Talk:Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck

The case of the possible sweepstakes

I was looking through the portfolio of a former Poptropica developer, and I found this file named "HardLuckEggHunt.jpg." It invites players to count how many eggs are hidden in the book and enter their email address to win a "Wimpified" portrait. Did this ever happen? I have found two sources implying that it did, and both of them included a link to https://wimpykid.com/egg-hunt/. While the game's title screen is similar to the one on the developer's site, it has no sign of the sweepstakes. I checked http://web.archive.org/ for an older version of the game, but I didn't find anything.

Did these sweepstakes ever happen? Can anyone find proof? If they did happen, are they worth mentioning on the article? Scrooge200 (talk) 02:10, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Good point. The one who sees you sooner is the one who is I know the best wiki (talk) 08:13, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Abigails betrayal

Why did she do that? ThomasTheTrainGuy (talk) 11:16, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, as far as I know, the author just made her do that.

LPS and MLP Fan (LittlestPetShop) (MyLittlePony) 13:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

The third wheel being part 1

Should the third wheel be called hard luck part 1 guys? ThomasTheTrainGuy (talk) 12:45, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I don’t really think so; we need to call books by their original titles. LPS and MLP Fan (LittlestPetShop) (MyLittlePony) 13:48, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Barkeep49 (talk · contribs) 02:20, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Review

• The lead needs expansion. It should be a summary of the article. A general rule of thumb is one sentence per paragraph though the paragraphs in plot are quite short so two sentences would probably suffice.
  • As the book is rather unremarkable, there is not much to elaborate on. I added a short plot summary.

The short plot summary is good. The release date is OK for that section (though not necessarily what I'd have chosen). That just leaves a sentence summarizing the reception section. Also the two citations are completely unnecessary as all the information presented is neither controversial, nor a quote, and summarizes cited information from the article. Barkeep49 (talk)

Y Done.

• MOS:NOVEL has a bunch of useful suggestions for this article. For instance Development should be called Background and sales incorporated into reception.
  • Y Done.
• The sources seem to suggest there's enough content for a Themes and/or Style section.
  • There definitely isn't.

Having put this on pause for a bit I can tell you that there definitely is. It won't be long but there is stuff from sourcing to support (including some of the sourcing you dismiss below) and is needed for a GA book. As someone who writes articles about picture books I understand what it means to come up against a paucity of sourcing, but that doesn't mean that there isn't information there to be had. Barkeep49 (talk)

Really? Can you give me a few?

• While Plot sections in general don't need a source since you're quoting the book you should in-line cite it as you would with any other quote.
• However, most, if not all, the quotes could be replaced by a summary.
  • Y Done.

Good job overall. The final quote at the end strikes me as a bit long but perhaps is necessary to express the idea. Barkeep49 (talk)

• To that end I don't understand what purpose the Irish Independent is serving as as a source in that section
  • The peer reviewer suggested that I add citations for the plot. I do not believe it is needed, but we could keep it just in case.

The peer review is wrong. I've gone ahead and removed them. You do still need to cite the book, however, for the quote about family being forever. Barkeep49 (talk)

Y Done.

• So there isn't a character section. That's good. It does mean that you need to introduce the characters in the plot section. For instance I know the Wimpy Kid series so I know who Greg, Rowley, etc are but a reader might not.
  • There are not many characters to introduce, but I did elaborate on Fregley a bit.

The line about Rowley also helps. How old is Greg in this novel? Barkeep49 (talk)

It is never explicitly stated, and I want to avoid speculation.

• How does looking at a photo album help them descover that his grandmother has lost her ring? This sentence is confusing for me "On Easter, while looking through a photo album, the family notices that Meemaw had accidentally hidden her diamond ring in an egg."
  • Y Elaborated.
• Similarly confused by "To avoid breaking up his family, he hides the egg in his mother's closet, where he knows nobody will look."
  • This is connected to a subplot where Greg goes in the closet and finds his mother's parenting books. I decided to just stick with the book's few main plots and left out quite a few sub plots because they'd make the summary too long. I kept 90% of the subplots in for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Double Down, and that overly long summary should speak for itself.

Your tweak fixes this and overall I'd say you did an excellent job summarizing the plot. Barkeep49 (talk)

• The Development (Background) section could use some tweaking. It should provide summary overview of information, so is it important to note when the cover art was revealed? For an example of a good Background and publication section see The_Lightning_Thief#Development_and_publication
  • I don't entirely get what the connection is here.

This section needs some improvement. I used the Lightning Thief as an example of a good one so you'd know what to look for in the sources. Barkeep49 (talk)

• Given when the book was published I'm surprised to see so many offline sources. Like I'm guessing this is the same article (under a different headline) for the Oregonian source? https://www.oregonlive.com/books/2013/11/diary_of_a_wimpy_kid_author_je.html
  • Seems like it. Should it be linked instead?

Yes. Barkeep49 (talk)

Done.

• The Guardian is a RS. It deserves a quote.
  • Y Done. I worked with what I had, considering the short length of the review.

The one word quote works well. Barkeep49 (talk)

• Why is the Irish Independent given so much space compared to other sources?
  • It's the longest and most comprehensive one.

The way to use that extra depth would be in the Style/Theme/Writing section that's needed. It should not get UNDUE weight in this section just because it's longer. Barkeep49 (talk)

• If you put the book into this custom search engine you'll find a bunch of unusued sources. For instance there's definitely stuff from the Roger Sutton interview which should be in this.
  • You can only go so far before running out of reliable sources. The Sutton interview covered the series as a whole and had nearly no information on Hard Luck specifically.

Fair on one level but another has information about how Kinney views the character of Greg and his approach to writing which could fit in the Background/development section. Barkeep49 (talk)

Discussion

Picking this up for review. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your forebarence with how long its taken me to actually start this. See the review above Scrooge200 (as there is other content to be added I expect to do another read through of the article at that point). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC) See responses above. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:54, 22 July 2019 (UTC) Thank you for reviewing this article! Scrooge200 (talk) 02:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Ping Scrooge200. I think this is 75-80 percent the way to GA (maybe even more) but needs some of the stuff above to round out. Should I go ahead and close this or do you have plans to do some more work soonish? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:23, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I really want to get this to GA status. I just need some tips on how I could write a Style section. Do you have any specific sources in mind? What kind of topics could I write about? Scrooge200 (talk) 22:25, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Status query

Barkeep49, Scrooge200, what is the current status of this review? It's been about two months since Scrooge200 last edited the article, and only a bit less than that since the last ping, so not really "soonish". Perhaps the thing to do is close the review, and have Scrooge200 start a new nomination after they've been able to come back to the article and do the necessary expansion. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I've been kind of busy with real life, especially school starting again. I waited for an answer as to which sources would be useful, as I have not seen many analysis or themes sections on Wikipedia before. I would still very much like to get this article up to GA status. Scrooge200 (talk) 21:12, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Barkeep49 is probably pretty preoccupied right now as they are looking serve alcohol at the roughest pub in town. Are you still around Scrooge200, I could maybe finish the review off. AIRcorn (talk) 07:59, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Yep, I have been awaiting a response. If you'd like, you could help pass this review. Scrooge200 (talk) 21:14, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I have not been at my best here. I have returned to this a few times (and meant to after Blue's ping but was busy at the moment and didn't). For that I apologize to Scrooge. He's had an earnest answer out there and I have failed to address it in a way that would let us move forward mainly because the work in doing so always seemed a bit daunting. Aircorn if you are willing to finish this off I am happy to let you. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:32, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I can do so. Could you highlight the main issues left to address if you are able. I will also go through my own GA routine Scrooge so you will get a second review. AIRcorn (talk) 08:28, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The big issue that was left was whether there is content available to do a Themes section - I believe there is but Scrooge was having trouble finding it which is where we reached our pause point. There are a couple of smaller issues, such as quotes being properly cited to the book in the Plot which you can see above. I have added in the GA criteria so you can see broadly speaking where things were at. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:18, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I would like to get started on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball article, but I would also like to wrap up this GA. What can I work on? Scrooge200 (talk) 03:25, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. Busy time of year. Am nearly finished another GAN I took over and this is the next one on my list. Thanks for your patience. AIRcorn (talk) 09:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

New Review

Disclosure, I don't know anything about these books. Some comments below from my first read through. AIRcorn (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

• I don't like that it opens on the plot without telling us anything about the series. Is it the first book, second, fifteenth? What has come before? What is the context? The first thing I read (I always read the lead last) is The book opens with Greg Heffley writing that his mother believes "friends will come and go but family is forever." I have no idea who Greg is (the titular wimpy kid?). I think this would benefit strongly from a background section at the start. Introduce the universe, main characters and what has come before. It can be a subsection or even just a paragraph of the plot if you want (that could solve referencing issues). Would be good to introduce what type of book it is (kids, comedy, drama, all three, other etc).
  • I feel that describing the series to begin a plot section is kind of filler-y and would probably remove points for keeping the article focused. This is the eighth book in the series, as is stated in the first sentence, although that really isn't important to understand the plot as most of the books are independent from each other. I probably could elaborate on the genre of the book.
    • It says the eighth in the lead but not the body. We really should not have information in the lead that is not found in the articles body. It needs to be written so it makes sense to readers who are unfamiliar with the story. To me the fact that it is part of a series and it is the eighth book should be one of the first things in the body. That is also why we need to have some in-universe filler. Where is it set? What is the general premise? It doesn't need to be much, just enough so I don't go in cold. In the plot you have a link referring to the previous book, which suggest there is some continuity. Again it doesn't need to be much, on or two sentences highlighting key developments relevent to this book would be fine. Something along the lines of Hard Luck is the eighth book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. The books are written in the style of a teens diary and chronicle the title character Greg Heffley's various adventures. This book follows on from the previous one where Gregs friend Rowley has started dating Abigail. I got that from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid (book series) and it should probably be fleshed out a bit more. AIRcorn (talk) 07:33, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
      • I have done a small rewrite of the plot to reword sentences and avoid redundancy, and add an introduction to the series. I hope this makes it better, although it may need a bit more focus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scrooge200 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
        • Thanks I think this is a much better start to plot section. AIRcorn (talk) 23:47, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
• The plot itself needs a bit of work. We have five paragraphs in a row starting with "Greg". In fact 12 of the 22 sentences all start with "Greg ....." This is quite jarring to read. Plots are actually quite tricky to get right. It is not just a regurgitation of the story but a concise summary that is easy for anyone unfamiliar with the work to follow (see Wikipedia:How to write a plot summary). I am not sure what the main plot of this is. Is it about Greg and Rowley making up? What is the relevance of the ring (why would it cause a fight?) Fregley (him becoming popular?) Meemaw (is this the Grandmother?) It kind of needs less, but also more. Less unimportant details, but more description of why what you decide to include is important.
  • Wimpy Kid books generally don't focus on one specific happening and are instead about multiple smaller subplots. I kept in the ones that take up most of the book and that I feel would be the most relevant in a summary; I removed the arcs where Greg gets a cell phone, where he enrolls in a "superhero training academy," where his school implements a system rewarding students for being nice, where he finds his mother's parenting books... I left out the plot points I felt didn't amount to much and created bumps in the summary.
    • These are tricky and probably more so in these types of books. It feels disjointed at the moment so maybe there is a way to tie the subplots together better? Even a short sentence near the beginning explaining that the book has multiple subplots would help. I feel there must be some overall narrative that we can follow. It also feels very much like a regurgitation of the story (even if much is cut) than a summary. AIRcorn (talk) 08:03, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
• Probably want to introduce Kinney first in the background section (full name and that they are the author)
  • Yeah, I could probably fix this just by adding something like "Author and illustrator Jeff Kinney..."
• Background might be a good place to explain the title, because it is not obvious to me from reading the plot.
  • I can't find a source on what the title means; it and the cover imply that it's meant to be about the Magic 8-Ball.
• I think the reception section is quite good. Probably a little bit heavy on quotes, but not enough to be an issue and less than most I review with reception sections.
  • Is the Irish Independent section too long? I saw that SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis has a similar problem, but that's a GA as well.
• Might want to include the sales in the lead (1.3 million or bestseller of 2013) as this seems quite significant.
  • Yeah, I agree. I'll fix this.

I'm very glad that this review is in progress again. Thank you for re-reviewing it. Scrooge200 (talk) 02:39, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Take 2

Okay, back from holiday and would like to finish this up.

• Rereading the plot I have a few questions
  • I have made some copy edits. Please check them to make sure you are happy with them and no errors have been introduced
    • Greg throws his Magic 8 Ball away after taking the yearbook photos; I think that's kind of important as it shows that he's still unhappy with his previous decisions, but now he doesn't feel like he can fix them.
      • Feel free to add back in. AIRcorn (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • He then resigns from his position. I am guessing it is because he was asked to take the photos, but it is not clear.
    • Yes, you're right.
      • Okay tried to make clearer. AIRcorn (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The ring is mentioned a lot, but it is not made clear what makes it so important. Does it have sentimental value or is it just monetary.
    • I think it's just monetary. Should I mention that it's a diamond ring to make it more clear?
      • I think that will help. AIRcorn (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Greg concludes that he has to make big decisions on his own, and reconciles with Rowley. I am guessing that this is the point of the story. That he had been using the eight ball instead of thinking for himself. I feel there needs to be some conclusion with the eight ball aspect. Does he find it doesn't work or does it work, but he decides not to use it. I feel there is something missing between the last chapter and the second to last chapter. There is no resolution to the ring scenario either.
    • Greg does find the Magic 8 Ball, but as he's about to shake it, he notices the ring and goes for it instead. Maybe that would be important to mention? The ring isn't mentioned again, not even in future books, after Greg hides it in the closet so I'm not sure what to do about that.
      • That is odd. We can only use what the book tells us so that is fine. AIRcorn (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• I am happy with the reception section. Checked a few citations and they were fine.
  • Ah, thank you.
• I am not too worried about the lack of a themes section. I assume good faith that you have looked and nothing has come up that is suitable.
  • There's content about Jeff Kinney's general approach to writing, but nothing specific to this book. Including that info might make it unfocused, I feel. I do think this article is good enough without one.
• File:Diary of a Wimpy Kid Hard Luck.jpg I feel the non-free rational for the book title needs to be improved. It doesn't really explain why not having it would be detrimental to the reader.
  • I've tried improving this.

That is all I have. Sorry this has taken so long. Not far now. AIRcorn (talk) 08:58, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for re-re-reviewing this! I'd really like to get this done soon. Scrooge200 (talk) 18:06, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yeah I think it is pretty much there. Thanks for your patience. AIRcorn (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
    • I've made some minor changes. Is it ready to pass now? Scrooge200 (talk) 00:14, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
      • Yep. Congrats. AIRcorn (talk) 02:27, 15 January 2020 (UTC)