Wikipedia:Featured article review/History of the board game Monopoly/archive1


 * 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 delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC).

History of the board game Monopoly

 * Notified: JohnDBuell, WikiProject Board and table games, June 14 talk notification

Review section
This article was promoted in 2006 and I do not believe this article meets the current FA criteria. Some paragraphs are uncited, as well as there being some questionable sources being used. Not entirely sure if this article is well-researched enough either as I wonder how thorough the page is on the history of the board game. GamerPro64 23:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Okay, it's been quite a while since I've had a look, but can you be really specific? What is something, for example, that seems to need a better citation, and why? Just looking to contribute here. --JohnDBuell (talk) 23:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The article looks saveable to me. There are only a few unsourced sentences, which should be referenced or removed. As for unreliable sources, the only ones jumping out at me are https://twitter.com/MonopolyDoc/status/641197353060462592 and a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816-cDquzYs by what appears to be a non-RS publisher. I am not sure if about.com is considered reliable. Perhaps could elaborate on their concerns? buidhe 00:58, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Would a Hasbro press release through BusinessWire be acceptable for the former? As to the latter, I'm not really sure why a gameplay video is there. I haven't been an active, daily editor in a *really* long time, so I'm not entirely sure which websites are directly acceptable as sources, and which ones require extra vetting. --JohnDBuell (talk) 01:45, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Couple of specifics. The "Monopoly (game show)" section is unsourced. Two paragraphs for the 1990s marketing is unsourced. The 2000s section also has unsourced information in its section. The fourth paragraph for "Localizations, licenses, and spin-offs" is unsourced. As well as the last part in "Legal status".

As well I also question the reliability of "monopolycollector.com". Theres also a link to Amazon on there, along with press releases being used to source information. If there appears to be third-party sources for the information given that would be much better. GamerPro64 15:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Here are just some of the things I found:


 * Article
 * 1) First off, shouldn't the page be called "History of Monopoly (game)" since the main article is Monopoly (game)?
 * 2) A lot of the content in the lead is not reiterated elsewhere in the article, such as the paragraph beginning "By the 1970s, the idea that the game had been created..." I think that whole section should just be taken out since the lead is kind of top-heavy as it is.
 * 3) "Georgist" doesn't need to be linked twice in the first paragraph. I'd say remove "Georgist" from before "Lizzie Magie" since it sounds like a name as written.
 * 4) "FAO Schwarz" should be linked the first time it's mentioned, not paragraphs later.
 * 5) "However, this story has come under recent scrutiny and is being disputed" -- recent as of when? Quantify this sentence.
 * 6) I would combine "Marketing within the United States in the 1930s" and "Parker Brothers' marketing 1940s-1960s".
 * 7) The article is very sparse toward the middle. Very little on the game in the 1950s-1980s, and then bigger sections on the 1990s and 2000s.
 * 8) "See the Monopoly tournaments below" -- discouraged to use "Below" in articles
 * 9) "The entire "Monopoly (game show)" section is unsourced.
 * 10) 1990s is just a bunch of paragraphs in a row beginning with "In 199x, blah blah blah happened. In 199y, blah blah blah happened." Copy edit this for tightness and lack of repetition.
 * 11) "In 2009's championship edition..." -- unsourced
 * 12) "Also in 2009, Monopoly "theme packs" entered the retail market..." -- unsourced
 * 13) The "2010s" section also has a lot of issues with "In 201x, blah blah blah happened. In 201y, blah blah blah happened." Please fix.
 * 14) Several unsourced sentences in "Monopoly tournaments 1973-2021".
 * 15) " Ralph Anspach argued against this during an on-air conversation..." argued against what? Doesn't seem clear to me.
 * 16) "Various patents have existed on the game of Monopoly and its predecessors..." unsourced
 * 17) I spotted an improper use of second person that I removed. I also saw a couple typos ("Mariott") and improper comma usage. Page overall needs a massive copyedit.


 * References
 * 1) Reference 2 "A U.S. Patent was granted..." -- improperly formatted and leads to a Typepad blog which is clearly not an RS
 * 2) Reference 4 "Monopoly instructions from a 1999 edition" -- improperly formatted
 * 3) Reference 13 "Speed die edition page at about.com" -- about.com no longer exists, page redirects
 * 4) Reference 14 "Monopoly standard edition" -- amazon.com link, shouldn't be included
 * 5) Reference 19 "Landlordsgame.info" appears to be a fan site and the ref is not properly formatted
 * 6) Reference 20 Orbanes is not a complete reference
 * 7) Reference 21 "Brer Fox an' Brer Rabbit" a photograph is not a source on its own

I could go through every reference but this is just a start. There are tons and tons of ill-formatted, unusable, and/or unreliable sources to fansites, blogs, and photographs. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 05:15, 28 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Move to FARC – I just took a quick look at the page to see what shape it was in, and removed the self-reference mentioned above. While it's not the worst article I've ever seen at FAR, it fails to meet the FA criteria in multiple ways, as has already been described. I'm lacking the available sourcing to make the 1950s–1980s section comprehensive, so I doubt I'll be able to save this one. Hopefully someone will be able to do the work required, since it's an interesting article on a game I've enjoyed playing in the past. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 01:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Move to FARC per above. If I found that many issues in just a cursory, non-comprehensive glance, then clearly the article is so far from FA standards that it would take a miracle to get it back up to speed. I move to invoke WP:IAR per the precedent at Featured article review/ROT13/archive2, which has to be the worst article I've ever seen pass through FAR. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 21:14, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Move to FARC - Seems really clear this article is not going to be fixed with all of its issues. GamerPro64  13:35, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

FARC section

 * Issues raised in the review section include prose and sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:31, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Nikkimaria (talk) 14:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist the prose is dense and dry, and the references suboptimal. I would not oppose a move to "History of Monopoly (game)", but that's for another discussion. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:13, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist per my concerns above. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 20:14, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist' - Per above. GamerPro64  18:55, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Delist – Sadly, no work has been done to address the issues raised earlier. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 22:07, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.