, action genres, you name it. People that I have seen in person, or that other people who were with me have met there include: Walter Koenig, Ken Foree, Hayden Panettiere, cast members of MythBusters, Dean Haglund from X-Files, and a bunch of people I can't even think of. ;) I can't remember whether I saw Bruce Campbell there or not, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I'll see what I can do with getting the events section sourced; even if we can't get it up to GA yet, I don't count this as a loss because the article is improved substantially, and won't take much to get it to GA on try #2. BOZ (talk) 21:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The official site doesn't seem to have a whole lot of specific info on events, but more like general info. Here is a list of some of the guest signers from outside the gaming industry who appeared last year; Gail Kim as you mention above, Peter Mayhew who was the guy in the Chewbacca suit, and heh, David Faustino from Married... with Children! I'm going to look around to see any free previews of "40 Years of Gen Con" as you suggested, but after that I'm pretty much out of ideas. BOZ (talk) 05:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've searched, but the only free preview I could find is the one we're already using. I may make a few more edits on the article here and there, but I don't see any major improvements coming soon. I've petitioned for help from a few people, but I don't know what kind of response I may get. BOZ (talk) 06:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok. I'll keep the article on hold for another day or two in order for them to give a chance to reply (and help if they can!). Then, regretfully, I'll have to end the review. I hate to use the term "fail", because the article has improved so much, so just think of it as a "not pass yet". Nikki♥311 23:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer to look at it that way, too. :) If at first you don't succeed... BOZ (talk) 23:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've closed the GA review. Good luck with this article in the future. :) Nikki♥311 17:48, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, and thanks for all your help! :) We'll let you know when "round 2" comes up. ;) BOZ (talk) 17:58, 11 January 2009 (UTC)