Wikipedia:Peer review/Gary Gygax/archive2

Gary Gygax

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A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for January 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is a Good Article, and although it failed on the recent FAC (notice, no support votes, but no oppose votes either), I think it has potential to get there. Please let me know anything you think that would help to improve it.

Thanks, BOZ (talk) 17:44, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Good idea, but don't you need to wait until two weeks after the last FAC to put an article up for peer review? -Drilnoth (talk) 20:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Dunno. Oops? :) BOZ (talk) 21:02, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's only two days from now (Jan 10th)... my bad! BOZ (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, auomtated bot! ;) I fixed the "March 5th" to "March 5, 2008", but otherwise the items the bot found seemed like they were inapplicable or beyond my ability to understand. ;) A full copyediting may take some time, but I'll see what I can do. It would be super-sweet if a human reviewer could take a look as well, but I understand that there is a backlog. BOZ (talk) 17:04, 11 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I just reviewed the Ravenloft D&D module article, so thought I would look at this one too. The first two suggestions here are very similar - anyway, I enjoyed this article and here are some suggestions for improvement.

I would also treat the FAC as a very detailed peer review - there were lots of comments there that need to be examined carefully. I would also treat things mentioned as examples and make sure that there are not other examples to be fixed in the article. Once you think everything has been fixed or at least addressed, I would then ask some of the FAC reviewers if they would take a second look at the article to see if they agree that things have been improved.
There are a lot of short (one or two sentence) pargraphs and even a few short sections - to improve the article flow, these should generally be combined with others or perhaps expanded.
I think the article could use a copyedit to polish the prose. This is awkward, for example: His family moved from Chicago to Lake Geneva in 1946, just before Gygax's eighth birthday,[5][6] where he lived until his death in 2008.[4] I think it is too disjointed as it is and would read better as something like His family moved from Chicago to Lake Geneva in 1946, just before Gygax's eighth birthday.[5][6] He remained a resident of Lake Geneva until his death in 2008.[4]
There are three block quotes in the article. Per WP:MOSQUOTE {{blockquote}} should be used for quotes that are at least four lines long, but the first and third block quotes are less than one line and less than two lines long on my monitor.
None of the block quotes does a good job of putting the quote into context - I am pretty sure they are all from Gygax, but the text should make this clear. The last quote in "Personal life" is a great way to end that section, but could be introduced with something like "In a 2004 interview, when he had already suffered X health problems, Gygax said ..."
Refer to him consistently throughout - MOS for Biographies is to use the last name if it is not too confusing, but the Awards and honors section refers to him as Gary Gygax in several places (obviously leave direct quotes unchanged, but this is not that).
The lead should be a summary of the article, and not contain anything unique. However the inoperable part of the aneurysm is only in the lead and should be in the text too. Also this sentence needs work He was in semi-retirement,[3] having almost suffered a heart attack after receiving incorrect medication[9] to prevent further strokes after those on April 1 and May 4, 2004. My guess is the strokes led to semi-retirement, but it reads like the almost heart attack ??? led to retirement. If it impaired his health in other ways, please say so.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, again. I'll take a look into fixing those up once I have some free time. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:51, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again; I worked on some of these items as well. Again, I'll remember your suggestion of contacting the reviewers before we renominate for FAC #2. BOZ (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]