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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 FrB.TG via FACBot (talk) 6 June 2025 [1].

Masters of Doom

[edit]
Nominator(s): GamerPro64 01:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In 2003, author David Kushner's book "Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture" would be published. Its about the history of id Software and its co-founders John Carmack and John Romero, from the early years, the development of 1993s landmark hit Doom (1993 video game), to the eventual firing of Romero and the rise and fall of his company Ion Storm. And since its publishing it was become one of the most well known books on video game history and has even been influential on the creation of Reddit and Oculus VR.

This is my first time nominating a book for Featured Article but I think it has what it takes to be considered one. GamerPro64 01:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  • I see a bunch of uncited statements, MOS:SANDWICH issues, and the article feels short to me --Guerillero Parlez Moi 06:34, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have made articles shorter than this and they became Featured Articles. If you want to tell me what the uncited statements are this could make things easier to fix said issues. GamerPro64 01:39, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    . If you want to tell me what the uncited statements are this could make things easier to fix said issues: this is very much a nominator job, not one for a reviewer. The FA criteria are clear that every fact needs a citation no later than the end of the paragraph (and as I've noted below, that goes for the summary of the book itself). As a first pass, you need to go through and find any paragraphs that don't end with a little blue number, and then (the harder bit) read the text between each set of little blue numbers and make sure that it's all supported by the citation that follows it. The first bit is easy to verify; the second is harder, but will become apparent when someone comes through to do spotchecks. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:35, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would echo Guerillero above, and note that MOS:PLOTSOURCE (which allows for the plot summaries of fictional books to be uncited, with the assumption that they are cited to the book itself) doesn't technically cover non-fiction books (though this may be a discussion worth starting). For a first nomination, a mentor and a peer review are, I would argue, indispensible, and I would advise withdrawing this for the moment, opening a peer review and approaching one of our many experienced pop-culture nominators as a mentor -- there is certainly a path to FA for this one, but I think it would be wise to take the first few steps before actually opening the nomination. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:30, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @UndercoverClassicist Does it not? All recent non-fiction book FAs I can see do this, off the top of my head for recent ones The Diamond Smugglers, Dark Archives. Unless we want to delist all non-fiction book FAs this is pretty clearly allowed, articles that do this constantly pass, and that it wouldn't be is absurd given the rationale from plotcite applies. This also includes Thrilling Cities, open for FAC now and garnering supports. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:40, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether it should is an open question, and WP:IAR always applies, but as written, MOS:PLOTSOURCE is a subsection of MOS:FICTION, and so only strictly applies to works of fiction. In any case, it can't be applied to e.g. Although Kushner adopts a novel-like narrative, Masters of Doom is a work of video game journalism. ... Kushner was an early entrant into the field of video game journalism, and recycled some of his own original reporting in the book. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:51, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That strikes me as needlessly pedantic... even if the overarching guideline is specifically about fiction, this is the only guidance we have for summaries of creative works in the MoS at all, and the rationale behind "summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with inline citations" applies to non-fiction works. I wouldn't call it an open question because that's how many recent FAs like this are written.
    Yes, I declared my opposition on that and other grounds. I just thought your argument was absurd because there have been multiple articles (basically all) passed, including one at this very moment, from another nominator that did the same thing where no one mentions this. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:56, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "We've always done it like that before, whatever the MoS says" is an IAR argument -- which, again, is perfectly fine, but is not the same as saying "the MoS supports this". The textbook solution would be to use WP:PRIMARY and cite the book itself, with page numbers, in each paragraph -- not an FA, but see Classical Greek Tactics for what this looks like in practice. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:59, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My review of that nomination fairly clearly mentions this, PARAKANYAA. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:07, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Aside from the unsourced statements mentioned above, there are quite a few short sections that could probably become sub-sections (ex. Lawsuit could probably be put into reception since it’s not too long). I think a copy edit and peer review would help this get to FA. Good luck! — Crystal Drawers (talk) 15:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • The summary being cited to the book itself is fine (above comments are incorrect) but this doesn't feel FA-ready to me. There are other uncited statements and the referencing formatting is very inconsistent. + image issues. I would oppose on those grounds. PARAKANYAA (talk) 10:44, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment I’m going to have to oppose, and I suggest you withdraw this to work on it a little more away from FAC.

  • The first sentence is a bit of a run-on, partly because the title of the book is so long, but it could be reworked.
  • ”book detail's the company’s…”: having such an egregious grammatical error as a grocer’s apostrophe in the second sentence isn’t great
  • ”and the dynamics between Carmack and Romero and” and…and…and
  • ”and eventual collapse”: what does ‘eventual’ add to the party here?
    • We’re only at the end of the first paragraph here
  • ”a television movie”: ‘movie’ is a slang term and should be replaced by ‘film’, much like the target article
  • “Due to it being his first book,[2] he spent five years on research.[3]” Fails SYNTH. Yes it’s his first book and yes he spent five years on research, but there’s no connection between the two facts (so the “due to” is a big problem).
  • ”interviewing them late into the night”: is there any information on how long the interviewing process took, as this reads they interviewed on one day. (It’s also a bit of a pointless detail to include)
  • ’the "two Johns",’: no need for the quote here. Their surnames will suffice
  • The use of ‘However’ at the start of a sentence can be a valid grammatical construction, but only when used carefully. At least one of them in this section (and possibly both) are not that useful.
  • ”Although Kushner adopts a novel-like narrative, Masters of Doom is a work of video game journalism.” This needs a citation, as it’s analysis, not content. In fact, it shouldn’t even be in this section but in the background.

I’m going to stop here, as there are too many issues in a relatively short space of time for FAC. These are examples only, and I’d rather not get stuck in a fix-loop that drags on: that’s a process that should be worked on away from FAC. - SchroCat (talk) 20:07, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

well thats all I wanted to hear. All right @FAC coordinators: I would like to withdraw this nomination. GamerPro64 21:32, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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