Talk:Qwak!/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 19:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Happy to take a look. Josh Milburn (talk) 19:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

• The rationale on both images could do with some attention.
• Is the 1982 Quak anything to do with Quak?
• I wonder if the development section could be rejigged a little. I'm left feeling that the information about the gun and the alarm and such belongs with information about the overlay (it seems to be a hardware issue, perhaps in its own section) while you're then left with three topics in the development section: previous light gun games, development, and release. These could potentially be three short paragraphs, though there may be a neat way to merge them. What do you think?
• Sources all look suitable. I'm not going to pick on formatting at GAC level.
• Category:Hunting video games?

I suppose I still have questions about the game (a bit more about the technology behind the hardware and a bit more about the development, in particular) but I'm guessing that filling these gaps is difficult due to a lack of sourcing; that said, judging from the infobox, there is a little more to be said- could any of this be spun out? Given that this sold 250 (!!) units, I'm honestly impressed that there's this much. Josh Milburn (talk) 20:21, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

@J Milburn: Thanks for reviewing!

• Updated rationales

• Sorry to be a bore, but I'm still seeing "NA"s; I'd really like to see all of the sections of Template:Non-free use rationale filled out! Josh Milburn (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• Added! Wish the image upload wizard was a bit more robust... --PresN 16:07, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• Nope, as far as I could tell both the 1974 and 1982 Qwak's are completely unrelated to Qwak (1989) other than the naming similarity
• Reordered into two paragraphs (development/release timeline, and hardware/previous light gun games), and added a bit about the cabinet and monitor itself.

• Thanks, I like that- I think it rounds the article out nicely. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• Alright, though out of curiosity did you have concerns that you just didn't want to get into, or did you just not look into it? This is my 7th 70s arcade game article with similar ref formatting, so I'd like to not be replicating mistakes across them all.

• I think the 1UP.com source could be a bit better formatted. If I was doing a source review at FAC, I'd probably agonise a little over the titling (including italicisation and capitals) of the leaflets! Josh Milburn (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

• Whoops, that one is missing quite a few fields, isn't it. Yeah, not sure what to do about flyer titles- it's just Qwak!, but I want to make clear that it's a flyer. I guess you're hinting at "Qwak! flyer" as opposed to "Qwak! Flyer" or "Qwak! flyer"? --PresN 16:07, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• Most of the citation templates have a |format= field, which can useful for cases like this. It would come out as something like "Quak! (flyer)". But I confess I'm not certain what the best format would be; like I say, it doesn't really matter for GAC purposes, but it's the sort of thing that people can get finicky about at FAC. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:56, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

• Added

Yeah, this one was a bit of a disappointment- most of the books I've been using go into detail about the 1973 Atari games and Tank and Gran Trak 10 and finish the section with "and Atari also released a volleyball game (Rebound) and a light gun game (Qwak!) in 1974", with no further detail. Even getting this much was scraping the barrel. I will add in the cabinet type/cpu type form the infobox, though there's no information that's relevant beyond that.

Really, the only thing that separates this game from the other games in 1974 that don't have and will never have articles is that it was made by Atari, and thus gets passing mentions in retrospectives and some interest from collectors. I'm planning on switching my 1970's project from "every arcade game" to just the ones that actually made an impact; 1975 isn't looking much better in terms of sources. Seems like until Magnavox started clearing the market in 1976 by suing the pants off everybody, the entire market was just flooded with Pong clones and little else made a lot of waves. --PresN 02:48, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm puzzling a bit further on the box image. Three points:

1. I am concerned that one could permissibly take pictures of the unit and release them under a free license (see this policy page on Commons). As such, you could only upload a non-free image if you had a compelling case that a free image could not be created; the fact that there are user-submitted images at these hobby sites suggests that such an image could be created, meaning that a non-free image could not be used.
2. Assuming I am wrong about the above, I wonder if you might prefer to use the image of the box as released by Atari, rather than the one taken from the Internet? That way, we only have one copyright holder to contend with.
3. Some American images from the 1970s are in the public domain, as per Template:PD-US-no notice.

Sorry to be a pain... Josh Milburn (talk) 16:23, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

@J Milburn: No worries! I'm not an expert on image copyright by any means, but: the reason I think it has to be non-free rather than free is that the focus of the photo is on the front of the turned-on cabinet. The images on the front of the cabinet were copyright Atari, as was the game itself. As such, any photo of it is primarily reproducing the copyrighted material, and therefore still falls under the Atari copyright, and not the photo-taker's. If it was a photo of the cabinet as an object, primarily, then it would be possible to get a free-use image. I think.

That all said, if you think it's still dicey and a free-use photo could be used instead, seeing as I couldn't fine one what about using [1]? That's the Atari image; I didn't use it because it's black and white, but I think the argument could be made that even if a free photo could be taken that specific image would still be usable as a fair-use image because it's not just the cabinet, it's the cabinet as depicted in the original Atari advertisement, which is not reproducible freely.

Or if all that still is no good, I'll just drop the image. The game wasn't very unique-looking (the cabinet wasn't even a custom one like most of their games of the time), it won't be a huge loss. --PresN 16:07, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

@J Milburn: pinging you to make sure you saw this part; you responded to the ref formatting but not down here. If you're just busy, never mind. --PresN 15:56, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, I've been mulling it over. I think my preference, in order from most preferable to least preferable, are these:

1. A free box image (though I accept that it's an open question as to whether there could be one)
2. No box image.
3. A non-free box image (as released by Atari) instead of the current advert image (but only if there could be no free box image)
4. A non-free box image (as released by Atari) in addition to the current advert image (but only if there could be no free box image)
5. A non-free box image other than the one released by Atari instead of the current advert image (and only if there could be no free box image)
6. A non-free box image other than the one release by Atari in addition to the current advert image (and only if there could be no free box image)
7. A non-free box image of any sort when we could have a free box image (this would be unacceptable according to the NFCC).

How does that sound to you? I could request a second opinion on this point if we're unsure on how best to progress. Josh Milburn (talk) 16:36, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

{{re|J Milburn} No need, I'm just going to remove the image. If I'm able to find a screenshot of just the game itself, or better yet a free image of the cabinet, then I'll re-add, but for now I think I'd rather just drop it. --PresN 18:25, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

@J Milburn: Oh whoops, the ping was broken. --PresN 16:16, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the silly delay; if I haven't gotten back to you in a week, please leave me an angry message... Josh Milburn (talk) 22:16, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@J Milburn: ping! --PresN 19:24, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Sorry about the delay; bad form on my part. I've just moved house and started a new job, so my routine has been a bit up in the air. I'm happy to promote at this time. Josh Milburn (talk) 07:15, 10 September 2017 (UTC)