Talk:David Mirkin/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Keithbob (talk · contribs) 01:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Beginning the review process.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 01:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
	1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	With all due respect to those editors who have spent a lot of time improving and expanding this article, it needs significant "grooming" by an experienced writer. I suggest that you try to recruit someone from the Guild of Copy Editors. There are numerous examples of non-encyclopedic grammar and phrases such as: often writing and filming things. opted to give it up because he "hated" it. Fox were lukewarm about the idea Poor sentence structure. Examples include: In 1991, he wrote a pilot with Julie Brown entitled The Julie Show, starring Brown, but it was not picked up by NBC. He was in a relationship with actress Julie Brown, with whom he had worked on The Julie Show and The Edge, in the early 1990s; the two considered getting married.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	**The lead needs work. It should be a crisp summary of the article highlights. The present lead meanders with side comments and details that read like a magazine article, and should be removed. Some examples: intended to become an electrical engineer, but abandoned this career path despite not having the support of many Fox network executives, who disliked the show's dark and surreal humor seen by many as introducing a more surreal element to the show's humor, as shown by his sole writing credit for the show Mirkin does not personally think that he made the show more satirical, feeling that he returned it to a focus on character, emotion and story
	2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I need to look a bit more deeply, but at first glance it appears to be very well sourced.
	2c. it contains no original research.
	3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	Needs better organization: For example this sentence where Mirkin gives his opinion of a show, may be marginally relevant to his life story, but it certainly doesn't belong in the Early Life section "Mirkin noted that Three's Company "had a classic French farce structure" which meant that "the characters were so stupid they could never say anything clever, which forced you to put all the cleverness into the plot, a much more difficult thing to do. The plot had to get all the laughs. That taught me a lot about structure and has served me well throughout the rest of my career." Too much off topic information--We have to remember this is a biography, its about a person, the shows have their own articles. For Example: About half of the text in the Get A Life section and other sections dedicated to Merkin's shows, should be moved out of this BLP article and into the dedicated articles on those topics that already exist.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	It has the feeling of a fan article. It needs to be more encyclopedic in tone but this is minor should be eliminated when someone from the Guild goes thru the article and upgrades the prose.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.	Article is stable, there are no signs of edit warring.
	6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	The lead image is grainy and the subject is looking away. Not the best photo, but OK if that's all we have. The image of the actor who stars in the show, Get A Life, is not relevant to this BLP in my opinion and should be moved with other content about the show to the dedicated article.
	7. Overall assessment.	Hats off to all of the editors who have spent so much time contributing to this article. Editors have done a great job of expanding and sourcing the article. However, as often happens when multiple editors are adding to a single article, the wholeness and flow of the article can get lost. I think that has happened here as there is a plethora of well sourced text that doesn't belong in this BLP and needs to be moved to the articles about the individual TV shows. However your good work is not lost as it will greatly enrich those articles. Also the article needs the eye of an experienced writer who can clean up the prose and give it encyclopedic tone and sentence structure. This is my evaluation, but I have asked for two other experienced GA reviewers to give their opinions also. [1] [2]

Thanks for the review; it's been waiting for almost three months so I can't really remember much of it, and no longer have any time to do anything about. Anyway, I agree that it needs some copy-editing and trimming, but disagree with your assessment on the irelevancy of material or that it reads like a "fan" article. And the image in the Get a Life is of Chris Elliott, the show's star and co-creator, so, it is 1) relevant and 2) not relevant to the infobox. Again, thanks, but I don't really have any time to work on the article anymore. Gran² 14:26, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your welcome. I have asked for two other GA editors to look at the article and my comments and give their feedback. My mistake on the photo. I have corrected my comments above to reflect this. Cheers!-- — Keithbob • Talk • 16:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the delay, have been busy in real life. After a brief look over the article, I also agree that the prose should be tidied up in some areas, and the lead does need some work. It doesn't need to be perfect, but some improvement from a copyedit or two from other editors should do the job for reaching GA. If the prose is readable and there's no glaring issues, it will be sufficient for meeting the GA criteria. Consider asking members from the relevant WikiProject to take a look. For the issue regarding considering this article to be written as a "fan article", a review will be needed to ensure that each statement is from a NPOV, and if it goes positive/negative against Mirkin, that there is a source to back it up. Writing the article from an encyclopedic point of view definitely has to find the balance between preventing the article from appearing as a puff piece or, on the other hand, a scathing review. I'd also agree with Keithbob that some copyediting will likely help eliminate any such statements, but the editor(s) who have spent the most time with the article can probably more readily identify this. For any content that is considered irrelevant, each instance should be discussed between the reviewer and editor, to determine if it should be included in the article. Specific examples will allow for overall improvement rather than listing a general section. Overall, I believe this review was performed to ensure the article meet the GA criteria, and with some further copyediting and edits to address the above raised points, this article could reach GA status. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 00:03, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Nehrams for your post. I will place the GA review on hold for 7 days. If the required improvements are not made within that time, then I will have no choice but to give the article a FAIL and ask that it be resubmitted for review at a future date. Cheers! -- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Over the past 5 days, no one has commented on this review or made any changes to the article. The editor who nominated the article has indicated that they are too busy to work on it right now. For these reasons, the article is now being rated has having failed the review. Best, -- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:06, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]