Talk:MacBook (2006–2012)/GA2

GA Review

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Hi, I'll be your article reviewer. Please have a seat and I'll be right with you. And good luck on the WP:RfA! - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:11, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Although I don't actually "quick-fail" articles, I do consider those criteria first, and the only one that could even possibly be a problem is whether this article is currently in a state of flux. There are 250 edits in less than a month; that's generally more than I want to see in a GA review. On the other hand, this article concerns a popular product, so there's a clear downside to putting off a review, and looking quickly through the last 250 edit summaries, I don't see an actual ongoing problem. I see a lot of reverted IP edits, and I see a few minor disagreements among the principal editors, but I can't find any unresolved issues ... am I wrong? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:22, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Dan, there was a recent refresh of this product which is why there are so many recent edits. I don't believe there to be any ongoing issues. Occasionally someone adds incorrect information in the wrong spec stable, but myself or another contributor is usually on hand to revert rather quickly. Cheers. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 01:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I was satisfied myself, but I wanted to open the door in case anyone feels there's a content dispute; apparently there's not. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Standard disclaimer: Feel free to revert anything I do labeled as "copyediting", and reversion of these edits will not affect the article review. In the real world, copyediting is in general imposed from above; the writer wants their stuff published, and the publisher employs copyeditors. In Wikipedia, copyediting is entirely voluntary, and every copyeditor has legitimacy in the role only to the extent they prove themselves to the writers. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 12:47, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Tackling the issues from the failed WP:GAR: one bullet was Malleus's, two bullets was Nja's reply, 3 bullets is mine. I didn't quote every word, just the parts relevant to this review:

• There is a request for citation which needs to be dealt with.
  • Deleted
    • The offending sentence was deleted; looks fine to me now.

• The Polycarbonate MacBook section is completely uncited.
  • Added source from Apple.com.
    • I added a cite in the first paragraph of the first section from Apple's website that covers the uncited material.

• I'm concerned about the quality of some of the sources, notably Rae Whitlock's blog and www.macrumours.com.
  • Removed dubious sources
    • Rae Whitlock's blog had a very "bloggy" feel to me, and I removed it as a ref. The other refs are sufficient to support the material. I think macrumours.com is good enough for what it's trying to support; it said that certain features had been announced at a press conference, gave links to make the information verifiable, and those features did appear. I'm generally fine with Gizmodo and Engadget, as long as we don't try to rest any of the central claims of an article on those sites. The NYT blog is, well, a blog, but it's on the NYT's site and the point doesn't rest on that information.

• All sources need to have full information, including publisher and date last accessed.
  • About accessdates and formats -- Can't a bot do this?
    • Only if you write a bot to do this. Let me know when it's ready! I added the publisher to the one ref that was missing it. Every web ref needs an accessdate, and every ref for an online or newspaper article (as opposed to, say, a specification on Apple's website) also needs the date of publication. It's highly relevant whether the ref is a review of a product 3 months before it comes out, the day it comes out, or 6 months later.

• Last accessdates should be formatted consistently. At present some are in US format, some international format and others in ISO format.
  • This is not something editors should have to worry over. ...
    • Someone just mentioned at FAC that the cite templates are starting to convert out of ISO format, but it doesn't seem to be working in these refs. Still, I'm going to be optimistic and hope that it starts working, so any date in a "cite web" template in either ISO or US format is fine with me while I research the issue.

• Some of the External links look suspiciously like spam, such as the buyers guide. I'm dubious that the disassembly guide can be justified either, on the basis that wikipedia is not a "how to" manual. Please review WP:EL.
  • (No answer)
    • I'm inclined to agree with Malleus on the disassembly guide. I poked around on their site at "About us" and "press releases" to see if they asserted some kind of notability for their site; all I could get is "We're now the largest Mac laptop parts store in the world". WP:NOT applies here, too. I removed that EL.

• The lead is too short to adequately summarise the article.
  • Not really, there are only guidelines as to the length needed for a lead and I believe they are met. You are welcome to suggest some additions, but this alone does not disqualify it from GA.
    • Agree with Malleus. There are very few GAs that have enough material to merit being a GA but not enough to merit 2 paragraphs in the lead. I've added 2 sentences to the lead to cover what's currently in the article, but a little more is needed; see next point.

• There is no information on the commercial success or otherwise of the MacBook. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 15:07, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
  • That is because Apple does not provide details about that type of information. No reason to fault the editors on this. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 09:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
    • The issue is notability and relevance. For Apple users, the idea that any Apple computer might not be notable boggles the mind, but it seems to me that no company or product should get an automatic exemption to the rules for every other GA: you have to make the case for how the product was received and why it's notable. Sales figures would help, although those can be hard to come by. I need to see a little more in the article along these lines, both in the lead section and in the main text. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
      • I am serious, Apple is scant on how many of these things are sold. They will tell you in filings how many Macs overall are sold for a quarter, and at most how many were notebooks, but they do not give specific figures for the MacBook alone. The closest I can ever find are analyst estimates by Piper Jaffray or UBS. I don't think estimates are the same as black and white figures. We could do estimates however, or include the statement by Jobs last month that the MacBook was the best selling notebook by them, but that still lacks a number. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 21:54, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
        • Understood. I do robotics articles, and figures are impossible to come by. I think both the analyst estimates and Job's claim would be better than nothing. The thing we're trying to get at is notability. Is anybody buying these things? Why are people buying them, that is, what are they using them for? This is to some extent obvious from the feature set, but if you come across a reliable secondary-source report (an analyst estimate might do) that says that sales figures are X, and people report they're happier with these machines than previous models because of Y, that would be a plus. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 22:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise, we're fine

The first table has two different things with a superscript 3; the first one is wrong. I can't find a superscript 1. The superscripts are also out of order. The two images in this article are fuzzy enough that they shouldn't need fair-use rationales, and two images are sufficient, I think. I've done a little copyediting, but not much was needed.

Other than the points I've mentioned above, the GA criteria seem to be met to me:

1. Well-written:

   (a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and

   (b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

2. Verifiable with no original research:

   (a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

   (b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose); and

   (c) it contains no original research.

3. Broad in its coverage:

   (a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

   (b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

   (a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

   (b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Putting the article on hold; see what you can do, and feel free to ask if you have questions. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

• Okay, the change to the lead section is excellent. When you fix the date and accessdate problems in the refs that I mentioned, we're all good. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:26, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Enter sound of me grinding my teeth! Just kidding. I want that ref date-bot I spoke of for Christmas. I'll get on it as soon as possible. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 08:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

There were 3 international dates, I just changed them to U.S. format. The ISO dates can all stay, like I said, because help is on the way for that. The remaining problem is the missing publishing dates (for newspaper and online articles, and anything else where the date of publication makes a significant difference), and the access dates for any web cites. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Done, however I have a question. Is it not best to use dates, for example:

• Example 1: November 19, versus
• Example 2: November 19

Reason I ask is because if you do as in example 1, the date is displayed to the Wikipedia user per their date and time settings found in 'my preferences'. Thus in example 1, on my screen I'd see it as 19 November, per my preferences, but without the '[[]]' the date is shown exactly as example 2 (in this case US format). Nja247 (talk • contribs) 20:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

That's been a hot debate over the past few months, the result of which is that we're no longer recommending linking dates, except for the same reason anything else should be linked: if there's a reason to call attention to the particular date and something useful at the other end of the link. See endless discussions at, among other places, WT:MOSNUM and WP:VPP.

Dates (including access dates) now are present and in the right format. Is there anything else you want to change? Does anyone from WP:Mac see any factual errors? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

That's good to know on the date thing as I used to use links to ensure preferences were maintained. It's odd though, because now US editors will do MONTH DAY, whilst others might do DAY MONTH and they may be tempted to go through and 'fix' the dates on the article and vice versa. That's my 2 pennies on it anyhow :/ Maybe I should join the discussions.

Anyhow, as for the Wikiproject Mac: sadly it's kind of dead. Aside from members adding themselves to its main page nothing ever happens with it, and their current collaboration on Apple II has been that since I can recall. This article has a handful of regular contributors and any issues would likely have been addressed on the talk page. Thanks for the review! Nja247 (talk • contribs) 20:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)