Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/GameFAQs

GameFAQs

This article has been a work in progress for quite a few years, and I think it's finally time to get it up to FA. I've been cleaning it up and tweaking for quite a while now, and I think it now meets all the FA criteria. The subject is a video game website/forum. As far as I know, this is the first time such an article has ended up here, so there is little precedent to work with. At the very least, we'll get some good feedback. --- RockMFR 21:59, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Before I support, I'd like to give it a second copyedit (it's been a month or so) and perhaps get another copy-editor into it to be safe. — Deckiller 22:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support: The article passes the manual of style and other guidelines, is well-referenced, comprehensive of the site itself, and has been copy-edited by User:Deckiller. Great job. --TheEmulatorGuy 03:10, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object Does not comply with 1(b) and 4; the article lacks vital information and goes off-topic, particularly in the "Life, the Universe, and Everything" subsection and the "Contests" section. Will someone unfamiliar with GameFAQs garner better knowledge of it from being told the site's annual revenue or that a topic on a board they have not seen occasionally uses an image impertinent to the topic at hand?
• The user Plek in the second and latest World of Warcraft featured article nomination (currently, it has yet to be archived) brought up a good point about similar articles like this that are practically in-universe. The only universal section is the "History," which is still fairly lax (what was the previous domain's name? What was the "popular FTP FAQ archive"? How do Jeff Veasey and Allen Tyner apply to that archive?), but there should be better information about its ad or any other source of revenue, its affect on the gaming industry or some technical data about its server, its usage or similar.
• Also, you should put footnotes after punctuation. Slof 04:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Revenue/ad numbers and current server specs are entirely unknown and have never been released anywhere, so this can't be added. The various "off-topic" sections are important to the topic at hand, so I'm not sure how to address that criticism. I added a bit more about the FTP archive (name of the person who maintained it and link to its original location). The only way Jeff Veasey is related to the archive is that he decided to mirror it (as the article says). GameFAQs has had no known effect on the gaming industry as a whole. One of GameFAQs' earlier locations can be seen in the citation at the end of the line mentioning the domain switch (the original url at AOL is unknown). The footnotes are now fixed. --- RockMFR 05:54, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Well, it's a recent phonomenon, so books and analysis have yet to be fully matured. We won't know the impact for years. Therefore, for what we have to work with, it's quite good for a website article. — Deckiller 07:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• So, because you can't find it, means it doesn't exist? The objection still stands; there's still far too much information about impertinent topics and far too little about pertinent ones. Slof 04:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• I can assure you that anything published in a reliable source that is of any value is in this article. Anything left out is original research. --- RockMFR 04:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Comment if you have to put 10 refs in a lead, the lead is not a true summary of the article. A good lead will have few if any refs. Rlevse 21:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Alright. I've moved the refs that were being used on the summary statements. I've left the ref for the direct quote from Ars Technica, along with the refs for the last paragraph in the lead. --- RockMFR 22:24, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support from a prose standpoint, I think the main audits have been completed. As for the reference arguement, I'll leave that to the rest of you. — Deckiller 07:43, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Too long and boring for an article about a game FAQ website. --Indolences 04:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• You're going to have to be a little more specific than that. What is boring about it? What is too long? --- RockMFR 04:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose is invalid; it does not address one of the criteria. Also, at 30 KB, this article is well within length range. — Deckiller 04:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. Not bad, few suggestions:

• Standardise use of "site" or "website".
• Look through the article for use of "also" and remove the ones which aren't needed. Same for "additionally" and every other additive term.
• Double use of "original" in the first paragraph (after the lead). And another double use in first paragraph of Message Boards.
• other board categories have been added since the boards opened - as opposed to before the boards opened?
• The basic structure of the GameFAQs boards served as a basis for the forums of GameSpot, MP3.com, TV.com, and FilmSpot - cite?
• Is LUElinks really worth mentioning in the article? Are they particularly significant?
• Most of the FAQs are not actually lists of frequently asked questions; instead, they usually cover aspects of gameplay that would normally be found in strategy guides - "most", "usually", "normally" - it gives the impression the sentence isn't very sure of itself (if you know what I mean). Trebor 15:17, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• I've decided to go ahead and use the abbreviated "site" throughout the article when referring to GameFAQs, as it just makes it flow a bit better. "website" is now used in the article only in the initial description and when talking about other websites, such as "highest-trafficked websites", "unrelated websites", and "spinoff websites" (so there is no confusion that we are talking about websites). I've fixed the uses of "original". I've now fixed the "Most of the FAQs" thing. I'll look over the other stuff later. --- RockMFR 15:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• I've gone ahead and removed the GS/MP3/TV.com thing until I can get a proper citation (although it is true). The unneeded uses of "also" have been cleaned up. I don't see anything wrong with the board categories thing - other categories were added after the boards opened, meaning the boards did not launch with all of the various categories. LUElinks is significant, as it is (undisputedly) the largest and most active of all the various spinoff websites right now. The site is not significant enough for its own article, but it definitely deserves a mention. At the very least, it needs to be there to give the reader some idea of the scope of spinoff websites. Do they have just a few members? Do they have hundreds of thousands of members? The statement pertaining to the size of LUElinks gives the reader an idea of how important (or unimportant) spinoffs are. --- RockMFR 22:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Can the full dates in the references be wikilinked to allow date preferences to work? Trebor 23:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Done. --- RockMFR 23:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support, I guess. While I agree the article is low on out-of-universe info, you can only write with the sources that exist. Seems to meet the criteria. Trebor 23:31, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

• The problem is that wihtout citing any other spinoff numbers - which are all mostly private as well - the reader has absolutley no context on why LUELinks is so significant. Hbdragon88 04:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Far too unprofessional a topic to host on the main page, ever again. A "games" related article once a year (perhaps April 1) is a better balance the the current embarrassing focus FA has on games and game related "articles." --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Nothing actionable in that oppose. The topic has no bearing on the quality. Trebor 23:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • First, the consensus appears to be that it's actually unprofessional when all topics are not covered. Second, the oppose is invalid; it does not cite any criterion. — Deckiller 23:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
    • If you wish to engage in attacks, calling my oppose invalid, I could counter that you are unqualified to name anything professional or unprofessional based on your user page comments.
    • The topic has been beaten to absolute death, making Wikipedia look ridiculous. This class of article should never be featured again. There is spillover vandalism this causes to sister projects that must not be ignored. Each time nonsense like this is featured (indeed, with impeccable citations often balanced with good writing) a deluge of vandalism hits Wikipedia. But more importantly, a deluge of related vandalism hits sister projects that don't have 1,000+ sysops to deal with it. This class of article shouldn't just be prohibited from featured articles, they should be moved to an appropriate forum like wikia and deleted from Wikipedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:42, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Your oppose is invalid. There is nothing actionable in it, and the idea this should be deleted is absurd. This isn't nonsense (as you say "impeccable citations often balanced with good writing"), although it may not fit with traditional ideas of what an encyclopaedia should include. And since when did we avoid featuring quality articles because of possible vandalism? Trebor 23:47, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I do not claim to know every subtlety of Wikipedia, however to call a vote on a vote page "invalid" is inherently wrong. Do you speak for all of WMF, when you suggest that inter-project coordination is not an issue? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
          • We don't vote on things, not in the conventional sense. This is a discussion which will hopefully result in a consensus that the article should be featured or not. The Featured Article Director (currently User:Raul654) will look at the objections and judge whether they are actionable or not. Thus a "vote" which isn't actionable won't count for anything. I couldn't possibly speak for all of WMF, but there is only a very tenuous link between featuring less traditionally encyclopaedic topics and vandalism on Wikitionary, and this link certainly shouldn't come into these discussions. This is about assessing an article according to the featured article criteria. Trebor 00:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
            • This is a big world we live in. While tools like the Internet make some aspects of it seem smaller, I see no excuse to narrow minded isolationist concepts; the Wikipedia FA has direct (negative) effects on other projects. If the FAC is erroneously worded to focus only on the writing of an article, without any consideration for the appropriateness of the topic to massive promotion, then the FAC needs to be fixed. As a Wiktionary sysop, I can assure you that this topic being featured has a negative effect across all WMF projects. If the FAC does not currently recognize that, it needs to be updated. The tone expressed by the Feartured Article Cabal which immediately assaulted me for expressing my opinion, needs to be shut down; it is very un-wiki, and detrimental to all WMF projects, not just Wikipedia. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
              • Care to share how you know that an article like this being featured has a direct negative effect on other projects? If you have problems with the process of FAC as a whole, propose a general change (although I can't see it getting much support). But your opposition has no relation to the current criteria, and so cannot be counted in the closing decision. I'm sorry if you feel assaulted, but we were just explaining that your opinion was not relevant to the discussion at hand. Trebor 19:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
      • The oppose is invalid because it does not cite one of the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Thus, I was in no way attacking you. — Deckiller 23:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
        • That. Is. Bizarre. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
          • The only thing bizarre here is your nonsensical nomination, apparently because you think every featured article is on the main page - I can safely say that this will never reach the main page until the apparently "important" articles run out. Considering the amount of time you have been editing Wikipedia, I'm surprised at your ignorance. I'm pretty sure I just said what everyone else said previously. Eh, I couldn't be bothered reading it. --Teggles 19:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • FAs do not necessarily land on the main page. I think I recall this one FA that wasn't featured because the topic was too technical, or something like htat. Hbdragon88 23:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support seems good enough. igordebraga ≠ 14:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
• Object for now:
  1. The History section is too long, and goes into too much detail. It could easily be 25% shorter, mayve even 50%, by removing sentences such as "In September 2002, the ad was moved from the horizontal header to the vertical sidebar." This might be true, but I don't see why it is worth mentioning.
  2. The references in the lead seem outdated. The reference for "The site hosts one of the most active message board communities on the Web." dates back to 2001. If GameFAQs is indeed "consistently cited by The Guardian as one of the top gaming sites on the Web", I would like an example from the last two years showing that it is still the case. Given how fast things change in the Internet world, all that information could no longer be true.
  3. There are many references, sure, but about two thirds of the references are direct links to (sometimes archived) pages of the website. That is too many primary sources, and not enough secondary sources - see WP:NOR#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. For example, could you give a secondary source, from someone outside the GameFAQ community, showing that the LUE boards are important? --Pruneau^talk 18:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

• I believe everything in the history section at this moment in time is good, so I guess I disagree with this point. There are a few other Guardian references not currently in the article because I thought having all of them was overkill, but I can go back in the edit history and pull them up. For a subject like this, it is natural that it will have quite a lot of content based on primary sources. It obviously isn't clear what should be included and not included in this article, so editorial judgment has been a very important part of this article's history. --- RockMFR 19:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Very good article. Well-structured and defined, excellent copy-editing. Shrumster 10:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Support after everything is said and done. — Deckiller 10:19, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Image:GameFAQs.png and Image:LUEshi - Patamon.png are both at high resolutions. They need to be shrank and then tagged with {{fair use reduced}}. ShadowHalo 01:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Doing this now. Just a minute... --- RockMFR 02:06, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
• Done! --- RockMFR 02:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll withdraw my objection then. ShadowHalo 02:39, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support, Any objections I had have been dealt with. Great job! JACOPLANE • 2007-02-22 12:23

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.