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Wikipedia:Featured article review/Macintosh/archive1

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

The article was kept 17:59, 30 January 2008.

Macintosh

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Review commentary

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Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Macintosh, Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, User:Wackymacs, User:HereToHelp, User:Angelic Wraith and User:Grm wnr. --Kaypoh 15:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article has a few problems:

  • Many sections have no references. For example, "Terminology", "History" except "1979 to 1984: Development", "Processor architecture" and "Effects on the technology industry".
  • The "Software history" section has a tag that says "This section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality." Other sections also have problems with POV. For example "Effects on technology industry" and "Advantages, disadvantages and criticisms".
  • The lead section is a bit poorly organised.
  • Some references, for example 9, 21, 37 (and the one after "but have also made inroads into the educative and scientific research sectors") have formatting problems.
  • The 1984 image has no fair use rationale.

--Kaypoh 10:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I took a quick glance over the article. Some points.

  1. The article is getting large (70K) so it should be trimmed. In that light, is the Litigation section all that relevant to the Macintosh itself?
  2. The Hardware section is poorly referenced but should be farmed out into 'history of Macintosh hardware' article and the section rewritten as a short concise summary of current Mac hardware. The ‘’Expandability and connectivity’’ section should at least have references for the Warranty claim and the Apple detractors claim.
  3. Proper references seems to be lacing. ‘’The Effects on the technology industry’’ makes at least one claim about Mac 128k audio I can’t find a reference for – not in this article or the Mac 128k article. The closest is the Technical Specifications listing a speaker port, but that is not 8-bit audio.
  4. ’The Effects on the technology industry also does a poor job telling about effects on the technology industry, instead listing ‘firsts’ without telling what effect – if any – it had on the industry. IOW calling it ‘’ Effects on the technology industry’’ is misleading.
  5. With a bird eyes view – images could be better laid out, and the USB plug image should be shrunk/removed.
  6. Advantages, disadvantages and criticisms is not quite feature article quality. Remove or rewrite it in proseline. At the very least provide more references for the criticisms.

--Anss123 11:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have started to improve the article section by section and will do so over several days. To start, however, I reworked the lead and the 1984 image. Skimming the article, I realize that it definitely needs work; hopefully it will benefit from this process. (I work best under pressure.)--HereToHelp 02:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The new 1984 image has a fair use rationale. Can I strike that out now? --Kaypoh 06:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sure.--HereToHelp 22:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. As Anss123 points out, the article is too large. The edit view says it is currently 73K, and further the edit view of History of Apple is 50K. What is needed is a History of Apple Macintosh (with it pulling a bit from both articles). I'd like to see this main article trimmed down to ~32K — half! Unless you are an old salt (like me), or really digging, no one cares about the Raskin's board design or the problems with LC series, etc.
  2. The article also misses the point of what a Mac is — both the hardware and the software. The lead mentions it, but the sections largely dwell on the hardware alone. A case in point, the single button mouse is not just a hardware factoid, but the end result of a design philosophy that existed under the old System and Finder.

--Charles Gaudette 10:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • You bring up a good point: the main history section needs to include less hardware and more software. We can export or delete the technobabble, copyedit out the bullets, add sources, etc. to the later sections that need them. In the mean time, I'll work on integrating the software into the main history and adding the "essence of the Mac" into the article.--HereToHelp 22:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

After significant changes, I feel like I have improved the article significantly. I have "exported" the hardware data to Macintosh hardware, pruned or deleted sections, reorganized content to reduce redundancy, and as a result, brought the total length down from 72kB to 54kB; I estimate the length of the text only to be about 35kB. Having addressed all the major issues, I believe the article is more readable without sacrificing much information. There may be some minor things yet to fix, but I think that as it stands now Macintosh is now more worthy than ever of its featured status.--HereToHelp 22:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you have done a great job and agree.--Anss123 23:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good edits, HereToHelp! :-) I still feel the article should be more general and that as-such the "Hardware" and "Software" sections could be copyedited down and possibly more elsewhere too. Of all the Mac articles this one should be the most accessible to a general audience (someone with a question in their mind along the the lines of "What is a Macintosh computer?"). ... One other observation, we are on the cusp of 2008, which will make the "1998 to the present: New beginnings" section a ten year span — most spans are five years. A break could be made at the Intel transition and then clarifications made in that area. --Charles Gaudette 19:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I trimmed the hardware and software sections to each be one paragraph and main article links. Upon tackling the criticisms section, I found that half of the information was redundant, but half of it was legit and need to be included somewhere — so they got appended to the hardware and software sections. The article has previously been criticized for focusing too much on the history section, so it's necessary to include hard/software information dispersed through the history section and then again, summarized, for readers interested in solely one or the other. So the criticism paragraphs can be moved (if you can find a better place), but the sections themselves need to stay. As for "what is a Mac?", real estate in the lead is extremely valuable, so there's a lot of links, "outsourcing" information. Since the jargon is explained in separate articles (remember: space is valuable), it can be confusing. As for the ten year time span, it's a a valid point, and I'll see what I can do. I would like to request an extension because I will need a few days to make these edits.--HereToHelp 01:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No extension. The article still has many problems which you are not fixing. --59.189.57.215 (talk) 08:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FIrst of all, that's not your decision, and secondly, care to name them?--HereToHelp 21:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), focus and coverage (4), images (3), and LEAD (2a). Marskell (talk) 09:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Extension, no problem. It will be a minimum two weeks in the FARC section. People working should update us here. Marskell (talk) 09:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Two weeks should be long enough; no further extension is required. Anyway: I've worked with the lead a whole lot, and frankly I'm out of ideas. The images I'm happy with; I've deliberately put software on the left and everything else (mostly hardware) on the right. Length has been a big deal, but I've brought it down a lot and I think the current 55k is acceptable (the guideline is 32k of text). Admittedly, the "Effects on the technology industry" section is perhaps a little wanting. I personally think that it clearly presents why the various components Apple introduced are noteworthy, and is sufficiently cited by article-wide sources such as MacTracker. If requested, I can rename it ("Innovations introduced" sounds a little POVish; better ideas?) or remove it entirely and put it in Macintosh hardware.--HereToHelp 22:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the main concern is referencing, I can work on that instead. If you care to highlight specific unsourced claims with {{fact}}, I will see that they are either sourced or removed. HereToHelp 14:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reference the whole article and maybe I will vote Keep. --Kaypoh (talk) 06:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please bear in mind that some references, like Apple's Press Release Library, encompass the entire article and not a specific fact. I'm going to be away from the computer until the weekend, but I'm going to try to add a few more references then. It's a good point, which is why I have not yet formally voted keep (yet).HereToHelp 14:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep After many, many changes over the FAR and FARC process, hardly a paragraph has been left untouched. The concern here referencing, and there's no definite way to measure how much is enough. I will continue to try to keep everything sourced, but at the moment, I think the article has sufficent references to be retained as featured. HereToHelp 15:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no way to measure how much is enough, so I will let the person who closes this FAR decide whether there are enough references, but I think that now there are not enough. So many paragraphs have no references. Also, maybe the article needs a copy-edit. --Kaypoh (talk) 03:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sympathetic to HereToHelp on this one. People should tag examples, as he's asked. Don't bomb the article—a few at time for information that jumps out. Marskell (talk) 02:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Quite well written. However, specific facts (the cost, amount of RAM, processor speed, etc.) of different versions should be cited (take a look, for example, at the first and second paragraphs of 1990 to 1998: Growth and decline). Lead could be expanded to include at least a mention of what happened with the Mac between its release in 1984 and today. Really like the layout of the page, and the timeline is neat, although its text is quite ugly on my computer. BuddingJournalist 16:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove I still think the Effects on the technology industry is simply a list of first without actually explaining what effect the Mac had on the tech industry. Saying that it is "obvious" is IMO not good enough, as it's far from obvious to me. The article is also rather 'history' heavy, the section weighing in about 32 KB (on top of this, all the other sections seems to touch on Mac history). A History of the Apple Macintosh could absorb a good chunk of this and perhaps even expand further on the subject. The Effects on the technology industry section can also be considered to be part of Mac history, rather than having its own main heading.--Anss123 (talk) 13:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the big history section is that there's more to say about what the Mac was than what the Mac is. Most of what a Mac is has been exported daughted articles, but the history hasn't. I'm not completely opposed to this, but it would be difficult to summarize the history section. (We don't even have a summary as it is; it just launches right into the development!) Speaking of summary paragraphs, I added one to the Effects section, hoping to prepare the reader for the text that follows. I'm worried that the title might be misleading, i.e. implying a discussion about how the Mac is seen by third parties; its "image". This might not be a bad thing, but it's hard to source something like that, and in the meantime, I can't think of a title that better reflects the section as it currently exists. (Innovations introduced sounds too POVish to me.)--HereToHelp 17:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I think this is pretty much there. Specific comments:
    • I still think the lead could be expanded into three paragraphs to better summarize its 30+ years of history.
    • The specifications of the various Macs in the 2nd paragraph of "1979 to 1984: Development" need citations.
    • I'd like to see the Advertising section better referenced, especially since the daughter article is poorly sourced (the only references there are given for the Criticism section, which does not translate to the main article). The two footnotes given only link to the current Get a Mac campaign.
    • "The iMac also had no floppy disk drive, prompting the decline of that media, but not before a resurgence of external drives." I was a bit confused by the "but not before a resurgence...". What exactly does that mean? Also, the first half of the sentence seems to imply the lack of the floppy disk drive on the iMac caused the decline of the floppy disk. Isn't that stretching it a bit?
    • Since the section is titled "Effects on the technology industry", I don't think the MacBook Air should really be discussed...we don't really know what effects it will have yet.
    • Whenever a claim is given that something was the first to feature a new technology (see the third paragraph in "Effects on the technology industry"), it usually needs a citation. BuddingJournalist 20:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The history is difficult to summarize (we don't even have a section summary; should we?) but I'll tab a stab at it. The info in the Development section is cited under reference #1; I have moved it down a little to make that more apparent. I have reworded the sentence about external drives, and removed the reference to the MacBook Air (Wikipedia is not a crystal ball). There seems to be a lot of contention over the Effects on the technology industry section. Firsts are hard to prove (the 'Air is not the thinnest notebook ever). How much opposition is there to removing the entire section outright?--HereToHelp 21:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind the intent of it, but if you believe it factually inaccurate and can't source things, then cut away. Marskell (talk) 13:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with BJ that because so much of the article is devoted to history, the lead must cover it. I added two summative sentences myself, which I think improves things. HtH, the beginning of the 1979 to 1984 section lacks refs, as noted. If that and BJ's other concerns are met, we can keep this. Marskell (talk) 09:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lots of little issues here and there to be resolved; see my edit summaries. Also, citations aren't correctly formatted, there are missing publishers, and sometimes publishers are listed as author. I'm continuing to pick through and leave sample edits, but someone should address the citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The second paragraph of Development is sourced to this reference, written by a member of the original Mac team. Of BuddingJournalist's suggestions, that leaves:

Anything else?--HereToHelp (talk to me) 20:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apple is used as an author repeatedly where it should be used as a publisher. Try to pick Apple, Apple Computer, or Apple Inc. as the publisher name consistently (the website uses the last). Marskell (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like the expanded lead. BuddingJournalist 02:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So that's done, unless someone cares to say otherwise. I'll reference the ads section when I get a chance (a week?), and by that time I think it's safe to remove the Effects section too. As for the references, should we retroactively call documents from the Apple Computer era written by Apple Inc.? I'l look into that also.--HereToHelp (talk to me) 02:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I don't see an objection surfacing, I have cut that section to the talk. I've made the refs consistent; there's a note on talk explaining my formatting choices. Advertising remains; it doesn't seem especially difficult and H2H has shown a commitment. I'll drop back in on the page, in a week. In the meantime, I'm keeping this. Ten weeks is long enough. Marskell (talk) 17:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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