Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Gary Gygax/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 User:SandyGeorgia 03:39, 27 December 2008 [1].

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Gary Gygax

Nominator(s): Drilnoth (talk)

I'm nominating this article for featured article because I believe that it meets all of the FA-class criteria. I've been working on it for a while now, adding references, fixing formatting, etc., and believe that it should be a Featured Article. I am fully ready to help improve the article further based on comments and questions in this FAC, to the best of my abilities. I've checked external links with the link checker, and the one that lists as being dead on the list does seem to go to the proper page when used. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Two quick comments, though I will hopefully look into this further-

• "Troubled Times" isn't really an appropriate section title. The opening line of the section, "Dungeons & Dragons' rising popularity also brought controversy", also seems to hint that the tone is inappropriate- it reads more like an affectionate obituary than a neutral, encyclopedic biography in that sense.
• Could we have some consistency with regards to reference placing? The general preference is to go for punctuation followed by reference, with no space. [fact][punct][ref]. There are a good few places where the ref comes before the punctuation. J Milburn (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok, some more quick comments:

• All references to "Dungeons & Dragons" or "D&D" should be italicised.
• Book covers have to go, they're adding nothing to the article- the books are barely discussed, nevermind their covers.
• Logo image should probably also go- the logo itself isn't particularly significant, and isn't discussed in the prose. It's design seems to be an interesting piece of trivia, but trivia all the same.
• "Gygax also performed voiceover narration as a guest dungeon master in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach. He narrated "Dead Girl's Spellbook" in Valak's Mausoleum, as well as all of the dungeons in the "Mystery of Delera's Tomb" quest chain." Some refs?
• The legacy section is a little too short to warrant its own section, and it looks a little odd just below personal life. Not sure where it would fit in best, are there any guidelines on that anywhere?
• In the "awards and honours" section, there are a couple of one line paragraphs, which don't look great.
• Ref 122 should have the film name in italics, and in the various refs with multiple authors, the coauthors should also be listed as "[Surname], [Firstname]".
• External links need tarting up- italics where appropriate, only keep those completely needed, etc.

Will look into it further another time, definitely going now. J Milburn (talk) 22:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll take a look at what you mentioned. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the "coauthors should also be listed as '[Surname], [Firstname]'.", {{Cite book}} says that it is acceptable either way, as long is the styling is consistent. Is this mentioned somewhere in the MOS that I just haven't seen it yet? Thanks. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, either way is fine, but the Surname, Firstname format is more common. If you would rather go for Firstname Surname, you'll have to change the style with which you reference the primary author as well- use author= instead of first= |last=. The consistency does not refer to just the coauthors, but a consistency with style of all authors. J Milburn (talk) 22:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay; I guess I'll change the coauthor format (probably tomorrow). The documentation of {{cite book}} should probably be updated to clarify this. Also, I think that I cleaned up the external links, "Troubled Times" and "Legacy" sections, and reference placement as wanted above. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that all of the coauthor names have been reformatted appropriately. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Removed fair-use images, cleaned up ref #122. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

External links cleaned up. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've cleaned up the "Awards and honors" section. I'll probably work on the rest tomorrow. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:53, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Finished italicization of Dungeons & Dragons and D&D, and added a ref to the D&D Online statement. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:32, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments - Interesting article on a person I had never heard of before today, but was quite important in his field. Most of the comments below are only nit-picks, but they should be looked at anyway, because fixing things like these always makes a big difference in the end.

• Remove the second Dave Arneson link in the lead; we're trying to reduce the number of identical links in FACs.
• Gaming career: "Gary Gygax met Brian Blume and Dave Arneson at the second Gen Con in August 1969." Gygax's first name isn't necessary, because there's no doubt that it's him. Usually, first names aren't given.
• TSR: "Gygax left Guidon in 1973, and, with Kaye as a partner, founded the publishing company Tactical Studies Rules, with $2,400 for startup costs." Since TSR is used as an abbreviation later, it should be defined here.
• Advanced Dungeons and Dragon: Monster Manual linked twice in the section.
• "Gygax also authored or co-authored or co-authored numerous AD&D & basic D&Dadventure modules". Space after D&D?
• Dollar amounts such as $#.## million need non-breaking spaces before the million (place  ). It would be a good idea to check throughout for this.
• Troubled Times (change Times to lower-case if sub-heading title is kept): "But, in 1982, TSR's annual D&D sales shot up to $16 million." Try "In 1982, however", as but isn't normally used to begin a sentence. Also, I'm not sure how formal "shot up" is. Perhaps "increased" would be better.

I read everything before Late career, and will come back later to look at the rest. Giants2008 (17-14) 01:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully I picked out all the nits. :) BOZ (talk) 02:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that I got the "Troubled times" section title and opening sorted out. I changed the header to "Leaving TSR" and rewrote the first few sentences. Hope that works! -Drilnoth (talk) 02:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I just finished fixing the punctuation around references, so I think that everything above has now been fixed (except for the coauthor format, as I mention above). -Drilnoth (talk) 03:13, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• Late career: "One key design goal was simple gaming rules, as Gygax felt that role-playing games were becoming discouragingly complex." This needs a citation.
• Four of six paragraphs in this section begin with Gygax. More variety is needed.
• "Gygax also worked on the Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds Series from Troll Lord Games, editing volumes IV, V, VI, VII." Needs and before VII.

• Done. Jclemens (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

• I have an issue with what I'm reading here. It feels like a registry of everything Gygax did during this time, instead of being focused on the most important parts. Almost looks like a list disguised as prose.
• Awards and honors: Again, this section is very listy. Can more material be added, or can a few paragraphs be combined? Either of these would help alleviate the problem. Giants2008 (17-14) 19:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

• I'm going to look into fixing all of these. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

• Accuracy comment. A lot of the cites in this article are to primary sources (Gygax), so I thought I would check one of the others for accuracy, namely cite [7] to wired.com (not a stellar source, but presumably acceptable - if it isn't, then please fail/withdraw this FAC now!). The results of my analysis were not bad, but there are some discrepancies.

  Article: "After Gygax dropped out of high school during his junior year, he worked odd jobs for a while, but eventually continued his education by attending night classes in junior college." and "In terms of careers, Gygax progressed from the various jobs that he had picked up after leaving high school, to a steady job in the 1960s working as an insurance underwriter for the Firemen's Fund."

  Source: "After working odd jobs during the day and attending junior college at night, he found a steady gig as an insurance underwriter for the Firemen's Fund."

  The article stretches and distorts the information in the source. The prose is also weak ("In terms of careers").

-Fixed. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Article: "Gygax met Brian Blume and Dave Arneson at the second Gen Con in August 1969."

  Source only refers to Arneson here, as far as I can tell.

-Fixed. I removed the reference to Brian Blume; I'm pretty sure that the statement is true, but can't find a citation right now. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Article: "in part inspired by the wargame Siege of Bodenburg"

  Source: "One night, friend Jeff Perren brought over some miniatures from the medieval title Siege of Bodenberg."

  "Inspired" appears to be interpretation.

-Fixed by rewording. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Article: "Gygax first collaborated with Dave Arneson on the naval wargame Don't Give Up the Ship! in 1972."

  Source: "The two had recently worked together on a sailing war game called Don't Give Up the Ship."

  I'm not saying "first" is wrong, but the source suggests replacing it by "previously".

-Fixed by rewording. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Article: "Gygax married his first wife, Mary Jo Gygax, in 1958. By 1961 they had two children – Ernie and Elise – who would later assist with play-testing Dungeons & Dragons. Three more children were to follow, (Heidi, Cindy, and Luke) before the marriage ended in divorce."

  I only found reference to the names of the first two children, and the fact that they play-tested, but perhaps I was not sufficiently diligent. If any of the above is in error, please feel free to set me straight! Geometry guy 22:47, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

-Regarding Gygax's children, there's probably a reference in the LONGBIO that BOZ has access to. I'll try to find some other refs online soon. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:18, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Ref for Gygax kids: [2] (see the Luek-O, Idee, and Ye'Cind entries). I'm not sure if you were looking for references on the names or that they were born before that marriage ended. Should the ref be added to the article? -Drilnoth (talk) 23:36, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

"LONGBIO" identifies the children as Ernest Jr. (Ernie), Mary Elise (usually just Elise), Heidi, Cindy, and Lucion (Luke) from his first marriage, and Alexander from Gail. I'm not sure how much else we can say, given BLP, but I have birthdates and a little bit of genealogy. I'm not going to mention grandchildren (although obits might say how many he had at time of death, so we can repeat that I'm sure), and don't know if I should get into married names of the daughters. Too many details on living people is a no-no, and Gary didn't want a bunch of info on his family on the Wikipedia article, so let's be careful. BOZ (talk) 00:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay; maybe add a cite to the LONGBIO for the kid's names, just for reference. I agree that you should leave the other information out; both for the reasons you mentioned and because then we'd be getting to far away from the main subject of the article. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:55, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing those out! I'll probably have a look at them later today or tommorrow. The reason for the large number of citations that were written by Gygax is that they are designed more to provide information on publication dates, publishers, and ISBNs of books than to cite actual facts in the article. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:11, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

• Comments with respect to prose, need to watch repetitiveness. Try to look at my diffs. The aim is to reduce repetition without losing meaning. Looks promising though :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:16, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Gygax worked odd jobs for a while - too vague, can we get some idea of length of time here? I concede it may be difficult.

but eventually continued his education by attending night classes in junior college.[7] Later, Gygax furthered his education by pursuing anthropology classes at the University of Chicago. -this is a bit 'fluffy'. I think we could lose one of the 'educations' here. I will leave this to someone more familiar with the source

Thanks for the input. I think that I cleaned up the latter problem, although I'm not sure if the former will be fixable. Most all information about Gygax, especially that online, mainly concerns his gaming career and not the time before then. The LONGBIO which BOZ has might be able to be used for this, but I don't know exactly what's in it. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It says less about school than what is currently in the article. :) "Never finished high school and only got a bit more than a year's worth of college credits." That, and he never liked school, until college. BOZ (talk) 00:29, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

In the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons section, putting years of first publication in brackets would help in giving a crhonology/flow after each book.

Comments -

• You've mixed using the Template:Citation with the templates that start with Cite such as Template:Cite journal or Template:Cite news. They shouldn't be mixed per WP:CITE#Citation templates.
  • • I think that this has been fixed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• http://www.lejendary.com/la/template.php?page=garygygax&style=blaze deadlinks
  • • It looks like the entire "Lejendary" site is down; I'll look into finding it later. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Looks like it's been down since yesterday; I suspect it will be back up before long unless it's been shut down totally. (Keep in mind the snowstorm going through much of the USA since yesterday; possible connection.) BOZ (talk) 16:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
        • Fixed by removing ref; it really wasn't needed. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
• You really shouldn't be using a primary source (Current ref 8 Long biography of E. Gary Gygax) as much as you are. An autobiography is a source that should be used very very carefully.
  • I'll work on reducing the dependence on "longbio" by replacing some of the citations with cites to other sources. I tried not to include too many of the subject's opinions, but rather "I did this, then I did this, then I did this" matter of fact sort of things. BOZ (talk) 03:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I've removed quite a few references to the longbio; is the number acceptable now? Should I crop more? -Drilnoth (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
      • I'll leave this one out for other reviewers to decide for themselves. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:25, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
• Per the MOS, titles and link titles in the referencs shouldn't be in all captials, even when they are in the original.s
  • Do you see any others besides the long bio? I've fixed that one. Jclemens (talk) 02:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
    • You got it, that's the only one I see. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:48, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• What makes the following reliable sources?
  • http://www.believermag.com/
    • Can't say for sure, but the second half of the piece in question was a personal meeting and interview with Gygax. It's probably on par with the Wired piece (which also contains elements of interview) and the Kyngdoms posting (which is all interview). BOZ (talk) 16:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://archives.theonering.net/index.shtml
    • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.thekyngdoms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=37 (it's a forum post, it's very unlikely to be considered reliable)
    • This one says that it is an interview with Gygax; I'm not sure if that would establish it as a reliable primary source or not. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes, but how do we know it's actually an interview, or that the transcript is accurate? The reason why a news outlet is considered reliable is that they develop a reputation for accurately reporting things, and thus it is presumed that they report interviews correctly. Online forums have no such background of reliablity. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
      • This: "Sacco, Ciro Alessandro (February 2007). "An Interview with Gary Gygax, Part I" (PDF). OD&Dities issue 9. Richard Tongue. p. 7. Retrieved 9 November 2007. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)" looks like a PDF version of the same forum post, if that helps? BOZ (talk) 19:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
        • Note that I questioned the dragonsfoot site below. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
          • I have reduced the number of refs to Kyngdoms, although there are some still left. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.acaeum.com/
    • All uses of this source have been removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
      • I've also put in a request regarding the reliability of this source at WP:RSN, after finding a quotation in a reliable secondary source which may establish it's reliability. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://grognardia.blogspot.com/
    • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.dragonsfoot.org/files/pdf/ODD09.pdf
    • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://fantasyliterature.net/news/new-release/gary-gygax-infernal-sorceress/
    • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dragonsfoot.org%2Fforums%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ft%3D15314%26postdays%3D0%26postorder%3Dasc%26start%3D105&date=2008-10-04
    • This is another messageboard post by Gary Gygax; I'd think that it is a primary source, but certainly reliable. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
      • How do we know it's GG though? And we should be using secondary sources whenever possible. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
        • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:01, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3000
    • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • http://www.spewgilist.com/portal/Events/Conventions/GenCon/Gencon2007/tabid/372/Default.aspx
    • Removed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Double check that all your references have the titles of newspapers and journals in italics.
  • • Fixed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Current ref 82 (Obituary and notice of release...) is lacking publisher and last access date at the very least.
  • • Fixed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• Current ref 112 (Munroe...) and 113 (Bordering on the Semi-tasteful) are both lacking publishers. Same for 115 (OotS), and 116 (Hearn...)
  • • Fixed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Added. Lacking any better publisher, I just added their host websites, with wikilinks. That work?
    • Yes, that works for this information (that the comics in question ran tribute comics). Ealdgyth - Talk 20:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks; I'll look into some of these tomorrow. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on removing the possibly unreliable sources. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I'll work on some more later today or tomorrow. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I've added a new external link to replace one of the references to the LONGBIO, if anyone wants to check it: [3]. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:41, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that's another one I'd question. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment. The first thing that struck me was overreferencing. You do not need five references for something such as "During the 1960s, Gygax worked as an insurance underwriter[4][5][14] for the Firemen's Fund[7] in Lake Geneva.[6][15]" or such as "In the mid 1980s, Gygax worked with Flint Dille on the Sagard the Barbarian Books.[61][62][63][64][5]" I'll give a more thourough review in the next few days. But I'll contribute and make the refs easier to manage for now. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 20:12, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

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