Talk:Europa Barbarorum/GA1

GA Review

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Unfortunately, the article in its current state does not seem to meet the six good article criteria:

Well written?: There are a few instances in the article where the grammar could be improved and the sentences made more concise. I would suggest getting another pair of eyes to copy edit it or put the article up for peer review if it does not pass GA.
Factually accurate?: This is were the article is at its weakest. It actually meets two of the criteria for quick fail, but I figured it would best to give the benefit of the doubt.
There are five statements tagged as needing citations, and several of the sources do not seem to qualify as reliable sources. Forum postings generally do not satisfy WP:Verifiability as they are deemed self-published sources. The majority of the content in the article cite such sources and should be replaced with more appropriate sources.
Broad in coverage?: The major points look to be covered.
Neutral point of view?: The prose needs some tidying up in this area, but nothing blatantly pushing a single POV. I would shorten the "Features" section as it looks to give undue weight when compared to the other sections. Just focus on the more notable features, every detail does not have to be mentioned to give the reader the general idea.
Article stability?: The article does not appear to undergoing drastic changes or experiencing edit wars.
Images?: Most of the images appear to be within guidelines. The only one that isn't is Image:EB RTW unit comparison.png. Though the right side of the image is licensed under the Creative Commons license, the left side is copyrighted and owned by Creative Assembly. The only violation here is the image is too large. Shrinking it down to a smaller resolution would make the whole image compliant.

The article is on the right track, but is lacking the sourcing to give it verifiability. I suggest looking at Defense of the Ancients to get an idea of the writing style to emulate, the size of the sections, and the type of sources to use.
I'll keep an eye on the article to see if improvements are made, but if they are not made in seven days or if you think such steps are not possible, then I'll have to close the nomination. Keep up the good work, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask here. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Initial response

I have now read your review and would like some further information.

I have already put Europa Barbarorum through a peer review and so am not sure what else I can do to improve the grammar / flow of the article (compare the current version of the article with the pre-peer review version and with the version before my edits). Perhaps you could suggest specific areas which do not read well?
I have re-written a paragraph so as to remove some unverified statements; is this what you are looking for? Also, please note that all the {{fact}} templates were put there by me, if I'm not mistaken, and so are more notes for me as to what else I should reference than official criticism brought up by others.
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Would splitting up Image:EB RTW unit comparison.png into its four constituent images (all of them screenshots of either Rome: Total War or Europa Barbarorum) and then arranging them in the article using Wiki markup make it acceptable? That way, each separate image would be smaller but the same image, in effect, could be shown in the article.

Any more comments and feedback would be appreciated. It Is Me Here (talk) 10:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In regard to the writing.

There are several cases of "wordiness", for lack of a better description. Reducing this will make the sentences more concise and should improve the flow of the sentences, as well as the flow between sentences. For example:
"~~As is the case with~~Similar to the original game, ~~Europa Barbarorum sees~~ the player controll~~ing~~s an empire with the ~~ultimate~~ goal of conquering..."
- You can use fewer words at the start and still convey the same idea.
- Having the game oversee the player do shifts focus to the game. The player is the controlling force and should be the focus of the sentence.
- "Ultimate" doesn't really modify "goal" much. Simply stating that "the goal is XX" conveys the same idea.
Another wordy sentence. A lot of it is not needed because the basic information has already been presented to the reader in previous sentences.
"The next Europa Barbarorum release being worked on for Rome: Total War by the Europa Barbarorum development team is version 1.2."
Instead try this.
"The development team is currently working on version 1.2."
There are several instances of "Europa Barbarorum development team", and its usage is repetitive. I would try mixing it up some, like "the mod's development team", or "mod's members".
There are also instances of very short paragraphs. One or two sentences can not stand on their own as a paragraph. I would combine similar statements together to form paragraphs that match the size of the others in the article.

In regard the factual accuracy.

Yes, if the statement is questionable, or tagged with {{fact}}, then it should either be removed or sourced with a reference.
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter who put the tags there. An article should be ready to go once submitted.
My biggest concern is the lack of reliable sources; forum sources do not qualify as such. I would see if you can find any thing at WP:VG/M, maybe ask the contributors of some of the PC magazines if they can check some of their magazines for any coverage.

In regard to the image.

It's not the overall size of the entire image, it's the size of the copy righted part that is in violation. Check out Image:Age ii feudal age celts.jpg, in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, something along the lines of that would be within reason for the Total War portions.
You also may want to trim that down to just a single comparison. Non-free image use should be minimal, and a second comparison doesn't add too much since they are both battles that illustrate units.

I hope that clarifies some things. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 16:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC))[reply]

I've done some cleanup on some sections, is that the sort of writing improvement you were looking for Guyinblack? --VPeric (talk) 13:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, those edits are definitely on the right track. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 00:44, 27 October 2008 (UTC))[reply]

As to the reliability of sources, the development team in question publishes their information on a forum. In most cases, I understand that a forum post is not generally reliable, but I don't see why that would be true here. In this case, a forum post directly from the developer is more reliable than that of some random magazine. It would be acceptable to cite something posted on the EB website about EB, wouldn't it? The difference here is arbitrary when the source is the same. VIABellum (talk) 09:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA fail

Unfortunately, the article in its current state does not seem to meet the six good article criteria:

Well written?: The grammar and writing style has improved since the initial review. There are still instances of very short paragraphs. One or two sentences can not stand on their own as a paragraph. I would combine similar statements together to form paragraphs that match the size of the others in the article.
Factually accurate?: The minimal amount of reliable sources used is not enough to satisfy guidelines.
There are still statements tagged as needing citations, and several of the sources do not qualify as reliable sources. Forum postings generally do not satisfy WP:Verifiability as they are deemed self-published sources. The majority of the content in the article cite such sources and should be replaced with more appropriate sources.
Broad in coverage?: The major points look to be covered.
Neutral point of view?: The prose needs some tidying up in this area, but nothing blatantly pushing a single POV. I would shorten the "Features" section as it looks to give undue weight when compared to the other sections. Just focus on the more notable features, every detail does not have to be mentioned to give the reader the general idea.
Article stability?: The article does not appear to undergoing drastic changes or experiencing edit wars.
Images?: Most of the images appear to be within guidelines. The only one that isn't is Image:EB RTW unit comparison.png. Though the right side of the image is licensed under the Creative Commons license, the left side is copyrighted and owned by Creative Assembly. The only violation here is the copy righted portions are too large. Shrinking the whole image down to a smaller resolution would make it compliant.

There major issues are criteria 2 and 6. Criteria 1 and 4 are more minor, but should still be addressed. Though the article did improve since the initial review, it does not pass the GA criteria. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to take it to a GA review. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 18:04, 29 October 2008 (UTC))[reply]