Talk:Characters of Myst/GA1

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GA Review

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GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
    "When the first game in the franchise, Myst, was created, all the characters were live actors" Live actors? Inside my computer? I think not. "The Ages of Myst were occasionally seen as lonely by players and reviewers. As a result, Cyan added more characters to the sequel." To which installment are you referring? "give or take items away" How about 'give items to or take items away from the player'? There's a good bit of passive voice, the sons are talked about throughout the article rather than in a consolidated section, and the timeline of which game comes when (and their names) could be clearer and more consistent.
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
    Development and Reception sections are well referenced, but Protagonists and Antagonists sections are substantially unreferenced.
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    I don't get a general feel for the characters. Had I not already been familiar with the games, I would have been quite lost reading this. There's plenty of room to bring these characters to life. Don't be afraid to reference primary sources if you need to.
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
    "Image:Myst bluescreen.png" is listed as a screenshot license, but only part of the image is an in-game screenshot. However, that license is a better fit for "Image:Gehn-riven.png" than what's listed.
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    There are really two things that are keeping this from being a pass. 1) the image licensing, and 2) copyediting. You need to make this a much more newbie-friendly, well-cited, and coherently-presented presentation of the characters. Unfortunately, the strongest sections at the moment are the ones that I see as least central to the article. Jclemens (talk) 07:08, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To the images; I removed the blue screen shot and expanded the fair use rationale for Image:Gehn-riven.png. The Ubisoft license doesn't work for the game in question as it was not developed by Ubisoft and not originally published by them either. As the OTRS agreement doesn't specifically mention if the license applies to published games in addition to Ubisoft-developed ones, it's better to err on the side of the more likely, i.e. that the developers retain their copyright. (The other image is from a game entirely made by Ubisoft, so there's no issue.) As for the prose, I'm going to run through and source and copyedit; I'll probably have to ask you what parts you find confusing for relative novices when I finish. Thanks for the review. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 13:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a shame to have to take the blue screen one out. I really think that illustrated the concept well. You might want to check to see if there's some other applicable fair use license for it. All I was concerned with was that the "screenshot" license wasn't applicable to that combined photo. And yes, I'll be happy to continue reviewing prose as you make iterative improvements. I'll be watching this page, just drop me a note here or on my user page and I'll read through it again. Jclemens (talk) 16:29, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The issue about copyright is thorny; I've left the license, but added some explanatory text which might make it more defensible. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 19:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

11/20 re-review The characters are still choppy to read, though the antagonist section seems to read bit better than the protagonists--probably because the relationships among the protagonists are nuanced and they appear in multiple titles. Atrus no longer mentions who played him. Does there need to be a division between antagonists and protagonists? Have you considered making this into a List of Characters of Myst or something like that? I think I'd rather see this in a table or bulleted list than the current format, but if you adopted a consistent narrative format (name, games appearing in and actor(s) portraying, out of universe info, in universe info) throughout, the paragraph form would still serve. Jclemens (talk) 20:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll bring it up at WT:VG and see what format people think is best. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 20:26, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If there's an existing style guideline with which my recommendations conflict, then by all means you should follow the style guideline and point it out to me so I can provide feedback that aligns with it. :-) Jclemens (talk) 21:47, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's no real guideline, but I said "screw it" and formatted it like most other character articles (since there's so much for reception and development it doesn't make sense to have a list.) I've given most characters their own, aside from characters who operate in tandem. All the character info about voice/live actors is not consistent across the entries. How does it look now?
Initall impression: much better. Stay tuned for more comments. Jclemens (talk) 22:01, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Polishing

  • I'd switch Yeesha and Sirrus/Achenar's order, unless there's a good reason to introduce the younger sibling who appears in later installations first.
  • Is there a better way to describe the expected outcomes than a "canonical ending"? This terminology is used for both Saavedro and Esher, and it could be confusing. Likewise Esher's "bad" ending--I'm struggling with a way to describe that in encyclopedic voice. Optimum and alternate endings, maybe?

Other than that, I've made a few copy edits--feel free to challenge them if you think they're the wrong thing for the article. You're getting very close. :-) Jclemens (talk) 22:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]