Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of video games in the Museum of Modern Art/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Giants2008 03:14, 16 November 2015 [1].

List of video games in the Museum of Modern Art

Featured list candidates/List of video games in the Museum of Modern Art/archive1

Nominator(s): ~Mable (chat) 10:05, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list as I have put a lot of work into it and believe it now meets FL criteria. A peer review has been carried out about a month ago and all issues raised in that discussion have been resolved. This is my first Featured content nomination, so I hope it will go well ^_^ ~Mable (chat) 10:05, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from User:Tintor2 Article looks pretty solid to me but there are two things that bother me: *The intro "this is a list of video games...." seems unnecessary. I would change it to "There are video games that have been selected by the Museum of Modern Art"

~~Also, the lead has some references which seems to contradict WP:Lead.~~

~~Other than that I think this list could quickly become FL so more opinions are needed.~~

- It looks pretty good so I would Support it.

Thank you for the comment. Firstly, per WP:LEAD, "there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads," though I've moved three of the sources down to the table to counter clutter. "This is a list of..." versus "There are..." has always been an odd thing to me - I'm going to check on previous Featured Lists to see what the common solution is to this, but I seem to remember "This is a list..." being preferred. ~Mable (chat) 07:23, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Lists starting with "this is a list" haven't really been the preferred format, or deemed acceptable at FLC, for quite a few years now. I would start the lead with something like "A number of video games have been selected by the Museum of Modern Art...." -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:49, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I really like that wording. Fixed! ~Mable (chat) 10:53, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It should be "A number of video games have been" not "A number of video games that have been"....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 11:09, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My bad - should have paid more attention. ~Mable (chat) 12:08, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from User:ProtoDrake There are a couple of things that jumped out at me.

"which according to Paola Antonelli is the desired effect of the exhibition." - While Antonelli is linked and mentioned in the lead as the museum's curator, she is not in the instance, despite this being the first time she is mentioned outside the lead. I think this should be addressed.
"MoMA has listed a few video games which they hope to acquire at some point in the future. These include an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console, as well as the following titles, in chronological order:[16]" - This could be alright as it stands, I suppose. But I've got the feeling that dates should be mentioned.

That was all I saw really. I'll go over it again once these two have been addressed or commented on. --ProtoDrake (talk) 15:59, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For the first point, I changed the sentence to "..which, according to the exhibit's curator Paola Antonelli, is the desired effect.." I think this is better, but if anyone has any other ideas for clarity and flow, feel free to share :) As for the wishlist: MoMA has never been specific about when they would go about acquiring these games, so neither have the reliable sources. The seven games that were introduced in wave two were on the wishlist, though. I could mention this, but didn't feel it noteworthy at the time. ~Mable (chat) 18:42, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, this seems fine now. I'll give this my Support. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:27, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from PresN

I said that I would review this list when I replied to the PR, so here it is! (Obviously, recusing myself as a FLC delegate).

Link "classic era" in "classic era of arcade machines" to Golden age of arcade video games
The "W." created complications unnecessarily in order to save 2 characters- rename it to "Wave", and adjust the header accordingly.
Why are the dates in the table header in European format, when the museum is in America?
'as a "cinematic trailer."' - period should be outside the quote mark.
"Massively multiplayer online video game is installed" -> "The massively multiplayer online video game is installed".
"Furthermore, MoMA offers data of the virtual economy" -> "Additionally, MoMA offers data on the virtual economy"
Is it worth also mentioning that Katamari Damacy was previously displayed in the MoMA in the "Background" section? (I remember seeing it when I was there a few months before this display opened)
"First generation home video game console" and "Available only as a video demonstration" should not have periods after them, as they are not full sentences
Atari is listed as the developer for 4 games under 3 different names- it appears that all 4 should be using Atari, Inc., though I would personally pipe it as Atari.
Developers that are people rather than companies should be using the sortname template, a la {{sortname|firstname|lastname|optionalLinkIfDifferent}}, so that they sort by last name rather than first name
I see that the source you're using doesn't define what the Odyssey games are that are on the wishlist; I assume nowhere else lists them out?
You have colscopes for the table but are missing rowscopes- that is, where you have | ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]'', it should be !scope="row"| ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]''. You'll note that this changes the formatting of the first column; it's revertable if you really don't like it by instead doing !scope="row" style="font-weight:normal; background:transparent; text-align:left;"| ''[[Another World (video game)|Another World]]'' instead.
The Legend of Zelda (video game) is redirecting to the series article, and so should be The Legend of Zelda (1986 video game) instead
Other redirects, if you care to fix them, are 8-bit consoles, Massively multiplayer online, Ralph Baer, Taito, Apple computer (redirecting to Apple), and Soviet-era.
--Pres N 21:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the changes suggested I quickly carried out, as they are definitely improvements! Thank you~

About the period in "cinematic trailer.", I always understood that punctuation goes inside quotation marks? I changed it, but I don't want to make the same mistake again, so why is this situation different?
I happened to find out that Katamari Damacy has been exhibited before, but no reliable source that discusses the current collection has ever mentioned it. I'm not sure what to write about it more than I already have either, except perhaps that the "Century of the Child" exhibit was also curated by Antonelli.
It doesn't seem like MoMA has ever specified this, no, which puts us in a bit of an awkward situation...
I'll look into your suggested changes of the table scopes when I have more time - probably tonight.

~Mable (chat) 07:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MOSLQ - turns out wikipedia uses the non-american style, which is likely why you were confused. The shorthand is: Only put the period inside of the quotation if you're quoting a full sentence (and the end of the quote is also the end of your whole sentence). 'Marlin said: "I need to find Nemo."' - period inside; 'Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo".' - period outside. Since "cinematic trailer" isn't a full sentence, period goes outside.
My point about KD was that you say in background that showing video games as artworks was controversial, and mention that they've done industrial design galleries before (which inspired this one), and thought that it would make sense to point out there (as the second-to-last sentence of the first paragraph) that 'at least one video game, Katamary Damacy, had been displayed in some form in the MoMA as a part of a larger gallery'. Or something like that- I wouldn't expect yo to be able to find any more information than what you already have in the notes by KD.
Well, if the information isn't there, it isn't there.
Ping me when you're done, and I'll take another look! --Pres N 00:42, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@PresN: I really do like the way these rowscopes look - thanks for the suggestion! I'm not particularly experienced yet with table lay-outs, so this is very much appreciated ^_^ I've also included a line on Katamari Damacy's earlier exhibition in the background section. I feel like it breaks the flow a little bit, but I suppose it's fine. ~Mable (chat) 10:31, 30 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support --Pres N 16:47, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the table should contain some kind of description of why the entries are on display. I remember in the museum being a small plaque with more just the name for each game. Nergaal (talk) 16:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This information is actually online available. Take, for instance, this page on Vib Ribbon. However, no secondary sources really talk about why the specific games are there. Even when they talk in detail about specific games (such as Dwarf Fortress or Eve Online), they mostly discuss how the game is displayed and how MoMA deals with this new kind of medium.

I think this information could do great in a "Reception" or "Legacy" section of their respective articles, but would be somewhat out of place here. Of course, the list links to the respective articles in case people are interested in what the high and low points of the works are. ~Mable (chat) 18:20, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For Nobel Awards, primary sources are ok. I don't see why primary sources would not be ok here either. Is MOMA not a RS? Nergaal (talk) 22:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They are definitely a reliable source, which is why I suggest using them as such in articles of specific games, or the article on video games as an art form, etc. Their opinions are important. However, in the case of this article, they are also a primary source. Seeing as MoMA is the thing being discussed in this article, we cannot assume everything MoMA says is interesting for readers. Instead, we repeat what other people have said about MoMA. This is also the reason why I sourced the wishlist to a secondary source (the only one to repeat the entire wishlist, and not simply parts of it): to show that this is a topic of interest to people outside of MoMA.

Relatedly, I suppose I should note that the gallery labels as they are published online aren't particularly interesting. They explain what the game is and may give some interesting quotes from the developer, but it isn't so that it says anything about the work's place in the exhibition. For instance, I do think the article for flOw could be greatly improved with the information on the game's label (if the information isn't on the article already, that is), but I don't think it gives the reader any extra context to the game's role or purpose in the exhibition. It could potentially bloat up the article giving important facts about each and every game, while the reader should get this information by reading about the game in specific in its article.

Oh, and lastly, we don't know who wrote the labels, which makes it hard to decipher who's opinion we are reading, even if it is supposed to represents MoMA's opinion as a whole.

This all being said, if anyone else agrees or disagrees, I would like to hear more opinions on this. Should we give more information about the specific games in this list, even if this information isn't really related to MoMA's exhibition other than that they point this information out as well? ~Mable (chat) 09:15, 4 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the labels add anything to this list- like you said, they just describe the game and say nice things about it, they don't say why MoMA included Flow versus, say, Flower, which is what you would actually want. I'd like to see information on why MoMA included these specific games, but I don't think they've released anything of the sort. (And yes, Flow already has the information from that label). --Pres N 22:04, 6 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Godot13

Image may need Alt text.--Godot13 (talk) 04:46, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't even know alt text was a thing you could do! I've added it here and will also apply this knowledge on other articles I have worked on :3 ~Mable (chat) 08:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FLC/ar, and leave the {{featured list candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.