Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Maniac Mansion/archive1

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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 19:41, 20 January 2012 [1].

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Maniac Mansion

Maniac Mansion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Maniac Mansion/archive1
• Featured article candidates/Maniac Mansion/archive2

Nominator(s): Guyinblack25 ^talk, JimmyBlackwing (talk), MuZemike 01:34, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

This article has been extensively worked on by several editors since February 2011, going from an article with several cleanup tags and no lead to a complete article that is nearly 5 times larger. It has already passed WP:GAN, gone through a good WP:GOCE copyedit, and went through stalled A-Class nomination.

About the subject itself, Maniac Mansion was the first adventure game published by Lucasfilm Games and is often regarded as one of the most important titles in the adventure gaming genre, whose game engine would be implemented in many games that followed. –MuZemike 01:34, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Support - very complete and well-written article on a seminal title in computer gaming history. Well done. I hope you'll work on one of the King's Quest, Space Quest or Monkey Island game articles next! Lemurbaby (talk) 01:51, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Lemurbaby- Jimmy and I are currently fixing up The Secret of Monkey Island. I don't know if we'll take it to FAC though. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:01, 15 December 2011 (UTC))

• Media review: No concerns. Only two of the images (the game's cover artwork and the screenshot) are non-free and both have adequate rationale of use. Melicans (talk, contributions) 02:18, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Support - It's a definite FA - you can tell it just by simply reading Overview section. Great work, guys, keep up in the same vein! Electroguv (talk) 18:55, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Did you read beyond the Overview section? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:19, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course I did! And, I also would like to expand on my previous statement: though I am quite new to WP:VG, I think that the article fits FA criteria as it is comprehensive and informative. It may certainly have a number of flaws, but generally, it is a polished, well-done piece of writing. Electroguv (talk) 10:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

• check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods
• FN 3: page(s)?
• Be consistent in whether you provide publisher info for magazines
• FN 27: page(s)?
• Be consistent in how Grumpy Gamer refs are formatted
• Given that FN 79 is self-published, what are the author's qualifications?
• What makes this a high-quality reliable source? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I removed the double periods that I found and standardized the use of "Grumpy Gamer". The author for ref 79 wrote for Cinefantastique, a horror, fantasy, and science fiction film magazine, which is the same subject as book. In fact, content from that book was reproduced from the magazine. We'll take a look at the other issues soon. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC))

Nearly all of the print sources should have publisher, location, ISSN, and OCLC information. If they don't, that means I was unable to locate them, as some of them are fairly obscure foreign gaming publications that have very little information about them as-is. –MuZemike 22:08, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Further responses-

• I did not see more formatting inconsistencies in my sweep. Please let me know if I missed any.
• I added pages to ref 3.
• I added publishers were I could. The remaining four without them listed are foreign language magazines that I am unable to find the information for.
• The VG Project considers Kotaku a reliable source.

(Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC))

I checked the foreign language Wikipedias and found the publisher names. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:01, 22 December 2011 (UTC))

Oppose. This is rather poorly written in places and needs a thorough copyedit. A few examples from the first few sections:

Lead

• "A comedy horror parody of B movies ... they based the story on horror film and B movie clichés". Why do we need to be told twice?
• "Regarded as a seminal adventure title, Maniac Mansion received critical acclaim across all ports". Rather odd phrasing, "across all ports".
• "... and has received fan remakes with enhanced visuals". How can a game receive anything?
• "A TV series was created in 1990, which Eugene Levy created and which starred comedian Joe Flaherty as the mad scientist". That's pretty ugly.
• "The engine and its accompanying scripting language have been later re-used for many other games." They could hardly have been re-used sooner.

Overview

• "... something in which the rest of his family has supported and encouraged."

Conception

• "Gilbert had been recently hired at Lucasfilm Games by Noah Falstein on a three-month contract to program Koronis Rift, which Falstein was the lead developer." Obviously something missing there.
• "They drew inspiration on the game's main ideas over what Winnick said was "a ridiculous teen horror movie" they have watched, which the teens were in a house and got slaughtered one by one, not once thinking about leaving the house." Lots wrong with that sentence, not least the tense ("have watched").
• "The ranch's Main House inspired Winnick's design of the game's mansion, leading him to create the concept art for it." What is "it" referring to here?
• "Gilbert and Winnick based the characters both on stereotypes and people they knew". What is "both" bringing to the party here?
• "According to Winnick, the Edison family were based on various movie characters ...". Family is singular.
• "To parody the horror genre, they inserted many clichés into the story, drawing inspiration for several in-game elements from horror films". As opposed to cowboy films? It wouldn't have been much of a parody if they hadn't.
• "The designers included a man-eating plant similar to the antagonist of the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors." Are you certain that "antagonist" is the correct word here?
• "He was an adventure games fan and decided that the ideas he and Winnick had conceived would work well with the genre". Who was, Winnick or his cousin?
• "... this extended the game's production time beyond that of Lucasfilm Games' previous titles, which almost resulted in Gilbert's termination." Lucasfilm felt to strongly that they were prepared to kill Gilbert?
• "... the dialog would be provided by David Fox. Maniac Mansion would be one of the first games to feature alternate endings". Ugly.

Malleus Fatuorum 13:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Just to make sure I understand the reason for your opposition, you believe that there are sentences with redundancy and incorrect verb tense? Not that the sentences are ugly. If that is the case, then we'll do a sweep of the article again, with those ideas in mind. The one point I disagree with is the use of "termination" as it is an appropriate (and common) term for what is being said there. However, I'm not married to the word and can change it to "dismissal" or another synonym if you feel strongly about it. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC))

I believe it's poorly written, as I said, and needs to be properly copyedited. The GoCE tends just to look at grammar, punctuation and spelling, but FA demands much more than that. And in this case I think you should ask for your money back from the GoCE, because they haven't even done the basic stuff. Malleus Fatuorum 14:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Malleus- I copy edited the article and will request another set of eyes to do another copy edit. Please let me know if the edits are an improvement. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:39, 22 December 2011 (UTC))

I'm not sure if Malleus is going to be able to get to it right away, as he has been blocked for a week (though currently unblocked briefly as part of his ArbCom case). –MuZemike 21:53, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Copyedit: for an image caption - "Maniac Mansion's mansion" to "the mansion in Maniac's Mansion". The former is quite a mouthful to say, and reads uncomfortably. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd even recommend "the setting of Maniac Mansion" to avoid the double "mansion" but I'm not sure how accurate that would be. — Joseph Fox 17:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Since the 99% of the game takes place in the mansion, I think setting is accurate. I changed the caption. Let me know if there's anything else. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 23:00, 23 December 2011 (UTC))

Update from Malleus Fatuorum There are still problems with the prose, which I don't think has improved significantly since I first commented. A few more examples:

Lead

• "The pair used people they knew and characters from movies, comics, and horror magazines to design the game's characters." No, they didn't use them to design the characters, they based their designs for the characters on them.
• "This interface was born out of the designers' desire to improve on contemporary text parser-based graphical adventure games". Are you absolutely confident about "born out of"?
• "To reduce the effort required for the game ...". Is that the effort to play the game or the effort to write it?
• "... Gilbert implemented a game engine called SCUMM, which would be re-used for many other LucasArts titles." Why "would be" rather than "was"?
• "The developers reduced the game's size to 64 KB to fit within the Commodore 64's size limitations." Why "limitations" in the plural? Memory size is one limitation.
• "The developers based the mansion's design from the Main House at Skywalker Ranch". Should obviously be on the Main House.
• "Regarded as a seminal adventure title, Maniac Mansion was critically acclaimed; reviewers lauded its graphics, cutscenes, animation, and humor. Its point-and-click interface has been regarded as revolutionary by reviewers and other developers ...". That "regarded ... regarded" looks a bit awkward. Not quite sure what you're implying with "has been regarded as revolutionary". Either it was considered revolutionary or it wasn't.
• "... has been placed on several 'hall of fame' lists ...". You don't place things on a list, you place them in a list.

Overview

• "Players can select among fifteen different commands ...". Should be select from, not select among.

Conception

• "... and it was then in which both Gilbert and Winnick found that they shared similar tastes in humor, movies, and television programs".
• "... the game ends if all the characters die". Doesn't it end when all the characters die?

TV adaptation and game sequel

• "They also made the original game playable on an in-game computer, which Grossman attributed to a software bug." That simply doesn't make sense.

Malleus Fatuorum 01:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Follow up questions:

• I was confident about "born out of". Should it be "born from"?
• I reworded the second "regarded", but kept the verb tense. As I understood it, present perfect tense was for things that occurred at unspecified time in the past. Does this situation (commentary that has occurred intermittently over a decade) not fit that criteria.
• In the "Conception" section, I'm not sure what issue you're trying to tell us here, but I assume there is something wrong with "...was then in which both...". I'm not sure what exactly though. Is there a grammar rule that can point us in the right direction?
• Also in "Conception", I believe we wrote "if" because the characters dying is a condition that must occur for the game to end. The game can be completed without any characters dying. Maybe it's the computer geeks in us, but I guess our assumption is that "when" implies that the characters will die. Is that not the case?
• Fixed the "TV adaptation and game sequel" comment. Hopefully it makes more sense now. The original story started with a software bug that was the result of a file size limitation in the engine. The reason for the bug led Gilbert to reminisce about the original's file size. The reminiscing prompted the designers to include the original as an easter egg.

Please let me know and I will address the issues accordingly. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 00:01, 18 January 2012 (UTC))

• "The developers based the mansion's design from the Main House at ...". Should be "on", shouldn't it?
• "text parser-based graphical adventure games"—if this is in AmEng, why not do the CMoS thing (an option in WP's MoS): "text parser–based graphical adventure games". It's reasonable as it is, I suppose, although I'd use two hyphens (or the single dash).
• "To reduce the effort required for the game"—do you mean to program it or to play it?
• "Its point-and-click interface has been regarded as revolutionary by reviewers and other developers, and it led competitors to adopt similar interfaces." The tenses are difficult. I'm ok with the "has been", and I guess you rejected the use of "is", if that would shift the emphasis too much to the present. But then why not "has led"?
• "something that his family has supported and encouraged"—you could lose the "that" for easier reading, although it's grammatical at the moment.
• "main protagonist Dave Miller's cheerleader girlfriend, Sandy Pantz"—bit of a mouthfull. "Sandy Pantz, the cheerleader girlfriend of the ..."?
• "two-dimensional (2D) game" (hyphenated unit linked). I'd have thought everyone on earth knew simply "2D" since Avatar 3D and similar. No big deal.
• 20 years but fifteen different commands?
• "possesses" could be "has".
• Bumpy: "The game may be completed with any character combination, but, because many puzzles can be solved only with specific skills, there are different ways to finish the game, depending on". Why not remove the comma after "but"?
• "and what they do"—they means the characters or the player? (I guess the characters, but singular they is common and usually acceptable, so there's an ambiguity here for many readers.)
• The Ron Gilbert pic: caption is like a skyscraper. Do we need the "upright" mode in this?
• Caption: "The Commodore 64 system's constraints forced the designers to adapt." Adapt what? Caption shouldn't fall off the edge like this. Perhaps it's an intransitive "adapt" (adapt their programming approach?).

I haven't read any further. Looks promotable after close scrutiny of the prose. Tony (talk) 03:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Just chiming in- I have made edits per Malleus and Tony's comments. But I'd like to ask for clarification on the outstanding issues. Unfortunately, free time has not been my friend and I may not have an opportunity to ask until after the weekend. I still intend to address the issue and ask for time to do so. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 17:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC))

I made copy edits to address most of the points you brought up. Here are follow up questions.

• I edited the "has led competitors" part. But I guess I'm not completely clear on when to use present perfect and when not to. I posted a similar question about verb tense to Malleus above and would appreciate your input as well.
• I wrote out "two-dimensional", because I've gotten dinged on video game jargon in the past. Now I try to err on the side of caution. But if this particular phrase is nothing to worry about, the I'll gladly switch to the easier to write "2D".

Please let me know and I will address the issues accordingly. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC))

So, let me guess: Is it this anti-video game bias that is preventing this and any other video game FAC from being promoted to FA, or is it something against me personally? --MuZemike 08:09, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

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