Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/IMac G3/archive1

IMac G3[edit]

Featured article candidates/IMac G3/archive1

Nominator(s): Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:31, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Apple Computer was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and irrelevance. They were saved by a combination of ruthless cost-cutting by their new interim CEO, Steve Jobs, and a hit product—the iMac G3, which if you lived through the era helped usher in the colorful candy plastics era of consumer products, as well as reshaping the idea of what computers were supposed to look like. This article was reviewed at GAN by DFlhb and I look forward to acting on comments here to make this article on a major product in computer history shine further. Thanks in advance for your time reviewing! Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:31, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sodium[edit]

Putting myself down for a review. I intend to take a look at a review in a bit. (by next weekish) Sohom (talk) 18:45, 6 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

but the company still needed new hit products. This probably needs a slightly less optimistic framing
... became the iMac, to be inexpensive and with easy Internet connectivity. "to be inexpensive" seems to be off grammar-wise.
I feel like the Background could do a better job of transitioning into the rest of the article, the last paragraph is a bit stilted and does not do a good job of introducing the next section.
Engineers adapted the abandoned Common Hardware Reference Platform specification to speed development. Is it abandoned now or was it abandoned then?
According to Jon Rubinstein, Jobs had always known about the CD tray. I feel like we are missing something here. Why had he not raised this before according Jon?
The jpeg artifacting of File:IMac_G3_color_carousel.gif is noticeable even at its small size. I'd suggest removing it or replacing it with a GIF with a higher resolution.
How well did iMac G3 do in the traditional office/enterprise computing space that was prevalent during this time? Do RS cover it?
Hiawatha Bray said the iMac was doomed and a severe misstep from Jobs a word or two about why Hiawatha Bray thought the way they did would be nice.
two FireWire ports What is a FireWire port, the article kinda assumes that the reader is familiar but it would be nice to fit a sentence somewhere about what it does. (I guess I'm revealing that I'm Gen Z)
Wikilink VGA
Wikilink CD-ROM in the Release section
Ditto for CD-RW
maintained Apple's position as a leader of the emerging digital audio and video sector. Less optimistic framing, also this isn't directly in the cited source AFAICS?

That's it for me. sohom@enwiki 23:10, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Sohom Datta, thanks for the review. I've tried to address all the above; Bray's comments particularly revolve around the lack of a floppy, so I tried rewording the first mention in the high-level comments and then elaborated later on when discussing the drawbacks. I've reworked the end of the background section to introduce the players a bit and then shift to the specific project, let me know if that works better. The Rubinstein bit gets to the fact that Jobs was mercurial and (as the article talks about somewhat) pretty much would change his mind on a whim. That might be a bit too much going into the weeds, so I'm fine with just simplifying that bit so there's not the back-and-forth and it's a little more straightforward. Only thing I didn't change is the carousel image: as you can see it's not a very lossy GIF at full resolution, the limitation seems to be Mediawiki's thumbnail rendering, and I don't think there's a way of fixing that unfortunately. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 17:26, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The changes look good me. I disagree wrt to the gif, however, that is not worth opposing over. Support sohom@enwiki 03:39, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review by Generalissima[edit]

I'm in a productive mood today, let's get going on this.

Lede is uncited, and since there's nothing seemingly contentious here I'd say that hits WP:LEDECITE well.
Well, besides the infobox. That introductory price ($1,299) is neither referenced elsewhere in the article or cited for that matter. The price points of later models of the machine are given, but not the first. Should be pretty easy to fix this, however.
Everything in all body sections is cited. I don't see any potentially controversial or contentious claims that are uncited. Subjective claims are properly attributed.
Citation section is properly organized and titled.
Everything with pages has page numbers. The bibliography is also well formatted, and works are cited consistently with ISBNs and ISSNs as applicable.
Good mix of all sorts of sources here. I was a bit worried about Segall 2013 but it seems to only be used in an about-self context or for direct quotes so I think that's good here. I commend you on digging through 1990s and early 2000s computer magazines for a while; they have certainly been used well.

All in all, I think citing that price figure is the only thing left to do. Cheers. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:40, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Generalissima, thanks for looking. I went ahead and removed the price. The article covers the rough price range (and the more germane point it was cheaper) in the development, and then the lower base prices are discussed in the review, so I don't think you need the exact one (and doesn't seem to have coverage that makes the price so important it should be in the infobox.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 13:27, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support for source review. Good job with this. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 13:30, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild[edit]

Recusing to review

References: article titles are a mix of sentence case and title case. They should be consistent. (How they appear in their originals is irrelevant.
Press and Cooper: is it possible to provide a page range?
"The iMac was Apple's first major product release under its CEO Steve Jobs". Does "its" add anything here? I assume that Apple had other CEOs.
"the company he had co-founded and then been ousted from". Perhaps dates for each of these? Which would tie in with the "after eleven years away" in the lead, which I can't find referenced in the main article.
Any chance of an image of the round mouse?
"4 GB"; "6GB" ?
"A more substantial revision to the iMac lineup came in 1999." When in 1999? I assume this was different to, and prior to "On October 5, 1999, Apple released a new series of iMacs"?
"so users could easily add additional RAM; and a slot for an AirPort wireless networking card". Why a semi colon rather than a comma?
"a better graphics chipset, and a larger hard drive." Better and larger than what?
"a larger hard drive"; "with more RAM". Similarly.
Some of the prose is a bit uninspired. Eg, two consecutive paragraphs start "On October 5, 1999, Apple released a new" and "On July 19, 2000, Apple released a new". Or, in one paragraph sentences starting "The new iMac line"; "The new models; "The new iMacs had"; "Three new models".
"500-, 600-. or 700 MHz processor" and similar cases. Why the hanging modifier when the following main modifier is not followed by a hyphen?

More to follow. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:28, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

- Hey Gog, thanks for the opening comments. I've taken a stab at all the above, and I believe addressed most of them. The "larger hard drive" and similar are attempts to make the prose less wordy and technical, they're just comparing the sizes of the hard drives or memory amounts to the previous models they replace. Beyond that, it's kind of just listing tech specs so I don't think there's much room for exciting prose. I'm fine with slimming it down even further, but previous reviews felt that just saying basically "they were faster and had more memory and hard drive space" was even more samey-sounding. I suppose the alternative is drastically summarizing it further and just leaving the specifics to the technical specification section entirely, if you think that's a better option? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 12:52, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"its original mouse and keyboard ... calling it an example of style over substance." Should that be 'calling them examples of ...'?
"were later replaced with the Apple Pro Mouse and Apple Pro Keyboard for the 2000-revision iMacs." I think that readers will realise that 2000 is later than the release date, in which case "later" can be deleted.
"museums including The Henry Ford". See MOS:INSTITUTIONS "The word the at the start of a name is uncapitalized in running text, regardless of the institution's own usage".
"nearly 20 percent were Microsoft Windows users who had switched to the Mac". Suggest deleting "had".
"The iMac continued to be a strong seller for Apple as it returned to profitability, with 3.7 million units sold by July 2000". The previous two sentences have already established the first part of this. Perhaps 'a strong seller for Apple after it return to profitability ...'?
"public's introduction to Jony Ive". May be worth a second link here, which is allowed these days.
"The iMac was so successful in the education market Apple created a G4-powered successor named the eMac." This seems to end abruptly. Possibly add something like '... designed for and promoted to the education sector' or similar?
"George Foreman Grills". Why the upper-case G for Grills?
Article titles still in title case, see Press; Segall; and Simmonds. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:16, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Hey Gog the Mild, I think I've addressed all the above as well. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 01:14, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One comment above was missed. In is now in green. I am supporting anyway, lovely work. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:19, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Z1720[edit]

No concerns with the prose. Additional comments below:

"It sold more than 5 million units in its lifetime." MOS:NUMERAL recommends that integers between zero and nine be written in words. Consider changing the 5 to five.
I might have missed it, but what is the G3 referring to? Lots of time was spent talking about how the model got the iMac name, but why/when was G3 added?
Checked the lede and the infobox, and everything seems to be cited in the article.

Please ping me when ready for additional comments. Z1720 (talk) 02:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Z1720, I've changed the numeral in the lead (I remembered to do it in the body but not there before, go figure.) The G3 processor is mentioned in the lead and later on. The "iMac G3" title was a retronym added to distinguish it from the iMac G4 when the latter released; I'm looking through sources now to see if I can find one that specifically calls out that change rather than just talking about them staying on sale side-by-side, and will update if possible. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:48, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please ping me once you have concluded your research into the G3 addition to the name, and I will take a look. Z1720 (talk) 20:24, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]