Talk:Jack Wall (composer)/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Hi! First of all, thanks for working on the article and improving it away from stub class. I checked the article and have some comments/suggestions.

Infobox
 * merely a sugestion: could contain some more parameters like alt-text (not mandatory and a pain to formulate but useful), origin (Phoenixville, see below), associated acts (people he played with), and url

Lead
 * Splinter Cell needs disambiguation to the actual game he scored
 * do marriage and kid in the third sentence belong into the lead? unless they are linked to his notability they should imo be removed
 * I think needs comma directly before "after a brief stint working in civil engineering"
 * the next "after performing" should be handled the same for consistency
 * "moved into music composition in 1995" - where does 1995 come from? in the infobox it's 1997, from the game Vigilance I guess
 * While vigilance came out in 1997, he joined the video game company (Tsunami) in late 1995 as a composer. It's my fault, somehow the ref for the statement in "career" got left off. -- Pres N  17:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * "Video Games Live" needs not be in italics because it is a concert tour
 * "soon to be succeeded by his soundtrack" - "soon" is vague
 * Well, the soundtrack was released a few days ago and the game comes out tomorrow, so easy fix. -- Pres N  17:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * "Several of his soundtracks, ..." - vague, why not "he won awards for ..."

Biography

Early life
 * Why is the section named "Biography", isn't the article the biography? "Early life" and "Career" are fine names for proper sections imo
 * no information on birthdate or at least birth year or decade (via age), birthplace anywhere? http://docs.newsbank.com/g/GooglePM/PI/lib00186,11213D0ECB9B11C0.html aka Philadelphia Inquirer says "Jack Wall, a Phoenixville native, has 250 scores of game music under his ...", so that's his origin
 * "At the same time, however, ..." - what's the use of "however", is there a contrast?
 * "enjoyed music from an early age" - not in source, source says he was in a rock band when he was younger not that he loved music as a kid
 * "one day" - vague, unencyclopedic
 * "After a brief stint as a bartender" - length of work not in the source
 * before 1991 he worked in the Skyline Studios, which could be included
 * one could specify "artists" as "musicians", since they didn't do painting etc. (the same in the lead)
 * "spent a great deal of time working with" - why not shorter, like "consistently worked with"
 * "eventually handling arrangement and orchestration of Cale's compositions as well as producing and working as a sound engineer" - can't read that from the source, please help find where it is
 * Same source- "You have to understand that over the course of three years John kept giving me more and more responsibilities, to the point where I was producing live recordings of orchestras he was working with and he would have me arrange and orchestrate various parts of recording for him, like I would be arranging vocals." The sound engineering is what he had been doing originally, it's the preceding 10 or so paragraphs in the source. -- Pres N  17:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * "jump in" unencyclopedic, can be removed and sentence makes as much sense
 * "himself" is redundant
 * perhaps add that he produced local bands while working with Cale

Career
 * image - is he the conductor? otherwise the image adds nothing to the article
 * "She was friends with Ron Martinez ..." - more like "She knew Ron Martinez ..." according to source
 * "Of course we said 'Yes,'" (source) as opposed to "[she] convinced him" (article) - needs clarification
 * "He went on to compose ..." - what's the difference to "He composed ..."?
 * "Over the next few years" - "few" is vague, can be removed
 * "... he composed the soundtracks to seven more video games." - how is this counted? the six mentioned in the article include Vigilance, but the "more" suggests it's not counted here, and Myst 3 doesn't seem included either
 * it's not in the source that he composed for Myst 3 in 2001 and I don't believe it's clear because the game was released May 2001, which imo makes at least 2000 a possibility as well
 * "real orchestra" - "real" not clear from the context, the article says it was his first orchestral score and says he orchestrated for Cale before (it's in the lead as "real orchestra" as well)
 * "work that he feels put him on the map " - "feels" is unencylopedic, I suggest reformulating with "he said" or something else
 * "personally interesting" - there is no "impersonally interesting" so "personally" is redundant
 * "Myst III was also the first work" - why the "also"?
 * "... nominated for an award, that of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences 'Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition' award, ..." - reformulation necessary, sentence weird; the award also has an article
 * "though it lost" - "which" would be enough since it's not some kind of plot twist
 * the award was given to Tropico for the 5th annual awards according to the website
 * "In 2002, Wall became one of around 20 co-founders of the Game Audio Network Guild (G.A.N.G.) as well as senior director." - year, number of 20 not in source (consider using http://www.webcitation.org/5n1mBWjfz - the current link doesn't work) (number 20 is also in the lead)
 * Again, it's my fault- the proper ref is the GANG about page, which is the ref two sentences later, but when I inserted the statement about him being director and the associated ref, part of that sentence no longer pointed to the GANG ref. Also, the Jack Wall About ref is weird- there's an archive.org link, and the site has been rebuilt as a flash page so you can still get to the info in real life but not link to it.


 * I don't see "hundreds of video game music industry professionals" in the source, have I missed it?
 * "Wall currently serves as vice chairman ..." - "current" should be avoided as it becomes outdated, better "as of [year]" or something, which would also allow past tense for consistency in the paragraph
 * "In 2005, Wall, along with Tommy Tallarico, produced the Video Games Live concert series, which began on July 6, 2005." - 2005 is mentioned twice, redundant imo
 * "take the idea of a symphonic video game music concert, the idea of which was popular in Japan" - redundant formulation
 * the source doesn't say "70 shows played", but one can say "70 shows were planned for 2009" or something similar
 * "Since the concert series began Wall ..." - how is the whole sentence sourced? "many" is vague

Musical style and influences
 * "Wall prefers to have a collaborative approach ..." - "to have" obsolete
 * "if the developers do not have one in mind" - can't find that (or something to that effect) in the source, have I missed it?
 * "Wall has said that Mass Effect is his favorite soundtrack ..." - in the source he names "Myst, Probably Mass effect"
 * "He is primarily interested in scoring games that are interesting, not popular, though he says that his primary concern is creating something original." - source doesn't contrast interesting with popular, and why use "though", it's informal and the source doesn't connect the two parts of the sentence in any way, so "and" is enough
 * "has worked with both live orchestras and synthetic orchestras" - "both" is redundant
 * "synthetic orchestra" - it's not called that in the article, it's "electronic gear with lots of great sounds and music production tools", which may not mean a whole artificial orchestra, but that's a minor thing provided "synthetic orchestra" is a word widely used/understood

References
 * "Annual Game Awards" should be "Annual Gang Awards" per the title on the site (the website title is indeed different, which is weird)
 * Newspaper names should be in italics
 * That's the way the "cite news" template formats it. -- Pres N  18:36, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There's the |work= parameter or one can add italics manually. Hekerui (talk) 19:03, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

External links
 * Category:Drexel University alumni can be added
 * needs Persondata

Other
 * perhaps additional info on life and work could be gleaned from the articles in the Google News archives, and a lot could possibly be sourced without relying heavily on the IGN interview and official websites etc.
 * Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it- he never talks/gets asked about his early life in interviews. That Phoenixville thing was the most useful, and we got lucky that it was in the free preview section as I don't have a news archive subscription to read most of the newspaper articles. -- Pres N  19:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * "big-name title debut" what does "big-name" mean?
 * I honestly don't know what it means: is Myst big, is Presto Studios big, was the budget big, it's not sourced so there's no context
 * Changed to the "put him on the map" thing from the body text. -- Pres N  15:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * did he work as a producer in Philadelphia and Boston? the source only says he worked in the studio and later talks about him being an assistant to a sound engineer in NYC and how he "spent years sitting in a mixing console trying to get the perfect mix", so he worked as a sound engineer
 * Source states "I started working in studios in Philly and then I went to Boston where I worked in The Cars studio." -- Pres N  17:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It now just says that he worked there, leaving the producer off until he gets to NYC. -- Pres N  15:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * is there a source for the full name "Cindy Shapiro Wall"?
 * Nope, changed to "Cindy Shapiro" since that's what her website calls her; ref'd. -- Pres N  15:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * how do we know the company was called Tsunami? is that the same as Tsunami Games, which has an article?
 * it's not in the source that it's Tsunami, and to prove that this was the company, at least a source for Vigilance being from Tsunami should be found; this source says "Developer: PostLinear Entertainment"
 * I think I just looked at Vigilance (video game) and it said Tsunami; you're right though- from looking around it was PostLinear Entertainment. -- Pres N  15:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * where is it sourced that he recorded "The Mark of Kri and Unreal II: The Awakening"?
 * I was asking because as it is now the statement is attributed to the citation that follows, which doesn't contain the info. One could provide a source or, if not, at least disentangle the sentences.
 * Disentangled. -- Pres N  15:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I will put the article on hold until the issues are addressed. Hekerui (talk) 00:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Alright, I think I got everything you mentioned above. Thanks for putting up with my atrocious grammar and wording, and thanks for such an in-depth review! -- Pres N  19:22, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Passed! Hekerui (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:
 * Passed! Hekerui (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Passed! Hekerui (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2010 (UTC)