Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Flight Unlimited/archive1

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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 promoted by Ucucha 14:18, 16 September 2011 [1].

Flight Unlimited[edit]

Flight Unlimited (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:05, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the fairly-quick return to FAC that I promised during my last successful nomination. While that article depicted Looking Glass Technologies in financial and managerial decline, this one turns back the clock to find the company successfully breaking into the publishing industry with an odd-duck flight simulator. Thanks in no small part to that man of infinite professions—the seemingly-tireless Seamus Blackley—the company produced a game that won over testers, pilots, critics and even consumers.

I spent quite a few months working on this article, largely because it ended up being a much bigger subject than I'd anticipated. User:Prime Blue, to whom I am eternally grateful, was kind enough to provide a tremendous peer review that addressed many, many issues with the article. Among other things, the semicolon overuse, inconsistent reference formatting and excessive quotes that caused problems in the last nomination were ironed out pre-FAC. I believe that the article meets the FA criteria, and I hope that you will agree. A final note: the Official Pilot's Guide reference that I used up to aD is not a primary source. It was written by an outside journalist—Shay Addams of Commodore Magazine and QuestBusters fame—who provided incredibly detailed coverage of the game's development in the first 13 pages. It was published by Infotainment World Books, a branch of the company that (I believe) published GamePro. As such, the excessive use of this source should not be viewed as an over-reliance on primary material. With that out of the way, let's begin the nomination. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:05, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Footnotes should appear in numerical order - eg. [3][5] instead of [5][3]
  • Ranges should consistently use endashes, not hyphens
  • Does the Grossman manual have an ISBN?
  • Be consistent in whether you provide retrieval dates when archive dates are present
  • Be consistent in whether or not ISBNs are hyphenated
  • Need to specify whether PC Gamer is US or UK edition, and should include volume/issue if available
  • FN 22, 42: page(s)?
  • FN 35, 41, 42: issue? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to points in order. Point one: I believe that there's a bot capable of performing this task, but I neither know how to request its help nor even remember its name. It would do a faster and cleaner job than I could ever hope to do. Point two: fixed, I believe. Point three: as far as I can tell, no. Point four: made a few adjustments. Accessdates are now only provided for references that specify "deadurl=no". Point five: fixed. Point six: first part fixed, but I don't know what "volume" means in this context. The PC Gamer issue claims to be "Vol. 2 No. 3", but I've never understood what to do with that information. Point seven: ref 42 specifies the page number, but 22 was not given a page number by the online article search engine where I obtained it. Point eight: fixed 35, but 41 and 42 were again left incomplete by that search engine. Thanks for the review. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Vol. = volume. There should be a way to include both that and the number in the citation. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many thanks. Someone dropped by with AWB right after you edited, but it looks like you beat them to it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:50, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Images check out. Two are free and well sourced, two are non-free, but have detailed rationales and are clearly justified. J Milburn (talk) 15:58, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A few thoughts, from J Milburn-

  • "board want advertisement placed" I've never heard that phrase before
    • Tweaked it a bit. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • My issue was "want advertisement", but I see now that it's in the OED (a more formal version of "wanted ad") so no objections there. J Milburn (talk) 20:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "former Tribe bassist Greg LoPiccolo and ex-road manager Tom Streit" Streit is the former Tribe ex-road manager? Not quite clear
  • Do we know why the multiplayer was removed?
  • "and LookingGlass is" Sic?
  • Mac is a dablink
  • "while PC Magazine stated" Avoid personification
  • "PC Magazine called the graphics" Again
  • "Atkin stated that the "instructor's helpful voice (and his blood-curdling scream if you pancake the plane) has to be one of the best uses of voice ever in a multimedia title".[6]" Tense switch
    • I'm not sure how I could change the tense without distorting the original meaning of Atkin's sentence. Any suggestions? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • How about "Atkin considered the "instructor's helpful voice (and his blood-curdling scream if you pancake the plane)" to be "one of the best uses of voice ever in a multimedia title".[6]" or "Atkin considered the "instructor's helpful voice (and his blood-curdling scream if you pancake the plane) ... to be one of the best uses of voice ever in a multimedia title".[6]"? J Milburn (talk) 20:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't checked the references, but this is generally looking fantastic. One last thing- you format quotes different to how I would- you write "Smith said, "the sun is big"." I would go for "Smith said that "the sun is big"." That said, if others don't have a problem with it, I don't either. J Milburn (talk) 16:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks! As for the quotes, I've used that method on every article I've worked on since 2006 (including FAs), so, unless standards have changed quite recently, I don't think there should be a problem. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose. Answers all the questions and is well written, but I cannot vouch for the sourcing. J Milburn (talk) 20:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I was unable to load http://www.ttlg.com/articles/SSint2.asp, but I did find this archive from IA. Also, the sources seem to all look good and the facts I looked up checked out. --Odie5533 (talk) 02:12, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hmmm... strange. Both links work for me. I think Prime Blue had a similar issue with that link. Perhaps it's browser-related? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 03:25, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Worked for me. I'm using chrome. It could also be IP restriction.陣内Jinnai 20:19, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Will look at the article more later but for now, File:Flight Unlimited DOS.png seems too close to File:Seamus Blackley February 2006.png. Maybe move one of the images to the left. GamerPro64 04:45, 11 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The article looks complete and well-researched. GamerPro64 21:53, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I've been watching this article for a while, during the PR and this FAC. It is definately up to JimmyBlackwing's usual standards, as well as FA standards. Well-written and engaging, and I'm happy to support. I will note that there are a bunch of redirect links- not super-important, and I'll fix them myself, but something to watch for for future FACs. --PresN 07:22, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Images are supposed to stare at the text, so the image File:Immelman.gif that shows the object travelling mostly to the left, but is placed on the left side, shouldn't it be on the right side, so it is travelling towards the text (despite not being a picture of a person)?SCB '92 (talk) 10:31, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm not sure. I'd prefer to get a third opinion before I make this change, since I like where the image is placed right now. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:53, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The same goes for File:Seamus Blackley February 2006.png, since it is a person, though currently in the article he is facing away from the text, his eyes seem to be staring at the camera-SCB '92 (talk) 10:21, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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