Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/OpenOffice.org/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 10:01, 10 November 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

OpenOffice.org

Nominator(s): David Gerard (talk) 09:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The first viable open-source competitor to Microsoft Office, and instigator and de facto reference implementation of the OpenDocument standard. I've been polishing this article for the past several months, researching the history in detail to get the story citably right (and reading all the press coverage I can find from the past decade in several languages, citing it to the hilt) and I think it's ready. It's just come through a helpful peer review. It's an important piece of software with a complicated story, but I hope to have made it clear - David Gerard (talk) 09:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by David Fuchs

Apologies that this is going to be so piece-meal, but I might as well try and hit up whatever criteria I can when I can :)
- images
  - Total of 10 images, all claimed free (GNU), all check out.
- Going to hit up sources next. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 11:59, 15 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Small comment: I notice that basically the entire article is couched in past tense. This struck me as a little odd, which I realized was because for video games, we tend to treat things like development and release as historical, while the actual features/elements of the game remain the same (thus, OpenOffice's file format is the ODF, while active development ceased in 2011.) It's been years since I've thought about the dichotomy, but I was wondering if you knew of any wider discussions about the topic, especially in the programming/comp-sci projects. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 18:46, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah, I was wondering about that. I looked at RSTS/E which was entirely in past tense (though "is" in intro, as here). Microsoft Works has a confusion of tenses. Not sure there's a MOS on this - David Gerard (talk) 19:36, 16 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- MOS:COMPUTING doesn't address the issue at all. I've asked on its talk page - David Gerard (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Codename Lisa suggests something similar to your suggestion, but Microsoft Works uses this method and reads to me as a confusion, including tense changes mid-sentence. So it's a consistent rule, but IMO is liable to lead to bad prose. It's a tricky one - David Gerard (talk) 21:39, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Well, that's fine, worth asking about. Anyhow, I did a spotcheck on statements sourced to current refs 1, 13, 14, 15, 17, 73, 84, 85, 92, 153, and found no issues with inaccuracies. I did however add a {{cn}} tag on a section of info that didn't appear to be clearly sourced (I could not find the info in the single ref for that paragraph.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:06, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - Cited! - David Gerard (talk) 20:08, 19 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

File:OOoDraw.svg is tagged as lacking source info
File:OOo3.2.1Icon.png: source link returns 404. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:38, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Fixed. Thank you very much indeed for spotting these! The application icon SVGs appear not to be original application icons at all, but someone's reconstruction after the fact - all the application icons made available at the time were raster images. I've replaced them with the actual OOo 3 icons (which were already on Commons), which are the actual icons from [2]. The OOo logo in the template appears to have been a tentative version - I've replaced it with the official trademarked OOo 3 logo from the website - David Gerard (talk) 19:18, 17 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to oppose at this time, unfortunately. The prose is stilted throughout, made almost entirely of very short paragraphs, many with only a single sentence (including in the lead). It feels like a collection of unintegrated facts. Some statements have long strings of up to eight citations, which the MoS advises against. There is no section for reception, and although there is a paragraph on reviews of version 2, there is almost no info on the reception of other versions. (Even the paragraph on the reception of version 2 is much shorter than sections on less noteworthy facets of the topic.) Taken all together, I don't think this will be ready for featured status without substantial changes throughout. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:59, 23 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The MOS advises against citations? Seriously? Everything that's multiply cited is so because it needed citation (see talk page and archives) or in direct response to a {{cn}} - can you identify which you think are gratuitous?

Can add/refactor out a section on reception.

It's not clear to me your concerns on prose are clear enough for me to action. What's a good example of a technical article that you would think passes? - David Gerard (talk) 07:31, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually at the content guideline Wikipedia:Citing sources: "A string of independent citations may also be aesthetically unappealing, so consider bundling them into one." (It also gives a list of advantages at WP:CITEBUNDLE.) As for prose, we have plenty of technical articles with lively and vivid prose: Rosetta@home, Microsoft Security Essentials, Nintendo DSi, Actuary, etc. – Quadell ^(talk) 13:12, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see what you mean! I'll bundle at least a few, then, this evening. I'll also see what I can do to be more dashing - David Gerard (talk) 16:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Related comment - are the refs archived somewhere? There are a lot of potential dead links in 2 years time, so adding them to the Wayback Machine would preserve their usefulness. James^x12345 22:21, 3 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment -- This nom has been open a month and it appears that there's still work to be done addressing what it received in terms of review last month, so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:37, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 05:38, 9 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.