Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)/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 archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2017 [1].

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Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)

Nominator(s): TheJoebro64 (talk) 09:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

This article is about the 2006 video game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega, best known for its horrible reception (many people will shiver these days when they hear the name Sonic '06). It is arguably the most complete resource on Sonic the Hedgehog available on the internet, going into great detail on the game's troubled development cycle, high anticipation, the intensely negative critical reviews, and the heavy impact it had on Sega and the Sonic series. Along with digging up some of the oldest articles about the game, I also found some print resources that were extremely useful, such as an old Nintendo Power article and the game's manual (to see what the page looked like before I worked on it, get a load of this).

I have been editing this article heavily for the past several months, fine-tuning it. It is reliably sourced, well-written and covers the game immensely. Indeed, I believe this article meets the FA criteria. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 09:59, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Aoba47

Resolved

The first sentence in the "Development" section requires a citation. I would also integrate the sentence into the following paragraph to avoid a one-sentence paragraph. Please add ALT text for all of the images used in the article, including the one in the infobox. Portions of the "Media data and Non-free use rationale" need to be completed in the screenshot image. I would also recommend expanding the "Purpose of use in article" portion to better explain how this image illustrates more than the text gives to the reader. The same two comments apply to the image of Eggman in the "Development" section. I am honestly not sure of the value of the Eggman image as it does not appear to add much to the overall article. Maybe, if it was used in conjunction with a quote or section on the more realistic take on the characters in the game, but right now, it seems to be there more for decorative purposes than informational ones. Link Sonic the Hedgehog on its first use in the body of the article. Why do you use Shadow the Hedgehog in full on his first mention, but not the same for Sonic or Silver? I am not sure of this sentence (The game follows Sonic, Shadow, and Silver in a story intertwined in their respective gameplay modes.). I am usually against a one-sentence paragraph, and this may be more appropriate actually for the "Gameplay" section to show they the story is broken up into each of these three gameplay modes. You link Shadow the Hedgehog twice in the body of the article. Same goes for Tails, Amy Rose (whose full name should be used in the first instance of use), Blaze the Cat (whose full name should also be used in the first instance of use), Rogue, and others. Check the "Plot" and "Gameplay" sections to avoid having characters linked more than once in the body of the article to avoid overlinking. The second sentence of the "Music" section is too long and covers too much content. I would break this up into separate sentences. I do not see the reason/value for separating the "Reception" section into two subsections when one subsection is a rather short paragraph. I will avoid making comments on the "Post-release" portion due to the tag, though this should have been resolved prior to putting it up for FAC. Please avoid putting words in all caps in the reference titles (i.e. References 42 and 47). Please go through all of the references to correct this. Good work with the article. These are the things that I noticed from my brief read-through of the article. Once my comments are addressed, I will go through a second time, and add more to my commentary/review. Hopefully, this helps at least a little. Aoba47 (talk) 14:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC) @Aoba47: Resolved. The reason the all-caps references were there was because the pages I sourced used it in all-caps (to differentiate it from the original, I'm pretty sure). ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 22:29, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Thank you for addressing my comments. I have some additional ones below. Once my final comments are addressed, I will support this. It is good to see this incredibly infamous game get a lot of attention on here: The rationale for the two primary non-free images in the body of the article still needs to be filled out. See here and here. I would use more descriptive ALT text for the screenshot. Someone unfamiliar with Sonic would have no idea what that text means. Describe what is in the image itself. Same goes for the Eggman image. ALT text is still need for the image in the infobox. The final sentence in the first paragraph of the "Plot" section needs a citation. In the beginning of the second paragraph of the same section, the "Here" transition is weak and vague. It is rather unclear what it is meant by "here" so please clarify this point. I have heard a reports/rumors that the game was originally developed as a separate IP, and then was shifted into the Sonic franchise (i.e. this game was not originally developed as a Sonic game). Do you have any information on this? Would this source 1 be helpful for the article? While it is a blog, it has been featured on other more reliable sites. You may want to ask more experienced users in the video game project, such as @Czar:, on this. In some sentences in the "Reception" section, you attribute the website/publisher as saying something (i.e. "1UP, however, felt" and "In 2015, GamesRadar declared"). This should either be attributed to the writer (if the name is known) or the more generic writer/review/etc. Hope this is helpful. These are all of the comments that I noticed. Aoba47 (talk) 01:27, 7 June 2017 (UTC) @Aoba47: I've fixed the issues you observed. Thanks for the source you suggested - it was incredibly useful. The game actually was developed as a separate IP first, then merged with Sonic to create a next-gen game. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 10:48, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you for your responses. You have done a lot of wonderful work with this article (and you have inspired me to do more with video game articles in the future). This has definitely piqued my interest to play this game one day (maybe I am a masochist lol). I support this for promotion. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Good luck with this nomination. It was a fun and interesting read. Aoba47 (talk) 14:42, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

Other comments

• Repeating my comment and reply from WT:VG#Sonic '06:

Speedrun is a self-published (unreliable) book and the Reception section still needs heavy paraphrasing and re-writing to be FA-quality prose. It reads like a series of quotes right now. Also the Gameplay should be sourced to secondary sources instead of the manual (secondary sources determine what parts of the gameplay are worth mentioning). I'll leave the prose comments to someone else, but I see a lot of room for tightening. czar 20:20, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm going to say that I have to disagree on the manual being sourced, though. Most of the gameplay section is sourced to secondary sources (I only used the manual to source Shadow's combat and Sonic's "princess stages") ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 15:11, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

A reliable, secondary source's reporting always trumps a primary source, such as a manual. It also helps us as editors determine what is important to cover about a game. If the article relied on secondary sourcing for its gameplay and plot, both sections would be a lot shorter and easier to verify.  czar 17:40, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@Czar: Switched to better sourcing for the gameplay section. Added some better sources to the plot, but I don't think the plot section is much of an issue for references. I mean, The Last Of Us's plot is almost completely unsourced even though it's a FA. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 19:20, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

This is only one prose point, but yes, plots don't need references on WP (sourced to the media itself, which doesn't mean refs aren't better for WP:V in a FA). More importantly, The Last of Us is plot-driven and Sonic '06 is not—hence why this plot should be greatly reduced. Secondary sources give an indication of how what weight the plot deserves in the overall coverage. The Reception too puts undue weight on the plot. It's the largest paragraph in the section but barely mentioned (as minor points) in each of the refs used. And that paragraph dedicates nearly as much space to a fringe erotica/bestiality plot theory as the article dedicates to the retrospective coverage of the whole game... czar 19:39, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@Czar: Fixed. Split the plot paragraph into two separate paragraphs. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 20:45, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

It worked better as one paragraph, though. The issue is the weight of that paragraph (length within the section). The entire bestiality discussion reads like trivia shoehorned into the paragraph and the rest can easily be condensed to two sentences. czar 03:04, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

@Czar: Trimmed the bestality info back a bit to remove unnecessary bloat. It now only includes the GamesTM and Lacey Chabert interview; I added the Kotaku opinion to retrospect since it was published in 2015. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 09:49, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Closing comment: I'm rather afraid this has stalled, with no comments for nearly a month and only one support. I think we are unlikely to get a consensus to promote any time soon, so I think the best course of action would be to archive this now. It can be renominated after the usual two-week waiting period. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

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