Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Super Meat Boy/archive2

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 Ucucha 11:38, 1 January 2012 [1].

Super Meat Boy

Nominator(s): Pres N 00:59, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey all, hopefully second time is the charm for this indie video game. Last FAC in July ran into some fixable issues that were then not fixed as I got really busy at work. Four months later, here it is again! As before, it's been copyedited by Diannaa of the WP:GOCE as well as beat on in the last FAC, all of the refs are working and archived, and it has alt text and no redirects. I think I've addressed everything that came up in the last FAC, so hopefully it will be smoother sailing this time. --Pres N 00:59, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This link doesn't appear to go to the right place
What makes this a high-quality reliable source? this? this? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed the link/archive.
Kotaku is considered a reliable source per WP:VG/RS, for the authors in question- Michael McWhertor, reviews editor, was asked by SCE to appear on the second season of their reality tv series, The Tester, as well as a guest on Gametrailers TV. Stephen Totilo has worked with MTV Networks on video games, written articles for IGN, the New York Times, Newsweek among others.
Gamerevolution is considered a reliable source per WP:VG/RS, and is cited in dozens scholar articles per Google.[2][3] It is also a source material for several books,[4] such as Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences by Peter Vorderer and Jennings Bryant,[5](p. 310) and Alice's Adventures: Lewis Carroll in Popular Culture by Will Brooker.[6] (p. 254)
Destructoid - I had a justification, but then I remembered that I don't much like the site or want to drive traffic to it, so it's been replaced. --Pres N 21:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great article, but a few flaws I've got to mention:

the wikilinked "Windows PCs" redirects to Microsoft Windows, so it may be best to wikilink it as "Windows PCs"
"Ghosts 'n Goblins" is overlinked, being wikilinked more than once in the main body of the article, while GameTrailers is overlinked in the Reception section
Does "United States" need to be wikilinked?
The "(XBLA)" from "Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA)" is first used in the Development and marketing section, despite "Xbox Live Arcade" being used in the lead, as well as the Gameplay section before it

That is all; if you have the time, please analyse the article The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which is at FAC, and leave any commwnts on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion/archive5-SCB '92 (talk) 23:09, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All done, thanks! --Pres N 23:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

~~Pretty sure collapsable tables, like the ones for the characters and soundtrack, are discouraged by the MoS.~~

WP:COLLAPSE doesn't prohibit them, it just states that you shouldn't collapse article text, reference lists, or image galleries. The default collapsible table has been fixed in recent years so that it is properly read by screen-readers. --Pres N 06:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Development and marketing: There are a couple examples of double periods, caused by the end of sentences coming right after game titles with periods at the end. There's one at the end of the section's first paragraph, and another in a sentence mentioning WarioWare D.I.Y. Not sure what the MoS presribes for this, to be honest.

MOS:CONSECUTIVE - drop the second punctuation mark. Done. --Pres N 06:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Refs 20 and 48 have parts of their titles in all caps, which they shouldn't be even if the sources present them that way.~~

Done. --Pres N 06:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Has Twitter (ref 22) become a reliable source? I'm not aware of it being considered one, although the fact that it's from the company may make it a primary source of sorts.~~ Giants2008 (Talk) 02:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Twitter is a medium like a blog, not a source, since the company/person in question is doing the writing, not Twitter itself. As such, reliability falls to the poster, which in this case is the developers, so it's a primary source. --Pres N 06:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for reviewing! --Pres N 06:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I haven't read the article yet, but I would call the playable character list gameguide info and recommend its removal. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:21, 7 December 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Well, I disagreed last FAC, but you're right. Removed the table and merged the info into the Gameplay section. --Pres N 20:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments
- "the evil Dr. Fetus." - not sure why we need to call him "evil". It is understandable one way or the other.
- ", though the red blood left behind on surfaces that the player has touched remains.[4]" - will this affect the gameplay if the blood is on the ground?
- "flash version" - flash should be capitalicized
- "The game was explicitly designed by the team to be their version of Super Mario Bros.[12]" - sounds odd
- "In 2011 Voxelous" - no comma?
- "is 2'25" long," - do you mean 2:25?♫GoP♫_T ^C _N 16:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed all of these. --Pres N 17:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support I did some edits and hopefully improved readability a little. I think it's a great article. One question though, is there any plot information to be added? It doesn't sound like the game has a very complicated storyline, just asking. Tango16 (talk) 16:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's basically no story- each level is in a vacuum, and between worlds are short cutscenes that do little but show meat boy getting close to bandage girl, Dr. Fetus stealing her away, and a reason for the transition in level theme. The plot isn't noted in any review or synopsis, and isn't a driving force for the game's action. --Pres N 17:14, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, then. I don't have any other questions about the page. Tango16 (talk) 18:30, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Partial Spotcheck 1/63 sources Footnote 12 was cited m times, and was the most heavily relied upon item. It is a primary, sometimes it was cited properly with a backing secondary, sometimes not. Frustratingly, despite this being a 4 page source, the citation fails to give the page number for various claims. I don't have any concerns regarding paraphrase due to the style of writing used which is appropriately synthetic and involves rewriting from scratch imho. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Why is a primary source so heavily relied on for narrative as well as anecdote, and so little backed up by secondary sources?
- Fails verification: "The PC release was more heavily promoted than the XBLA version." Care to explain why when all the other uses are very careful? Fifelfoo (talk) 02:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note to all- I'm going to be a bit slow for the next week or so; I'm out of the country so my internet access is spotty. As for Fifelfoo in particular- First off, I've never heard of anyone asking for page numbers for a 4-page interview. I can certainly do it though (not right now, but hopefully in the next few days). As for the use of the source- it's not self-published (so does that count as a primary source?), and its used exclusively for the development section, so I'm unsure what you mean by "narrative". It's not backed up with other sources for the simple reason that no other sources for that information exist. Indie video games, and indeed, video games in general, seldom get any third-party articles about their development process- a post-mortem by the developers is generally the best source we have for what went on before the game was announced or released. As to your second point, it's a combination of two parts of the source (and I'm fully open to rewording it; it was changed in the last FAC as well) - on page 2 they talk about how much they worked with Steam to design the PC release sale and promotion, while they spend the entirety of page 4 complaining about how little the Xbox release was promoted. The only purpose to the sentence is just to note that the problems that the article talks about happening with the Xbox release were not present in the PC release, and not to make a strong statement about the amount of PC promotion. --Pres N 17:14, 22 December 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.