Wikipedia:Peer review/Sega Mega Drive/archive1

Sega Mega Drive

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This article has failed GA nomination twice now. The first was a quick-fail due to some unseen cleanup tags, and the second was a fail due to a problem with unreliable references. I have since gone through and pretty much gutted the references and added more information to reliable references (or at least ones I think are reliable). In order to prevent another GA nomination failure, I'm listing it here for peer review so I can get some feedback on the references section and the prose to make sure there is not an issue with it (I'm not sure my last reviewer looked over all of it)

Thanks in advance for your time, Red Phoenix (Talk) 21:14, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]



Here's my $0.02, based on this version. First, some general comments:

They have a history page, but it doesn't say much about the Genesis at all. It is not worth adding IMO, but see for yourself: [1] Zebbe (talk) 12:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  •  Done Can the subsections under Peripherals and Launch be replaced with prose? There doesn't seem to be enough there to really justify subsections. Especially Sega Mega Modem. This would also help satisfy the auto-review's complaint about too-long of a TOC.
  • In general, do a sweep through the references to add author and publisher parameters where relevant.
  • In general, the prose is pretty good. I've mentioned below a couple of places where the wording is awkward or choppy.
  • If you can get a copy of The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent, it would greatly improve the sourcing of and let you expand History. I recall there is some interesting stuff in there, such as a lawsuit over the TMSS and good detail on how the Genesis was faltering until Sonic came around (and how the Japanese division didn't follow the US division's lead, which may have contributed to the console's poor performance in Japan).
  •  Done Consider moving Variations to after Technical specifications.
  •  Done The lead currently summarizes only the Launch section. Another paragraph briefly touching on the other topics would be good.
    I tried to make a brief summary without sounding biased. How does it look? Zebbe (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks pretty good. I'm impressed. Red Phoenix (Talk) 00:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Not bad. I'm not completely sure about the wording, I'll have to sleep on it. Anomie⚔ 02:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now some nitpicky stuff and comments on specific references:
  •  Done "Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES)" – is the "(SNES)" really necessary?
  •  Done Something odd is going on with reference #3, I think the bare URL in the publisher field is being incorrectly linkified by the wiki.
  • I don't know how that happened, but I've been trying to fix that for a while. I had to subtract the http:// from the publisher field and unlink it to make it work. But at least there's not an incorrect link there and the publisher is still there. Red Phoenix (Talk) 17:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Done Lead: "and ended with the last new game being released in 2002 in Brazil." Source?
  •  Done History: "had was a success".
  • Not sure how well reference 9 passes WP:SPS; consider asking for independent opinions at WP:VG/S (or WP:VG itself). Ditto for reference 11.
  •  Done Reference 10: Ideally find the page numbers, otherwise just lose the "??-??". You could also use the url parameter to link to an actual authorized online reprint here.
  •  Done Reference 12 doesn't seem to support the statement it is attached to.
  •  Done References 13 and 14 need more data. At least year, publisher, location, and isbn.
  • Europe: "In the United Kingdom the most well known of Sega's advertising slogans was ..." could use a source.
    • If I just put "one of Sega's advertising slogans was..." in that spot, would it still need a source?
      IMO it would be ok. That statement wouldn't be that hard to source, though: just link to a fair-use copy of the ad somewhere. Anomie⚔ 00:44, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Done Europe: The two sentences about the Sega Pirate can probably be combined into one.
  •  Done Europe: "assured a strong launch line-up in comparison with other regions" could probably use a source.
    (I made a new sentence, I don't think it needs a source)
    Yeah, replacing "stronger" with "more games in the lineup" makes it fall into the realm of "too obvious to need a source", although if you can find a source listing the launch titles for the various regions that might be worth including. The wording at the moment is very awkward wording though... Anomie⚔ 02:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Done Reference 16 supports the arcade conversions being important to the console's success, but not the comparison to other consoles.
  •  Done Brazil: The first two sentences could use a source.
  • Console wars could use a good revision, as-is it is a bit jumbled and hard to follow. I might organize it as a short paragraph on the Mega Drive's poor performance in Japan, a paragraph or two on the NA market, and a paragraph or two on Europe (try to find actual sources and not just some random person generalizing what they saw in their locality as truth for all of Europe). I know the Kent book will help with the first two, but IIRC he doesn't pay much attention to Europe.
  •  Done Console wars: Reference 19 doesn't give Sega any credit for the TG-16's NA failure; there it's all due to bad marketing and Nintendo's vendor lock-in.
  •  Done Console wars: "after the release of the Nintendo Super Famicom, the Mega Drive soon lost ground in the US market." Wrong names, use SNES and Genesis in that sentence.
  •  Done Variations: The sentence about the TAS instruction makes me ask "What does this have to do with anything?" I would remove it if the information removed in this edit cannot be sourced and brought back.
  • Personally, I would like to see a bit more detail in Technical specifications if you can find the sources. Romhacking.net might be a good place to start, as who not under an NDA is likely to know more about these details than emulator authors and ROM hackers?
Anomie⚔ 17:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
About source 10: Where did you find that article? I've been trying to link to it for two weeks now, but I keep getting 404 errors. This time, the link you provided me worked. That's going to help a lot with sourcing some of this stuff, thanks for that. The reference was there previously, but it had the 404 broken link, so I changed the reference to cite the magazine itself. I'm still weeding out individual reference problems, and it's a shame you've got concerns over source 9, as it's been very useful. It looked like someone's personal report, and if you scroll to the bottom, the person sourced where he got all this data, making it a tertiary source. I'll take a closer look into it: the last GA reviewer said the source just needed author information, but he thought it was okay. Thanks for your help, Anomie. I can still use more opinions if anyone else has got them, I've got to get started. Red Phoenix (Talk) 19:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I found the reference 10 link a while back (at the 404ed link itself; I've never seen the magazine, just that website), and when I found it was now 404 while doing the PR I went back to the homepage of the site and drilled down through the menus to find where they moved it to. Google could also have helped, at the moment it's second in this search, or you could always have just used archive.org. I'd personally leave it as {{cite magazine}} though.
I hated to criticize both 9 and 11, but if/when you take it to FA you'll have people complaining about many of the other references too (any excuse to shoot down a pop culture or VG article). When that time comes I'll help defend what I can, but I can't defend those unless some claim of experthood could be made for the authors. Check your local libraries for the Kent book, it has a ton of useful information, it passes WP:RS without the slightest question, AND it's a fairly interesting read. The Sheff book might be good too if you can find it, but note that unless he wrote more than one book in 1993 the title in the current reference is wrong (it'd actually be Game Over). Anomie⚔ 02:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'll try to find the Kent book and everything else, but I can't make any promises. I can only hope sources 9 and 11 are considered reliable, because I found info there that I couldn't find elsewhere. A lot of the stuff I can find info for, but only from unreliable sources, which is no good. I'll fix the references, too. Thanks. Red Phoenix (Talk) 16:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Games: I think a small section about the most representive and acclaimed games would be necessary, because a console is nothing without its games. Some suggestions from me would be Herzog Zwei, Sonic series, Streets of Rage series, Revenge of Shinobi, Phantasy Star series, Gunstar Heroes, Zero Wing and Ecco series. What do you guys think? Zebbe (talk) 09:43, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Such a section would be a cruft magnet, as anyone who comes along would want to add their own favorite to the list. I recommend identifying the games that had a real relevance to the console and working them into the history section. For example, Sonic and Sonic II are what really made the console take off in the US (IIRC from Kent's book), that's certainly worth mentioning. Mortal Kombat led to a lot of controversy and the creation of the ESRB, although I don't know whether this was as big a deal to Sega as it was to Nintendo. To take one of your suggestions: Judging by its article, I would leave out Herzog Zwei; it may have begun the RTS genre, but neither the game nor the RTS genre had any effect on the Mega Drive AFAICT. Anomie⚔ 12:08, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully, I must agree with Anomie, but that's why we've got List of Sega Mega Drive and Sega Genesis games listed in the "See Also" section. Red Phoenix flame of life...protector of all... 19:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]