Talk:Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None

Blitzkrieg

Yes I've struck again. And it's looking better than ever. Hopefully even FA-style better.--Paaerduag 14:29, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

One small edit: I have obsured the revelation of the final two suspects, the game murderer, and the original novel murderer! While many people may know this information from the novel, in the spirit of Agatha Christie and mysteries in general, it is in poor form to reveal the solution to the story. At the very least, a spoiler alert should have been given.12.184.155.131 20:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Peter

Hello. Don't forget that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a book catalogue or a game review site. It is expected that the solution to the story is given. See also WP:SPOILER for the official guidelines. Kariteh 20:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Using the guidelines, I would still suggest that at the very least, Spoiler tag the murderer in the current game as which is a "new" twist, unlike the original "older" ending. When reading a plot summary of a mystery, the ending is rarely revealed. So, I did not expect to read it here, so it was an "unexpected" revealation. 12.184.155.131 21:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)Peter

Between the wars

I don't understand the significance of this sentence, but if it has relevance to the game, I don't want to change it. "And Then There Were None is set in 1939, between World War I and World War II," Obviously 1939 is after World War I, so why it is necessary to mention this? If it's significant that it is set before the declaration of World War II, could it be said that way? eg "And Then There Were None is set in 1939, prior to the outbreak of World War II". Rossrs 14:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

It's just that I got the impression, during my research, that the designers were trying to make the characters fit into a post-world war psyche, as well as the pre-world war II psyche. That's just my take, but if you think it's incorrect I don't mind if it's changed.--Paaerduag 10:45, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure. A post-war psyche 21 years after World War I ended doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but you've read more about this subject than I have so if that's the impression you got, it's most likely valid. I think it probably should be changed because if it's just an impression that you got, it's probably not essential to the artice. If it was a theme they wanted to explore in a strong sense, any research would have revealed this without any ambiguity. I can understand a pre-war pysche - the tension in Europe in 1939 must have been incredible. Rossrs 11:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, and you've convinced me ;) I'm changing it to "before WWII."--Paaerduag 13:15, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

'High' rating

I changed the Agatha Christie articles to a 'High' rating as I believe that, considering that Christie has only sold less books than Shakespeare and the Bible, that games based on her works are of incredible importance and aren't obscure. Given the source material of these games, I do believe that a 'High' rating is justified. Thoughts? Paaerduag 01:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Although it's now almost two years later, I've downgraded the importance to "mid" and would be tempted to go further. Although I understand your reasoning that Agatha Christie is an important author, that does not make a game based on her work important in the field of adventure games. The game appears to be a minor addition to the genre compared to, say, The Secret of Monkey Island. GDallimore (Talk) 17:33, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

GGMania link

I'm requesting an additional look at this article for one reason: the references list supported by Paaerduag includes a link to Gameguru Mania, a site which Google has flagged as containing malware. In order to protect Wikipedia users, I removed the link, and after Paaerduag reverted that change, I scrounged up another reference to replace the offending link. Paaerduag was still not satisfied, claiming that a "diversity of links" was necessary (the article has a few references to Gamespot articles, and my reference was to that site as well). So, I'm asking for a few more eyeballs to look at this issue since I believe that the community will agree with me that my changes do not harm the article while protecting the Wikipedia community. Thanks much. --Dachannien^Talk_Contrib 12:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Good! I am glad this is going to discussion, as I think it should, regardless of whether the outcome is in favor of the ggmania or gamespot link. I do believe that there are enough references to gamespot in the article, and that another one is not needed. I have not received ANY MESSAGE from google saying that gameguru mania is a "dangerous site" in anyway, as you seem to think. The key ideas here, in my opinion, are this:

• 1) My browser does not display that the site has any offending 'malware' or anything of such.
• 2) Even if there is a problem, which I do not think there is, that is irrelevant to wikipedia. Wikipedia does not get dictated by what google says or does not say.

That's my take on the situation. But, as I'll say again, I believe that User:Dachannien has acted in the best interests of everyone in bringing this to discussion, and I totally support his actions in this regard. --Paaerduag 01:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The original notification from Google that I saw occured when searching for any terms such that a ggmania.com link appears in the results. Google also reported the site to stopbadware.org. It appears, however, that Google may have done an about-face on this matter, or possibly Gameguru Mania cleaned up its act or the act of one or more of its advertisers, because Google no longer reports that site as being hazardous. This change occurred just today, because earlier today the site still had a notification on its result. Stopbadware.org is going to conduct its own review of the site, and given that there is now a possibility that the malware problem has been resolved, I'm happy to stand by while that review is undertaken. While the specific issue here may now be moot, I still steadfastly believe that we have a responsibility to avoid directing Wikipedians to malware-infested sites whenever possible, just as we avoid linking to spammy, advertising-filled sites. --Dachannien^Talk_Contrib 02:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The site seems to be safe enough at present, and unless other unforseen circumstances arise in the future I don't see what the problem is.--Paaerduag 07:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This issue seems to be resolved, at least for the moment, so I'm removing the RFC tag. Pairadox 07:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Release dates

What's the source for the release dates? When I added the Wii release date from mobygames, I noticed they also had several others. Their NA release date is October 30th. while the article says October 30th. Moby also claims the game was released before February 2006 in both Spain and Germany. Any reason for this discrepancy? Davhorn (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether a date is autoformatted or not). MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
• (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. Does anyone object if I remove it from the main text in a few days on a trial basis? The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

"slider puzzles"?

Same as Sliding puzzle? Шизомби (talk) 03:50, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

WOW

I just turn on wikipedia today, after about a year of inactivity, and what do I find, but the feature article I wrote on the MAIN PAGE!!!!! I am in a state of disbelief - imagine the surprise I felt!!!!!!! This is incredible. That's two FAs that I've had on the main page now :). --Paaerduag (talk) 07:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Why ON EARTH is this the article of the day?

I like that the featured article of the day is often some random thing I've never heard of. But it's always something of interest for more than reference purposes and to more than a tiny group of readers (i.e., NOT like the average page, say New South Wales Fire Brigades or something, that you get by hitting "random article"; useful reference info, but no one on earth would browse it for edification). So WTF is THIS??? Some adventure game, like 1000s of other such games; if it had been recognized as an original, innovative watershed in game development, then sure, but according to the article, it wasn't even well received. Did the game developer make some big donation to the wikimedia foundation? I can think of no other justification for putting this on the front page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.236.38 (talk) 13:36, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a featured article. Duh. Davhorn (talk) 14:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I will pass over that "reply" in silence. Anybody have an actual answer? 69.253.236.38 (talk) 14:13, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Because it was chosen as one of the best articles on WP -- not in way of subject matter, but in way of how good the article itself is. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 15:47, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this subject seems an odd choice for a featured article due to it's lack of notability. Yes, it follows the guidelines but is it really 'the best that Wikipedia has to offer'? I really can't imagine many people would be interested in reading this article over the as yet un-featured articles about the author and the book on which this game is based. Randomguy879 (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

My reply is perfectly valid. The title of that section of the front page says "Today's featured article", not "Today's featured article ranged after readers' opinions of subjective importance". In other words, the articles chosen to be on the front page are picked from the pool of featured articles. The articles about the author and the book have not been on the front page simply because they're not FAs. Davhorn (talk) 17:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

"Today's" articles are not chosen at random from FAs, but rather according to specific criteria and by discussion at [1]. This article should not have been chosen. I admit, I only just informed myself about the details of the process right now; I guess that if I care enough to whine about it here, I should get involved to try to prevent this kind of think from happening again.

And by the way, what you call "opinions of subjective importance" are what's known as "notability." Despite the way Wikipedia:Notability frames the issue, notability is obviously a quantity, not a binary opposition. Some topics that are notable enough for inclusion in wikipedia are more notable than others; the front page obviously ought to demand a higher degree of notability. 69.253.236.38 (talk) 21:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Pf, where were you when the FA was a Simpsons Episode? Relax and enjoy the non-conformism of wikipedia. --AaThinker (talk) 18:31, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Randomguy and 69.253.236.38. Sheesh! Mac Davis (talk) 21:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

As an experienced wikipedian, you should know that the reason why we don't have an FA on Agatha Christie or the novel is because neither of you could be bothered improving either article to FA standard. This article wasn't chosen over the article on the author or the book. Rather someone took the time to bring this article up to FA standard, something no one has done for either of the aforementioned article. I would also expected you to know that it's not an odd choice for a feature article because the featured article criteria doesn't care about the subject matter just the quality/content. Also notability on wikipedia IS binary. If you don't agree with that, you can try changing this cornerstone policy. I would say good luck, you'll need it Nil Einne (talk) 00:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Gesundheit. Me, I'm pretty relaxed, though less than usual, since nothing relaxes me more than starting my day with an interesting Wikipedia "today's featured article", and "interesting" was not on the menu today. And I'll tell you why I care about this. The front page serves as the public face of Wikipedia. There are still detractors out there who claim it's all trivial garbage. I try to defend it to people, but it's hard when there's stuff like this on the front page---however well-written and "featurable" it might be. (As to the Simpson's episode, I'd agree, but one difference is that the audience for that is larger by several orders of magnitude, so casual droppers-by will at least recognize it as something of potential interest.) 69.253.236.38 (talk) 21:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It'a highly questionable if a single episode if the Simpsons has any greater audience or significance then the game but whatever, it's still an irrelevant argument. If you really want to discuss TFA selection policy, you could at least take the time to read the policy before you try to do so, which you clearly didn't and do it in the right place, which this isn't. Nil Einne (talk) 00:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this article is definitely FA material. I mean, as we all know, random blogs satisfy WP:RS, so why not just source over half the article with them (GameSpot is an okay supplementary source, but there is absolutely zero real world print sources for this). Who decided it was a good idea to include an entire paragraph on justifying a "journal system" with such difficult to understand rationales (if not for WP's sourced insight) as "helps player remember where to go" and "player is in a detective game and therefore might have to write something down". It's like someone said "hey, here's an interview with a guy that wrote a budget IP title for Windows three years ago, let's base an entire article around it". Just because certain material exists out there doesn't mean it's worthy of inclusion or weight. Imagine if Deus Ex's article was filled with two paragraphs about the commlink system or seagulls, or Knights of the Old Republic included a subsection devoted to showing mathematical best-case solving algorithms for the Tower of Hanoi. There's an argument to be made for including obscure things on the front page just to show that good pages can be written about anything, too bad this isn't actually a very good page. 97.114.69.58 (talk) 23:01, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any blogs used as sources. Can you be more specific? If you believe this article doesn't actually meet the FA criteria, you are welcome to nominate it for FAR now that it is off the main page. However your going to need much better arguments then 'blogs as sources' when the article doesn't use random blogs as sources. Or even better, discuss the problems with the article and see if your criticisms can be addressed without the need for FAR Nil Einne (talk) 00:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

So where is this sudden new requirement for print sources? You seem to be perceiving every website used as a blog, and, unless you can show us how each site cited counts as one, you've got absolutely no way of trumping the consensus formed as to otherwise from the FAC. Haipa Doragon (talk • contributions) 17:33, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Title

I think that the article should be moved to something like "Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None (video game)", seeing how the title could be VERY easily confused with And Then There Were None, the actual novel by Agatha Christie. When I first saw this was featured article yesterday, at first glance I thought that the article was for the book. What does everyone else think? Scootey (talk) 07:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Disambig names are only for cases when there's more than one article of the same title. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 12:17, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Status as a Featured Article

Coming here from WP:VG as part of an effort to audit video game FA's that have not been through a formal review process since 2008. I find this article below the current standards for FA's.

• The lead is broken up into five choppy paragraphs that should be merged. There are more choppy paragraphs in Gameplay and Development.
• The prose is a mess of awkward and redundant phrasing, and needs a copy-edit for concision. In the first paragraph of Gameplay for example, there is needless repetition of terms like "the game", "the player" and "inventory", making the prose dull to read. There's use of "didn't" and "wouldn't" in Development, as well as "the player plays". Often, the prose becomes very dense with redundant phrase pockets that disrupt flow. "One aspect of And Then There Were None which has garnered some criticism is the game's graphics". There are many examples of sloppy prose throughout the article, but the general gist is that work is needed from top to bottom.
• Gameplay is poorly organised and difficult to follow for the non-player. For example, "After completing a certain trigger event, the next chapter begins"—what does this mean? Many gameplay elements aren't explained clearly. Another big problem with Gameplay is that it wanders off into facts about the gameplay's design that belong in Development.
• The Plot section is disproportionately long and full of excessive detail that needs to be significantly trimmed. At over 1,300 words, the Plot is nearly twice the length of our project's guideline of 700 words.
• There are dead links and the reference formatting is inconsistent. Some references are missing publisher and author fields. IGN should be wikifyed in keeping with the format of (most of!) the other refs.

I'm going to leave it at that for now, but I think there's lots of work to be done and I may have to send this to FAR. Pinging major contributors @Paaerduag and @Wuzh, and notifying the project. CR4ZE (t • c) 11:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Finally seeing some attention for its FA status. I tried to improve it a long time ago, but I gave up when I messed up some formatting and diverted my attention to other subjects.Wuzh (talk) 02:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Would you still like to have a try at fixing up this article? Otherwise I will have to send it to FAR. CR4ZE (t • c) 12:52, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

LDR

I might look at fixing this up, but the references make my eyes bleed. Any opposition to converting the refs to list-defined? czar ♔ 16:53, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you should do whatever helps your effort to save the article. CR4ZE (t • c) 12:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Looks like I'm too late, but maybe at a later date czar ♔ 20:40, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

About the Synopsis section

I think we need to cite the game itself to give it some reliable sources. It is just impossible to find any online.Wuzh (talk) 08:33, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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Source

• https://web.archive.org/web/20071015152814/http://adventuregamers.com:80/article/id,576
• https://web.archive.org/web/20050404012255/http://www.quandaryland.com:80/jsp/dispArticle.jsp?index=693
• https://web.archive.org/web/20050305235053/http://www.cgonline.com:80/content/view/340/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20051026212657/http://www.adventurearchiv.com:80/l/attwnleesheldon.pdf
• https://web.archive.org/web/20160609152602/http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com:80/index.php/site/interviews/257/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20070927201803/http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/244/
• https://web.archive.org/web/20071012080706/http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/LeeSheldonMOTOE.shtm