Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/God of War (video game)/archive3


 * 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 10:02, 13 April 2013 (UTC).

God of War (video game)

 * Nominator(s): JDC808   ♫  04:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is ready to become a Featured Article. A lot of hard work has been done to the article. The last FAC had an extensive prose and source review. The article has received numerous copy-edits. After a prose comment made by a reviewer in the last FAC (which is the comment that prevented the article's promotion despite 6 supports versus 2 opposes), I had another copy-editor unfamiliar with this article/subject copy-edit the article and they said it looked excellent. I've made some minor changes since the last nomination to try and better the prose even more. And with the recent release of the seventh game in this very successful and popular PlayStation franchise, it's about time the original God of War becomes an FA. -- JDC808  ♫  04:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Support Same as before. It's ready. — ΛΧΣ  21  05:27, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Support per Archive 2. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 07:52, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment - The sourcing is okay. Not much has changed since the previous FAC. The primary reason for the previous FAC's failure is apparently inadequate prose, specifically lack of flow in some parts of the text. The prose criteria is somewhat subjective. VG fans will probably find the article more "engaging, even brilliant" than non-VG fans. I'll take a look at this to see if the issue is serious.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 12:34, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Support per the previous FAC nomination. Hounder4 (Talk) 13:40, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Issues - The characters section feels more like a list, a list of names, titles and actors. See WP:VG/GL #10. Judging by the character sections of several featured VG articles, I think the section should be about the main characters, their background, and what role do they play in the game. Except for this part, compared with other VG FAs, I don't see many significant issues with the prose. --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 13:44, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I had a third opinion sought on this matter. This was the solution because it is in a prose form with how the WP:VG project advises. How the voice actors are done is the solution from the first FAC nom. -- JDC808  ♫  19:04, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Support, per previous FAC and lack of serious prose issues. --FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment "First released on March 22, 2005, for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) console, it is the first installment in the series of the same name and the third chronologically". If it is the first installment, how is it third chronologically?--Dwaipayan (talk) 13:48, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Installment does not mean chronological placement. Installment refers to the release order, not the chronological order. It's just like the Star Wars films. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is the first film (aka installment) in the series, however, it's the fourth chronologically. -- JDC808  ♫  19:04, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, but this was released on March 22, 2005; God of War II was released on March 13, 2007; God of War III was released on March 16, 2010 (all data from Wikipedia articles, I did not verify sources). So, how come GoW is third chronologically? It's seems to predate GoW2 and 3.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It does predate those, but there's 7 games in the series, not just the three. Chronologically, it's God of War: Ascension (March 2013), God of War: Chains of Olympus (March 2008), this game, God of War: Ghost of Sparta (November 2010), God of War: Betrayal (June 2007), God of War II, and God of War III. The Setting section mentions that this game is between Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta. -- JDC808  ♫  19:43, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - Why have Template:About at the top of the article if God of War redirects to Gods of War? See WP:Hatnote. --Niwi3 (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's been there for a few years and there hasn't been any issues with it (except for once, which is why it is worded how it is now). It also gives a quick list of the other games in the series. If it's really an issue, it can be removed. -- JDC808  ♫  20:08, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I would personally remove it since it's pretty much useless -- "God of War (video game)" is a name that is not ambiguous. Besides, there's the Template:God of War series at the bottom of the article if the reader wants a quick list of the other games in the series. --Niwi3 (talk) 21:10, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Removed. -- JDC808  ♫  03:34, 29 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - File:God of war action.jpg is a rubbish screenshot. It looks like a jpg magazine scan and the source is a 404 error.  This is a PlayStation 2 game, just download PCSX2, run the game and take a decent action shot of Kratos fighting enemies. - hahnch e n 21:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, I'm sure it's not difficult to find screenshots online.--FutureTrillionaire (talk) 01:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The image was uploaded in 2008. That's pretty much the quality of the original PS2 version. I'll try to get a better image. -- JDC808  ♫  03:34, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't find a new image, however, I found the source. The domain was changed, which is why the source previously used was an error. -- JDC808  ♫  22:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The source isn't even particularly relevant, in the screenshots I upload - the source is the game, and I describe where the screenshot is taken. My main concern was that you've chosen a portrait crop of a QTE where there's no HUD (showing the green, red and blue bars) and no discernible Blades of Chaos as your screenshot most indicative of gameplay. - hahnch e n 13:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, got a new image. -- JDC808  ♫  21:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment - not doing a full review, just two image comments. Can't speak to the actual image quality, i'll leave that to the experts knowing the game. GermanJoe (talk) 08:24, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Make sure, the uploaded non-free image meets WP:image resolution (max. 100,000 pixels, unless there is a really compelling reason for an exception). Reverted the actual image to the correct version.
 * Per WP:NFCC the image should significantly help the reader to understand the article, not merely illustrate it (the current image is OK in that regard - just saying for possible replacements).


 * Support per my comments and discussion in the previous two FACs. All issues, specifically related to prose and sourcing, have been addressed. —Torchiest talkedits 01:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - Issues which had arisen in the previous FAC seems to have been addressed.-- Tærkast (Discuss) 18:39, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose Strong oppose on prose, again. After the amount of peer review this is supposed to have undergone, why am I still seeing wording in the lead like:
 * "the God of War," (why the capitals?)
 * "Successful, Kratos replaces Ares as the new God of War." (why the weird word order? caps again!)
 * "a power enhancing ability" (wouldn't this need a hyphen?)

I fear that if there are three obvious faults in the lead paragraph, which should be the most carefully edited section, there will be many more in the rest of the article. --John (talk) 21:23, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The caps issue was explained in the last FAC. Adding to that, the developers capitalize the god's titles.
 * What's weird about that word order? (speaking of which, another editor in the last FAC who also had issues with the prose copy-edited it that way).
 * Would that need a hyphen? I've seen it both ways.
 * If there are many prose issues, why not do a full review and tell me what they are so they can be fixed? The six people who have supprted this article's promotion aren't seeing these issues, and the last copy-editor didn't see them either. So opposing on the entire article's prose, but only giving a couple of small examples, is not helpful. -- JDC808  ♫  21:53, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The caps issue was not dealt with in January, and the FAC failed. It is April and the issue hasn't gone away. It is still as wrong now as it was nine weeks ago. Why should I read the whole thing when the lead is riddled with poor writing, and when, as you point out, this includes actionable items which have not been fixed from last time around? --John (talk) 22:38, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I just gave a valid reason why they're capitalized and that wasn't the reason the last FAC failed anyways. Plus, just did some reading around and if they're used as titles (which they are), they're capitalized. Also, you didn't answer my other two questions. Since you will not give me a full review to justify your opposition of the entire article, I hope the delegates see that your review was not helpful as GrahamColm saw in the last FAC. -- JDC808  ♫  01:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What was the valid reason? I must have missed that. If you don't understand basic English capitalisation rules, or how to use hyphens, you should find somebody who does to copyedit articles before sending them to FAC. --John (talk) 06:01, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You must have missed it. I'm going to ignore the fact that you've questioned mine, and others who have copy-edited this article, understanding of English and simply state that you have not been a helpful reviewer. -- JDC808  ♫  07:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Are you? I'm sorry you didn't find it helpful. Where exactly did you think you answered my point about capitalisation? For reference, there are many web resources which will clarify this High-School level point if you don't understand it. "God" is only capitalised when it refers to a singular entity, or at the start of a sentence. Why would this article be an exception to that? --John (talk) 07:48, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Within this game (and series), these are the developer's (the guys who created this game) characters, and as such, they have capitalized the god's titles. I'm sorry you disagree with the styling the developers have chosen for their characters and I'm sorry you decided to change your oppose to a strong oppose. I'm also sorry that you're still questioning my understanding of capitalization. -- JDC808  ♫  15:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: A few things. I opposed on the last FAC and with my initial opposition I provided some examples to illustrate some of the problems I had with the highlighting the article as one of "the best articles Wikipedia has to offer".    That didn’t mean that I thought the article was bad, sloppy, or worthless.  It was and is obvious that a great deal of thought and effort has gone into the creation of this article.  It’s good.  It’s just not a featured article.  Yet.   By illustrating several examples, I hoped to avoid posting an "it's just not good enough" type of review without providing a roadmap to improvement.   However, what often ends up happening when such a list is provided is it is mistaken to be a checklist, not a roadmap.    Many of the issues were addressed, and used to improve the sections I highlighted, but many issues remained.  I returned on a couple of instances and responded to the responses and tried to assist the process of improving the article by illustrating that there were more problems than what I had specifically mentioned, but my comments were addressed individually and literally, rather than used as examples of improvements that needed to be applied to the article as a whole.    Eventually, I ended up committing more time than I intended to copyediting an article on a subject that I have little interest in, and in the process, I became so familiar with the writing that my ability to perform an impartial review was diminished.   By the end of January, I felt that my efforts to illustrate issues were no longer bearing fruit.  By then, additional reviewers were weighing in and reaching similar conclusions as I was, so although I continued to watch the article and the FAC, the article did not reach a state where I felt comfortable removing my opposition.


 * Unfortunately, not much happened between the time the previous FAC closed and this new FAC opened.  This link  summarizes the changes that have been made to the article in the 15 days between the end of the previous nomination and the current nomination.   Not very much.   I’m a bit concerned about the rapid re-nomination of this article as a featured article candidate as well efforts that appear to me to be designed to "stack the vote" by soliciting support votes from previous supporters of the FAC .  I'm not saying that their support is unworthy or without merit, but I would have been much less concerned if I or any of the other reviewers who had opposed promotion would have also received a note that the article had undergone significant improvement and that my input at a new FAC would be valuable.


 * To be precise, these are the changes that were made between the nominations (last nom closed on March 13, this nom opened on March 27). The reason it may appear that not much has changed is because I addressed all issues that were brought up in the last FAC. Although I will say, I don't know if your last comments in the previous FAC were satisfied as you did not return to strike them or comment further. After Penguin made the comment to find a copy-editor unfamiliar with this article and topic, I did so and that copy-editor made a few very minor changes and said it looked excellent. How can I make a lot of improvements between nominations when I addressed the issues (without further comment saying what more needs done), copy-editors are telling me it looks excellent, and other reviewers are saying it's ready? Soliciting seems to be bit of a strong word to use for that. Sorry I did not ping you. Last time I checked your contribution history, you hadn't edited in awhile. -- JDC808  ♫  20:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Not to take us off-topic for this article review, but why didn't you ping me? --John (talk) 21:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Because as GrahamColm said, you're review wasn't very helpful: "The review from Neil916 was helpful, but the one from John was much less so". -- JDC808  ♫  21:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Gosh. It'd be nice if you had raised this with me. As it is, it does look like you only asked people who would say yes. --John (talk) 05:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I mentioned it in a previous post as well, but let's just move on. -- JDC808  ♫  20:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Finally, in viewing the interaction between John and JDC808 above, I feel that it might be helpful to point out that we're all on the same team here. As I mentioned at the beginning, opposing a FAC does not mean that a reviewer thinks the article is bad, it means it's just not at the point where they think it should be highlighted on the front page of the site until it is improved further.    Reviewers spend what is often a substantial amount of their free time reading nominated articles and engaging in these reviews. Article editors spend a huge amount of their own time researching, writing, and rewriting those articles, not to mention undergoing what is often a rigorous process of several stages of review.  This goes to show that everybody here wants the same thing; high quality content on Wikipedia.   JDC808's response to John's initial comment in opposition to promoting the article seems overly defensive to me, after that the conversation slowly deteriorated into comments about perceived deficiencies in the participants, rather than the article itself.  I just don't see a need for the relationship between nominators and reviewers to be adversarial in nature.  Feel free to disagree and defend your viewpoint, but this isn't the place to get bent out of shape if someone states an opinion that your work isn't as good as they think it could be. Neil916 (Talk) 07:56, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry if it seemed overly defensive. It's just rather annoying when someone opposes an entire article's prose, only gives a couple of small examples, and then doesn't bother to help me to fix wherever else there may be prose issues. -- JDC808  ♫  20:32, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Reviewers are volunteers. Why should we go further when there are serious issues in the lead paragraph, and the nominator isn't interested in fixing them? FAC is not article improvement, you know, but peer review. Like RfA it is inherently uncomfortable, but is not the place to start polishing things up. Maybe Peer Review is worth a look first next time? --John (talk) 21:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The article has already been through a Peer Review process and has had substantial copy-editing before and after it. You claim there's "serious issues" but all you've given me is capitalization, which I explained, and two other points which I asked about and you didn't answer. -- JDC808  ♫  21:36, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You don't see anything unusual about "Successful, Kratos replaces Ares as the new God of War"? And "a power enhancing ability" would need a hyphen. --John (talk) 05:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Other than the capitalization you've taken issue with, no. That's why I asked what's weird about it? Hyphen added. I went ahead and changed the capitalization even though I disagree with it. -- JDC808  ♫  20:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think "Kratos is successful and replaces Ares as the new god of war." would be far more idiomatic. --John (talk) 19:58, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. -- JDC808  ♫  22:55, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Delegate's comments - I am concerned about the canvassing that has taken place to bring declarations of support to this nomination. I was considering archiving this FAC because of this inappropriate and disruptive behavior. Please note that these canvassed declarations will not be taken into consideration when closing. I would like to see more reviews from uninvolved editors and John's points actioned. I fully agree with Neil's advice and suggest that it is taken onboard. Graham Colm (talk) 10:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Seems unfortunate for the three reviewers who provided great reviews in the past FACs, but okay. John's points have been actioned, although I disagree with one of them. -- JDC808  ♫  20:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I see five solicited declarations of support. Graham Colm (talk) 20:40, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I was referring to the three who did more than just said "I Support". ΛΧΣ21 and Torchiest provided great reviews in the first nomination and FutureTrillionaire did an extensive source review in the second nomination. -- JDC808  ♫  22:28, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Delegate's closing comment - I have decided that this nomination has been irrevocably compromised and I will archive it shortly. Please do not renominate this candidate until two weeks have passed. This will allow time for the dust to settle, and afford the opportunity to address remaining issues. Graham Colm (talk) 06:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Graham Colm (talk) 06:09, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.