Wikipedia:Peer review/History of the board game Monopoly/archive1

History of the board game Monopoly
Derek Ross must be given a lot of credit for expanding the history section of the original Monopoly (game) article. In doing some research of my own, I also expanded the section to the point where I thought it best to fork off the section into its own article, and thus reduce the size of the main article. History of the board game Monopoly has recently reached 30K in size, which is, I think, a testament to the amount of material available on the game. I have acquired many of the sources myself, to use as proper references (including three books by Philip Orbanes, one of which I've owned since it was first published in the 1980s, and even a self-published book on the game's early history, which can be purchased by contacting its author, or finding it on eBay). I have also added four images to the page (the patent reproduction image "came with the move"), all of which have proper fair use rationale. I am awaiting publication of Phil Orbanes's Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game-And How it Got that Way to finish polishing some of the sections. For instance, I know the 2000 World Tournament was held in Toronto, but can't find the winner. Any help and advice is welcome. --JohnDBuell 03:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Overall, the article is pretty good. Here are some comments (note that, since the article is pretty well written, personal comments are just that, and is not necessary to listen to them):
 * Some cosmetic changes would be good (in example, moving the image found at Monopoly as a brand to the right to prevent clashing the See also title at 1024x768 or lower).
 * No instruction, advice or ideas per Wikipedia is not (however, one can most likely avoid violation by producing a board and rules that are functionally identical while using different words and graphics.)
 * Follow the dash guideline, instead of -- use mdash, and instead of  -  use ndash with spaces around it. In example, instead of money--with, use either money—with or money – with.
 * References should follow immediately after the word or punctuation mark. In example, number 40 has a space. (1950s. [40]) There are others that need to be cleaned.
 * Decide whether put punctuation marks inside quotes or outside it. In example, without "Rich Uncle Pennybags," and the car on "Free Parking",
 * Try not wikilinking heading, per heading linking guidelines.
 * Per conversion guidelines, don't use $300, choose an alternate (US$300, in example).
 * There are a few red links; you may consider creating those articles, or unlinking them until someone else has time to write them.
 * (Personal opinion) I hate ibid. I know it is professional, and this is my own point of view, but wanted to make it clear.
 * (Personal opinion) I am guessing Image:Monopoly logo T-shirt and model cars.jpg, Image:Historic U.S. Monopoly game boards.jpg and Image:International Monopoly board game editions.jpg could be dual licensed.
 * I will let someone else check the prose, I found it very well except in a few situations (like the previously mentioned one can most likely avoid...). Congratulations, you may have a winner here :) -- ReyBrujo 04:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent and very quick responses, thanks! To the specific points: #1 - done. #2, that "came with the move" and has been removed (also added that the game is protected by copyright and trademark laws, not just one). #3-#5 I'll look at later, as a lot of that requires my eyes not to be so tired! :) #6 Done. #7 For this I might copy the disclaimer currently at the start of Monopoly (game) about currency marks, as it's really play money. #8 I'll think about - I've always been pro-red links, but I know there's a considerable anti-red link faction. #9 So noted; I've always used ibid. #10 - The photographs are mine, and original, but they depict items protected by law, so I'm going to leave them as fair use. I'm going to err on the side of not getting sued :) Thanks again! --JohnDBuell 04:28, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * After having another look, it seems that only two uses of $ had to do with play money, which was still US Dollars at the time (no editions had been published outside the USA yet). All other references had to do with "real" money, so I changed them all to US$. --JohnDBuell 04:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, don't misunderstand me (I stroke something I should not have written, must be the hour). I don't really care about red links, but if those links are notable enough to become articles in Wikipedia, it is better to have them as stubs rather than red links for several reasons: anonymous users can't create articles, but they can expand; new users can create articles, but rarely stub or categorize them, while you should be able to do both (and indirectly help me having one less article I need to discover while browsing linkless articles); and a casual user searching for information about a determined article can at least read the stub without having to first find the Monopoly article and then going to the History of the board game Monopoly one. -- ReyBrujo 05:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A minor comment, but one that concerns accessability: using "ibid." is not a good idea in an encyclopedia that is intended for the general public. Most people aren't used to footnotes nor the standard shorthand notation of academics. Simply writing out the source isn't going to bother anyone even if it's repeated a few times.
 * Peter Isotalo 09:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'll have a look at changing some of the "Ibid." statements. The system IS the current de facto footnoting standard, but the current WP:MOS doesn't seem to state one way or the other about using Ibid. I do note that it says page ranges should be indicated with an ndash, though, and not a hyphen. Peter, I did the article naming per WP:TITLE, specifically: "Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." Because even the main game article itself is Monopoly (game) (due to the existence of economic monopolies), I felt from the moment I forked off the article that "History of Monopoly" would be asking for trouble as it's too ambiguous. --JohnDBuell 11:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If you want to appeal to academics, use "ibid.", but not if you want make it accessible to a wider audience. But using dashes instead of a hyphens...? It sounds like a very subjective and overly detailed recommendation to me.
 * The title issue doesn't seem all that irrelevant to the PR, so I've responded over there.
 * Peter Isotalo 12:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I thought the ndash request was odd, it's the first I've seen it, and would mean I've been "incorrect" in a lot of ref tags. Still, with a proper text substitution, I don't see that it or the spacing/punctuation issues that ReyBrujo mentioned would be difficult to do, it's just not something I really had the spare time to do during the day. Same would apply to ibid. tags - looking through recent FAs, there's no real usage of it. --JohnDBuell 21:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry it's been a while. I've been ill and haven't spent any time on Wikipedia in a couple of weeks. I took care of ReyBrujo's #3 and #9 points. I still need to do #4 and #5. --JohnDBuell 00:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I think I've covered all of ReyBrujo's points now. I've also received a copy of the Anspach book, which I've started to read. --JohnDBuell 01:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, Ruhrfisch 01:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)