Talk:Fallout: New Vegas/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: TI.Gracchus (talk · contribs) 18:08, 28 February 2013‎ (UTC)[reply]

Ok, this is my first GAN review, so please bear with me.

Fallout: New Vegas is a game I know and love, and though this article avoids all GAN quick-fails, there are still some serious problems with the article that are currently between it and approval.

First, what is right about the article. This article is comprehensive, and has obviously been written with love. It is also neutral, stable, and seems to comply with copyrights, although I will admit I'm not a copyright expert and plan to examine this more closely. Much of the article also complies with Wikipedia style guidelines, and although there are some small errors, these can be corrected.

The two big problems with this article are the tone and style in the "story" sections of the article and citations. There are large blocks of the article, including the introduction, the story section of the main game and of the expansion packs, as well as much of the top info box, the game requirements table, and the game music list, that totally lack citations. In addition, the quality of citations is also a factor. Bethesda sources are not "third party," and blogs are generally not allowed, using Bethesda's official page, their forums, or their blogs are (according to my understanding) not actually allowed. There are some links to what appear to be community pages, such as Xbox360Achievements.org and PS3Trophies.org. Some of the sources are also to very small news outlets whose opinions may not carry sufficient weight to be valid sources, or are more blogs than news outlets, such as Gamesauce or VG247. Further, there are are claims that are not sufficiently backed up by the sources. For instance, 7b and 10d do not list all of the factions listed in the sentence they seem to cite, which might be misleading.

I can provided a detailed breakdown of which citations work and which ones don't if asked, but bringing this page into compliance with citation policy might involve a lot of extra research or deleting large parts of the page. It seems to me that this would make the GAN a good candidate for immediate failure, but I'm inexperienced and would really value feedback from the nominator and contributor.

Also, this page was listed as having a review, but it did not appear. If I've made some kind of error, please let me know.

TI. Gracchus (talk) 18:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi,

The GA citing of content is only for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons." A thing to avoid is Asking for inline citations beyond those required by the criteria, in particular, asking for "more" inline citations even though all statements in the required categories are already cited. (Inline citations are not decorative elements, and GA does not have any "one citation per sentence" or "one citation per paragraph" rules.) If you think there is anything in particular that needs to be sourced in his light, you can point it out.
The intro (lead section, aka "lede" as many people here call it for some strange reason) should have no references, because it's only a summary of the article.
I'm actually confused what these 2 refs are supposed to be sourcing there, because I think they mention just none of these factions. It was strange so I just removed them. I must say I didn't check any references that I didn't insert here, I briefly just checked the content for being factual according to my knowledge. (Most of my work here involved all kinds of copyedit and making it look and read better, not writing, which was mostly done by 3 other guys.)
Gamesauce is an interview with Sawyer and I think VG247 as a rather major professional blog is perfectly good for reporting about the DLC being released, which is not their research or opinion or anything like that. I don't know what would be any better websites for the trophies.
Where's this rule about official websites? The forum post is by their main admin, seems legit.

I must say my own problem is with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fallout-vegas-special-edition.jpg because it's not really needed and is an unfree image (it wouldn't be a problem if it was a photo that an user did, but it isn't). If you want you can go and remove it. --Niemti (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Gracchus here again!

Thanks so much for the great feedback, and clarification on stuff like inline citation guidelines and the policy on the intro. I also agree with you on the box art picture- safest just to get rid of it.

As to your other concerns, I did some research, clicked a bunch of links, and now bring you this updated report. In-line citations are, as you point out, only needed if content is likely to be challenged. However, all content on any article must be verifiable, that is, they must come from a proper source. These sources have to be third, party, and need to have some sort of oversight on them. Scientific articles have peer review, major media outlets have to maintain journalistic integrity to survive, etc. Ordinarily, blogs are out, but given their importance when it comes to video game review, I think they’re OK to include, now that you make the point.

However, this means that any Bethesda source is automatically not usable, because they’re talking about their own game. This includes info on their website, blog, twitter feed, and any press releases they offer up. Valve is also a questionable source, because they’re selling the game, and thus are in a clear conflict of interest.

So what does this mean?

Well, I read through all the sources, except videos, books, magazines, and the review section, which I more or less trust to be accurate. Altogether, about a third of the sources for this page are not relevant to their citation, do not supply all of the information cited in the citation, or otherwise do not meet Wikipedia’s standards as sources.

This means that much of the info box, almost all of the second paragraph of “Setting,” the second and third paragraphs of “Plot,” the System Requirements info box, the entire list of audio tracks, the first two paragraphs of “Release,” the entirety of “Honest Hearts,” almost all of “Old World Blues,” anything that isn’t cited as [37] in “Lonesome Road,” all of “Gunner Runner’s Arsenal and Courier’s Stash,” and selected other parts of the article (see my analysis of the source list below) are either unverifiable or consist entirely of original research.

The only think I can think of that would bring the article into “good article” territory would be to resource all of those portions or simply delete them. :(

I know it seems silly, but those are Wikipedia’s standards as I understand them. It makes creating articles on smaller musicians, videogames, webcomics, and other modern media very difficult to do.

It seems to me that good article status for this page might need to wait for a while. Thoughts?

List of citation statuses:

1) Dead 2) Not relevant 3) Good 4) Good, but no info for AU/JP 5) Not relevant 6) Not relevant 7) Video 8) Good 9) No access, magazine 10) a. good, b. Un-cited direct quote, also confusing in this context, should probably just be removed. c. good d. good e. good 11) Magazine 12) Video 13) Good 14) a. good, b. good 15) Video 16) Good 17) not official – community site 18) Good 19) not official – community site 20) Bethesda source - BBS 21) Video 22) Book – Guinness 23) Video 24) Lots of great info on the use of music in the game. The entire table of tracks is original research. 25) Bethesda source – press release 26) Bethesda source – official site Constitutes all of release except last paragraph 27) Good, but only includes Feb 10 and 7 release dates for America and “Europe” respectively 28) Good, but no mention of “Father Elijah,” and reaches a bit beyond information included in the article. Possibly too many inline citations. 29) Bethesda source – blog 30) Good 31) Good 32) Bethesda source – blog 33) Questionable – information provided by a game vendor. Possible conflict of interest. 34) Bethesda source – Bethesda employee twitter feed 35) Bethesda source – blog 36) Good 37) Good 38) Bethesda source – blog 39) Questionable – information provided by a game vendor. Possible conflict of interest. 40) Good 41) Good

42 – 66 look fine, but I didn’t click them all- all from reputable sources, content seems to match source.

67 & 70 Bethesda source – blog 72) Some guy’s YouTube video

TI. Gracchus (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually such sources are perfectly okay (the following is about biographies of living persons, which have additional scrutiny on Wikipedia):

"Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the self-published source requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as: the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources. This policy also applies to pages on social networking sites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook." (Bolded out as in original.)

There's nothing about official websites in any GA policies or guidelines, and official websites are so good they're actually even encouraged for external links. --Niemti (talk) 22:46, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Videos and magazines/books are also perfectly "good". --Niemti (talk) 22:50, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

But I removed Some guy’s YouTube video. :) Also the image. "Unduly self-serving" or "an exceptional claim" would mean a claim of, say, Bethesda's admin saying "it's the best game ever!", to source "it is the best game ever" - I think you know what I mean. I can't say anything about the songs, but I notified the original writers. (I actually think it's all trivia.) --Niemti (talk) 23:01, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the music, unless there's an acrtual soundtrack it's all trivia. --Niemti (talk) 23:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and you can compare to the GA article Fallout 3. --Niemti (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again!

Thanks for all the good guidance- I'm sure there are those who would argue that Bethesda is describing one of its products, and not technically describing itself when it talks about its games, but I'm not one of those people. Given that instruction, however, I'm not going to abandon common sense for the set of splitting hairs. Also, I know sources like book, magazine and video are good, I simply didn't comment on them because I couldn't check them from where I am.

However, there are still several citations (as I noted in the list) that aren't actually citing sources to support the claim in the article. In addition, the much general information infobox, system requirements infobox, the second paragraph of "Setting" (except the last two sentences), the last two paragraphs of "Plot," everything after the [34] citation in "Honest Hearts," the second paragraph of "Old World Blues," and everything after [38] in the second paragraph of "Lonesome Road" seem to constitute original research, and are also where tone and style seem to break down the most.

Thanks again for your contributions and patience as we work through this! I hate to be such a drag on the process, but for what it's worth I'm learning quite a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TI. Gracchus (talk • contribs) 03:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC) And I forgot to sign. My bad. :( TI. Gracchus (talk) 03:59, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Seems that the original authors didn't show up in a week after I notified them, probably retired from Wikipedia. You can remove anything that you think is dubious or should be sourced, just place it in talk page and maybe it will be done later (I don't think it would be any essential content). Actually I didn't play New Vegas yet (but I finished Fallout 1-3 and almost finished Tactics about 10 years ago) so I can't even really comment on anything plot related. --Niemti (talk) 23:26, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are you still around? --Niemti (talk) 23:52, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing since it's yet another stalled review. Wizardman 04:20, 17 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]