Talk:Robert Abbott (game designer)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: DeadlyAssassin (talk • contribs • count) 08:22, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
	1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Generally well written, although there are a number of very short sentences especially in the Biography section which make the article somewhat difficult to read. There isn't any copyvio caused by lifting from any of the online sources having checked with Duplicate Detector.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	I would not have said that Logic maze is the main article of that section. The lists don't always seem to be referred to by the text. Where they aren't referred to in the text they aren't referenced. For more information on lists like this can I recommend that you look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works?
	2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.	I think that your use of short sentences has caught you out here, I think you probably have covered all of your facts with sources, but it seems from reading the article that you haven't. For example, "Abbott was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended St. Louis Country Day School. Abbott went to Yale for two years, then attended the University of Colorado for another two. According to Abbott, "being much too bright, I never graduated."[11]" may be covered by Buxbaum (reference 11), but it's not clear from the text.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.	I think that you got an email from the subject really pretty cool, but it falls into Original Research teritory, and isn't recognised as a verifiable source. On the other hand I'm not sure where you can verify the information contained in that email elsewhere.
	3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Beyond his early life the article doesn't cover much about his personal history. I think what is also missing is perhaps a section on the effect that Robert Abbott has had on the development of games. You make oblique reference to this in the opening sentence, but it's not really picked up elsewhere.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	It's a hard line to walk, but is the article about the man or his games? The detail included on Baroque Chess, and Eleusis for example is probably overly detailed and more appropriate for the relevant game articles.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
	6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Given some of the points I've noted above, I would like to put the nomination on hold for a week to give you time to make some amendments. I think what you've got is a great start.

• 1a. If I fixed up the biography section, is there much else I would need to figure out? The Biography section was interesting to write, so I may not have been paying attention to how I was writing it as much as I should. :)
  • I think I've done an acceptable job of cleaning that particular section up; however, I am sure that when I am a bit more awake, I'll notice more that I should change. ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 04:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
• 1b. The list of games was sent to me in a different e-mail; there aren't any sources that I could discover for most of them. I think I'll just remove the games part.
• 2a. With that particular example, and other places like that, should I just put "[11]" at both spots?
• 2c. More than just one e-mail. :P However, there is almost nothing at all anywhere about his life; I only know anything because he has told me. Is there no way that the e-mail would be acceptable?
• 3a. For the first bit, see above. For the second bit, how did I refer to that, exactly? That wasn't my intention.
• 3b. How much paring down would you suggest? I've thought that before, but I've never really been able to figure out what seemed too much.
• Thank you for taking the time to review this! ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 00:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It was my pleasure to review, it was quite an interesting article actually.

• 1a.  Looks good :)
• 1b.  Fair enough
• 2a. Yes, there's no problem using references more than once in an article. Do you know how to use the <ref name="xx"> tag? No offence intended if you do. :)
• 2c. I've asked the question of an experienced editor hopefully they will have a suggestion that will help us. ETA: On DGG's suggestion, I've moved the question to WP:BLPN.
• 3a. Looks good. What I meant is that you said that 'he is sometimes referred to as "The Official Grand Old Man of Card Games".' That must mean that he has had an effect or been influential somehow, or maybe it means he's been at it longer than others?
• 3b. I'd suggest quite a bit, the main articles cover the games themselves quite a bit. I think a couple of sentences would be appropriate in an article about the man. I've had a go, if you agree with my edits the next step would be to create stub articles about the games which can be done with the content I've removed. I didn't want to create those until we'd agreed about this point.

Good stuff. --Deadly∀ssassin 07:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• 2a. I already have used them for the references in this; I just thought it odd to have the same citation in two adjacent sentences, but whatever. :)
  • With that particular spot, is the amount that I have used it now alright? ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 04:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
• 2c. Probably a wise move. I've commented there about how I intend to use e-mails.
• 3a. To be completely honest, I haven't really seen that anywhere except for in the article I use as a source, which says that he is called that. Perhaps he just has been at it for quite a while?
• 3b. I think that most of it is probably fine; since what was there is still hanging around in the history, and can send it off to the respective articles at some point. There already are articles for the games and one of the mazes; the other two mazes don't have articles, however. I'm not entirely sure about the cow one, but I don't think that either are notable enough for articles; therefore, I think that at least some of the information for those two sections should be retained, just so that people can still find out about them here. Otherwise, thank you for being bold!
• Again, thank you for the review; I'm glad this is finally getting somewhere! ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 04:32, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• 2a  Done I think it looks fine to my eyes.
• 2c Hopefully that discussion attracts some attention soon. :)
• 3a  Done I think your rewrite of that sentence helps to clarify a bit, it would be good if we knew why and I suspect you're right it's because of his longevity.
• 3b  Done Great, I've taken the removed paragraphs out and put them onto the talk page so that they're a bit more visible - if others come along later they may never know to look in the history for that content.

Almost there! --Deadly∀ssassin 09:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully, it won't take too long. :) ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 22:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• The discussion seems pretty clear that the email isn't notable. I've removed content that relied solely on that source as referenced (there was only 1), however some relied on the email and another source and not having the other sources to hand I can't tell how much of the content relies on the email and how much on the other source. Can you remove the content that relies on the email and then let's see where we stand. --Deadly∀ssassin 12:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  It has been fixed. I wasn't too terribly worried about that e-mail; I'm more worried about how I am going to get certain other things in, such as when he was married, and the names of his first and second wives. I haven't seen that anywhere online. Anyways, how does it look now? ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 21:56, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

• That's not as bad as I feared it would be. Congratulations, you're the proud father of a Good Article! --Deadly∀ssassin 11:14, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'm so proud! He's grown up so fast... *sniff* ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 03:57, 28 September 2011 (UTC)